Carpet as an air filter

What is actually happening

The mechanism is the pile itself — depth and surface area hold particles where a flat hard surface cannot. That is a physical property of the construction rather than a marketing position. The catch is that a filter only works until it fills: left long enough without extraction, the trapped load has nowhere to go, and the same property that made carpet an asset makes it a liability. About a year of neglect is where that flips.

How you prevent it

Vacuum slowly and often with a HEPA machine to empty the filter between cleanings, and have the carpet extracted on a real cycle so the load leaves the building instead of accumulating in it.

Carpet is the one flooring that works as a filter. It traps airborne allergens and holds them down in the fibre, out of the air you breathe, so a HEPA vacuum can take them out. Tile, wood, vinyl and LVP trap nothing, so every footstep kicks the same particulate back up.