Apartment Floors

1. people are cheap

2. see 1

Kitchen tile (or marble, etc.) may be thicker than the wood floors in the dining/living area adjacent. Only way to address that problem would be to either chisel down what might be a concrete subfloor (difficult and very expensive to do) or replace the wood floors throughout with thicker wood (also expensive).

Lobster: because they had already moved in, when it was time to do floor repairs, they didn't want to disrupt their lives and/or pay to have the entire apt done. Also, if it's a prewar apt, some (not me) prefer to keep as much of the prewar flooring as possible. What ph41 says about tile - hard to make level with the rest of the floor. I have this issue in my current place (gut reno). Bathroom tile is not level with wood floor - I have covered this with a marble/wood threshold wherever possible.

see 1 in gcondo

2. some people install new floor ON TOP of old floor, instead of replacing in kind. my pet peeve is installing new flooring, but cheaping out when it gets near the wall or radiator and stopping. flooring is not like carpeting, with 80% coverage adequate...

3. too many people with a huge inventory of reducing saddles to sell?