Great thread, and these are all great suggestions. The carpet does need to be vacuumed that often for sure. I use diatom also. I especially love it for ant hills. It works pretty well on some garden bugs also.
For the dogs, I also make up a *dog* flea powder with arrowroot, corn starch and baking soda as the base. I just wing it, so I don't have proportions for ya, but I can say I use mostly arrowroot in that base, and I go heavy on the dried herbs part.
Arrowroot is cheap NOT in the small bottle in the spice section, but it IS cheap in the bulk isle if you have a health food section. Plus it goes a LONG way. I mix dried lemongrass, catnip, and lemon balm or another kind of mint I may have on hand, and cedar wood leaves. It works great for most bugs. I do vary it up. There are other repellent herbs of course, such as rosemary, lemongrass, and on and on. Any combo of this is good for a carpet too. I just whir it altogether in my new Ninja blender.
Catnip is stronger than deet! And it's safe of course for animals and humans as one of the strongest deterrents there are. It is a especially good deterrent for mosquitoes. Of course mints, including lemon balm are. The cedarwood, now, that is interesting. Cedar chips in my house deter rodents big time. They also deter bugs but for me, only to a point. Honestly, the essential oil cedarwood does that better for in the house. As in the flea powder, those cedarwood 'leaves' are actually cedarwood tips, and especially good for ticks.
