Carpet ruined - Do I have recourse? Should I pursue?

[Jeff G.]

I had tenants rent my 2,850 SF house for 5.5 years. They disclosed their four dogs before signing, and they gave me a $500 extra deposit for that (in addition to last month's rent). And the wife said to me as they were moving in, "We'll probably have to buy all new when we leave." ("all new" is all she said, not carpet or anything else) Once they moved out I began rehabbing the place, which smelled very bad. I tried everything to fix the odor (scented oil warmers; baking soda on the carpet then vacuum; vinegar), but finally had to tear out the carpet (did it myself). And of course I found that their dogs had peed EVERYWHERE. Bottom of the carpet is white, so urine stains show up perfectly, and those dogs covered a vast majority of the carpet (multiple times in many areas), which was almost the entirely upstairs (1150 SF) & the stairs themselves. And the upstairs floor is plywood - Ugh. I'm kinda anal, so rather than just rolling up each floor & chunking it onto a trailer for disposal, I cut the carpet in each room into thirds, then folded it and stacked it outside - so I still have it. Oh, and the carpet was brand new when they moved in; I have the receipt.

Now, these renters paid the rent on time / every time for 5.5 straight years, and they're nice folks, so I felt kinda lenient towards them when they asked if they could use their last month's rent deposit as their actual last month's rent, so I said yes. AND ... I had toured the entire house with an architect just the month before for modernization planning, and while the house smelled like somebody was living there, it was not bad at all. Turns out they had masked the odor pretty well with incense, perfume etc. And when they moved out they had the carpet steam cleaned ... which prob really awakened the odor.

The tenants ended up buying a house about 2 miles away, and the H/W are both gainfully employed with very good local jobs. The wife makes over $150K (it's available via public disclosure).

I feel like allowing pets is not the same as allowing pets to destroy the carpet. Do you agree? In any case, I'm not surprised the carpet is ruined; just wondering if I should pursue them for it.

So ... do you think I should ask them to pay for carpet replacement? And if they decline, do you think I should sue them?

Thank you ...