A well maintained carpet will act as a filter for your indoor air. Regular vacuuming with a good quality upright vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter will keep dust levels down, and regular professional cleaning will keep the carpet in its optimal state.
People with allergies or asthma are often allergic to dust mite waste products (it’s not the dust mite themselves that cause the reaction). Dust mites live wherever humans live. They only cause problems when their numbers are allowed to build up, but regular cleaning and maintenance will prevent this.
Often, when there is a problem, the carpet gets the blame, but don’t forget to make sure that the bedding (pillows, blankets and mattress) is also regularly cleaned, vacuumed and aired! After all, we spend a third of our lives in bed, and this is where the dust mites really thrive!
A well maintained carpet as above will provide more benefit for asthmatics than tiles, floorboards or hard floors. Think of carpet as a filter like a fuel filter in your car it does a great job until it blocks up then your car stops working. Cleaning and maintenance is the key. Remember indoor air quality can be up to 10 times more polluted than outdoor air quality. Tiles, floorboards etc do not hold on to dust, rather it gathers up in corners. When the front and back doors are open, the wind comes through blowing the dust up in to the air [this is what you can see when the sun shines in] and this is now what you are breathing in. In the case of a well maintained carpet, the dust is held in place between the pile until it is vacuumed with your upright vacuum and disposed of outside with the rubbish.