I figured it out. There is no such thing as kr-used-pollution-filter in the air purifier mod that the helper mod works with. There is, however, a used-pollution-filter. Removing the first three characters in a single line of a single file in the helper mod made everything work again. :facepalm:
The REAL question is, of course, how the heck the helper mod has been working just fine for over a month with that mistake in it. Go figure.