I've been an organic gardener since I was a kid. My dad owned a farm, but he wasn't organic. I was upset about planes flying over the house spraying who knows what on the crops and the chemicals coming into our yard when we were playing outside. I used allowance money to subscribe to Organic Gardening magazine and I was hooked. I quit subscribing to that when they started to get political a few years back. I want to hear about gardening not about how President so and so is ruining America.
Anyway, back in 2009 my son Duncan went up to the mountains for Boy Scouts and came home with fleas. Within a weak the whole house was covered in fleas. I had learned to use food grade Diatomaceous Earth (DE) in the garden for pests and then discovered it kills fleas. I powdered our whole house with the stuff including the closets. I left the powder on the carpets for 2 weeks and after that we had zero fleas.
To this day I still use DE in my yard and on my dogs. I've seen 1 flea in 5 years and powdered the dog and haven't seen another one since. I put this on the cat too. It also kills good bugs so I use sparingly in the garden when ladybugs and mantis are active. It's a good winter control to help stop harboring thrips and aphids but has to be reapplied often and is not pretty to look at.
This powder is good under appliances and controls roaches as well in cabinets. I dust it into the attic, and put it anywhere white powder visually isn't a problem. I've read that you can paint it on wet to walls and stuff but this powder works better dry not wet.
Put some in your chickens dust bath area to help with bird lice and other creepy crawlies that bother birds. Sprinkle it under their roost areas to control fly larva between cleaning.
And as always, wear a mask when using. This stuff can irritate lungs even though it is edible.
