I bought ten lbs of DE and combed a couple of table spoons into my dogs fur. It had no visible effect on the number of fleas. They were all alive and kicking a day later. The only effective treatment so far seems to be a flea comb.
I would be more enthusiastic about putting this stuff on my carpet if I could see that it killed fleas. This was food grade DE purchased from the link on this web site's article on DE.
GN