It's a power thing. Authorities make arbitrary changes just because they can, and exercising their power feels good. They ignore the reason people object to those changes and interpret the objections as challenges to their power and direct personal insults.
Basicly, "I'm in charge" outweighs "this is dangerous".
I really want to know as well.
Why was the carpet so important to them?
Have you ever interacted with a bureaucracy? They are an LLM assembled from human flesh: Random behavior, incomprehensible rationales, and an unstoppable and undirectable force of iron will.