What's best on floor in stairwell & hallways of multifamily?

[Johann Jells]

My recently purchased 4 family has horrific carpeting in the hall & stairs serving the upper 3 units. I'm getting vacancies soon of the lowlife and section 8 in 2 of those units, but I'm still unsure about simply putting down more carpet to get ruined. I did it in another nearby building and it's still decent 7 years later but for one stain from a leaking garbage bag, but this neighborhood is lower down the gentrification ladder.

What other options are there, other than painting the floors & stairs? Laminate with nose molding doesn't seem a great solution, you've still got to end it before the balusters with yet another transition molding, and the cost of all those special moldings adds up fast. I saw one that would cost $30 per tread x 30 treads. I've got classic linoleum treads and risers with metal tread nosing and marble top treads with tiled hallways in another building, but that seems like a big project.

I have a local flooring contractor coming tomorrow to give me bids. When I asked about real linoleum he showed me an Armstrong commercial floor product called Corlon that looks great, a thick vinyl that looks like terrazzo. It's basically colored vinyl chunks set in clear vinyl, so there's no "skin" to tear like cheap vinyl flooring. It's $1.90/ft to genuine linoleum's $3.46/ft. http://www.floorcity.com/Armstrong-Connection-Corlon-Sheet-Vinyl-s/1892.htm

Any other great solutions?