I consider this a good product. By my count I have 9 of them on hand, some purchased through Amazon, others at a local pet store. I've decided to address a few of the criticisms that I've noticed in the reviews after reading. I own 1 black rat snake, and 2 leopard geckos in addition to some critters that this sort of substrate is not really suitable for (5 tarantulas, 2 scorpions and a baby crested gecko for which I will use the carpet when it gets big enough to be moved into a tank. I thought I might address some of the criticisms that I noticed in some of the reviews and give my thoughts on them. Note that I can only make observations in regard to the particular animals I have, so there could be other factors involved depending on the animal in question. 1) Sizing. I've had pretty good fits, on a couple occasions they have been just a hair shy or a hair too large. Not a big deal, I've been able to adjust in either case. I'm guessing that that the cutting process might not be as accurate as it could be. I have a 55 gallon tank, a 20 gallon and a ten gallon in which I use these carpets and adjustments have been minimal, often simply compensated with creative positioning of the décor. So that has not been a deal-breaker for me. I have only "long" tanks, so I can't comment on the fits for the high styles. No stars deducted. 2) Ease of cleaning and odor. If you ask me, these things are MUCH easier to maintain than loose substrate like Eco-earth, aspen bedding, etc. There is the need to remove all décor, but I don't find that to add too much time to the process. After removal, I clean off any droppings, usually just by flicking the majority off with a small garden trowel I keep for that purpose. I then place the carpets in a bucket and fill with water and add a bit of bleach. (one should be careful not to add too much as it probably would shorten the life of the material. I leave it to soak for five minutes. the next step after removing the carpets from the mild bleach solution is to toss them in the washing machine in order to rinse and spin them. Sometimes I run a wash cycle as well. These things spin out nearly dry, I just run them through the dryer for ten or 15 minutes. They never have any odor whatsoever after going through the process. So for me, cleaning is no issue at all. I just work on other maintenance matters while the carpets are being cleaned. The reason I keep several is to spread the wear and tear out some. I have one or two that are still in good shape after a couple years of use. In the case of the leopard geckos, once they establish an area to defecate, they stick with that area, so I merely put down a spare swatch in that area as a sort of "litter box". This lessens the need to clean their carpet considerably. My snake on the other hand pretty much goes wherever he happens to be when he feels the need so his needs more frequent maintenance. No stars deducted for this factor. 3) The possibility of teeth or nails getting caught in the material. This DOES happen. My snake once missed a strike at the mouse I offered (I feed frozen/thawed, not live) and REALLY got stuck. Now I take care not to drag the mouse along the flooring as I did in that case, but keep it elevated so the snake snaps it from out of the air. if he misses, no big deal, he just takes another shot at it after gathering his wits. Now, it has happened more than once with both of my leopard geckos. I've never noticed them getting claws stuck on it, however. Now I simply use a dish. So I don't really have a big issue with this, but it is still a consideration, so a star gets dropped. I noticed somebody complaining that it was not suitable to keep tarantulas on. It is not, but that isn't a product flaw, so I'm not even taken that complaint into consideration. There are a couple reasons it is not suitable for tarantulas, but I won't go into details to save time. Just don't use it for them, trust me. If you are, odds are pretty high that you need to study up on keeping them a bit. In conclusion, I personally feel that the carpets are useful for my purposes, and would recommend them to somebody keeping pets similar to mine. Oh, one last thing, some critters (like my snake) will crawl beneath it if they can, but that's what critters like him do. It's annoying but generally inconsequential unless you are using an under-tank heater, in which case you should probably secure the carpet over that area to avoid any possible thermal burns, some of those heaters can get pretty warm. But then, you really ought to be using a thermostat with them to avoid the risk of a thermal-burn anyway.
