In my opinion, the original verb (needs) is okay and would take either ‘to be decorated’ or ‘decorating’.
Yes, ‘watch’ is more collocative, but ‘being thumped’ indicates as though the speaker wants to attribute the cause of thumping to some external factors like horror or superhuman feat.
The original verb is “want”.
As for a heart being thumped during/by a movie… that’s just very odd to me. Perhaps someone else has a better explanation on this.
That’s all right. I don’t mind being kept waiting. <-- you are still waiting.
That’s all right. I don’t mind having been kept waiting. <-- you are no longer waiting.
She admitted to stealing the money.
She admitted to having stolen the money.
Our house wants/needs decorating.
Our house needs to be decorated.
Preserving natural resources is of great importance.
The preservation of natural resources is very important.
These employees are made to work overtime.
These employees have worked overtime. <-- no implication of being forced to do so as in (1)
These employees have been working overtime.
Look! Do you see an insect crawling on your foot?
I caught her reading my diary.
I caught her starting to read my diary. <-- indicates she had picked it up and opened it, and possibly read the first sentence or two, but had not seen much of it.
When I watch an action film, I feel my heart thumping. <-- ‘being thumped’ is not correct. It indicates something/someone else is physically performing the action. It does not indicate that the film is doing this.
When I watch an action film, I feel my heart racing.
Yes, Cristina, you are right. I’m sorry.
Now, the following is also possible: Look! Do you see an insect crawl on your foot?
There is no need to add ‘to’ to ‘admit’ since it is otherwise also correct. It’s in such contexts that the poster is likely to be misguided and confused. (Edited to insert ‘also’)
Yes, you are right about ‘to’. I added it because there was a word ‘be’ which I was removing, so I replaced it.
However, it doesn’t have to be there and as it wasn’t in the original sentence I needn’t have added it.
To clarify:
“She admitted stealing the money” is just as valid as “She admitted to stealing the money.”
Personally:
“She admitted (to) having stolen the money.” It’s not grammatically incorrect to do so, but I would never leave ‘to’ out of this version. It doesn’t flow as well to my ear.
What do you mean by ‘you keep moving further?’
You cannot possibly say what was in the mind of the original poster, who expected a word to be used there.
It must have been so disappointing for you when I didn’t argue back if now you have to make up things to argue about.
Reading all the comments, debates above I have remembered my teacher once saying the following:
In many cases, the 'to' is optional. It is, however, usually omitted before an action verb (particularly in a criminal context), while it is often preserved before a stative verb, such as 'be' or 'have'.
Thanks for bringing us back from the histrionics and also for your comment on ‘to’ or not ‘to’. I would like to illustrate this with the these two sentences -
She admitted being asleep.
and
She admitted to being asleep.
In the first one this could be the case of someone agreeing that she wasn’t listening and was asleep while the others were talking. In the second one this could be more serious and in the nature of a confession as she was saying that she was asleep while driving and that was the reason for the accident.