In many ways carpets can be much cleaner than hard floors, mainly due to the carpet trapping dust, hairs and other allergens which can then be effectively removed with a good quality vacuum cleaner .

Hard floors can be very difficult to maintain with the dust and hairs continually being moved around by draughts, convection currents caused by heating and people and animals moving around.

Studies have shown that dust and other allergens will rise much higher into the air on a hard floor than on a soft one .