We moved to the flat my mother now lives in back in… 1980.
Dad died in 2000. He’d stopped smoking in 1997. I finally managed to convince Mom to change the living room’s curtains in 2002 when, even after five years of no smoking and twice-a-year washings, they still smelled of his brand of tobacco. She got new curtains for the kitchen in 1998.
I bought my flat in 2006. The curtains are still the ones the previous owners had: I did change the rod for one of the rooms and may be changing the curtains in the living room next August.
The tl,dr version: “change the curtains, what’s that?”
I did. My living room has curtains which are completely agreeable to me and which serve their function perfectly well. The only reasons I’m even considering doing anything about them at this point is because they’re mounted at each end and have a support in the center, and on both windows, that center support is starting to give out.
I have mini-blinds and gauzey eggshell Cape Cod curtains on all major windows that I put up when we moved in 25 years ago. They get washed twice a year and are, apparently, indestructible. No use replacing them, every house in the development has the same curtains, they just go with the style of the houses and anything else looks wrong from outside. To me, changing curtains means hanging up heavy drapes in the winter to make it cozy and keep out drafts, and hanging lighter things in the summer. I don’t like drapes, I need natural light in the house all year round.