# food grade diatomaceous earth users, Please help!



## Yoshismom (Jul 6, 2005)

Those of you that use food grade diatomaceous earth, if your house, yard and dog were infested how long did it take for this to work for you and kill the fleas? Did you use another product with it to help get it under control? I have someone that is in desperate need for advice on this!


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## LittleGemma (Apr 1, 2012)

I used it before on all the animals in the household and it did work while I was applying it. The only problem is that it's not a long-term preventative so if you have an indoor/outdoor cat or something that is constantly bringing fleas into the house, you're going to have to constantly apply it. It only took a few days to eliminate the fleas. It doesn't work on eggs/larvae, though. So if your house/yard/pets are heavily infested, you're going to have to wait for the larvae to mature into adults for it to kill them. But you can keep it on the ground and sprinkled around doorways and windows, just don't let your pets go over and inhale it. It can cause irritation to their airways, along with yours.

I like it better than toxic applications even though it's not as "quick and easy" as using one of them.


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

If you used it in your yard, the first little bit of rain washes it away - it works by being dry & its microscopic sharp crystals cutting throgh the exoskeleton of bugs and then dehydrating them from the inside out.

A bug also has to walk through it or land in it etc. to actually get enough on itself, firstly to shred it & then dry it out so that's pretty touch & go, chancey, in itself, if you've got bugs everywhere then what's the chances of getting all?

I have a 60lb bag of it and have been using it in the bottom of drawers, behind kitchen cubpoard kickboards etc but unfortunately I never saw bugs before I laid it down & don't see them now.

I did scatter some about this morning on an outdoor pee pad that was covered in ants, be interesting to check that later.


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## Yoshismom (Jul 6, 2005)

Thanks everyone!


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## Yoshismom (Jul 6, 2005)

Would you guys suggest putting it in carpet? I worry about the dust now as she has small children. I want to suggest natural solutions but i want to make sure she and her family, pets, etc.. are safe. Any other advice would be greatly appreciated.


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## AussieLass (Mar 1, 2012)

I personally would, but having been exposed to toxic poisons and fumes all my life on the farm and in building works, I'm not as cautious as your average bod. Caitlin is correct, that breathing the dust of this ancient ground up coral substance is dangerous but, it had to be airborne to be breathed in, and I don't believe being trapped in carpet fibres is going to make it at all dangerous to pets or people.

There's one chemical product I consider imperative to subject my babies to, and that's spot-on flea killer because they're 100% effective 100% of the time ime

Interestingly, the pee pads outside that were covered in millions of ants (I always wonder why my Chi's pee attracts ants and not my large dogs) all took off after sprinkling the DE over and around the pads. There's no trace of dead ones so I can only assume they went back to their nests & died there.


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## LittleGemma (Apr 1, 2012)

I put it in our carpeting and let it set for 24 hours. I just didn't let the animals walk around on it. Then I vacuumed it up.


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## KrystalLeigh (Aug 17, 2011)

Not sure if this is true or not, but I heard that baking soda in carpet will dry up the eggs. I used probably 8 boxes of it on our carpets and kind of brushed it in with my hand and vacuumed later.


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