Around here fleas are a real pest whether you have pets or not. If you go into a flea infested home you can bring home eggs on your shoes. I know this as I have had do de-flea my home several times and I do not have pets. As for natural products, borax works best. It will not kill the fleas but it will slow them way down so you can vacuum them up. Vacuuming often and well is the best ongoing treatment. Once, as I was going to gone for a few weeks, I sprinkled borax on my kitchen floor and parked the vacuum out side the door. It looked like I had spread a lot of salt on the floor, when I returned it looked like I had salt and pepper on the floor in even measures. Not yet in the door I bent over slightly to get a better look and a flea jumped up and bit my neck. So I plugged in the vacuum and scooped them all up. then I took the bag out to the burn barrel and lit them up. I swear I could hear their screams as the fire took them. The point is if you have fleas, pets or not, you will have to work at getting them out of the house. I finally used a combination of borax, vacuuming and a couple of bug bomb days. The offenders are cat fleas, they are as small as a pin head, hard to see being just a black spec, and the fact that they do not live on the host, instead they can live in any thing "soft", furniture, stuffed animals, pillows, mattresses etc. Then they heat sense a host is near and jump on for a meal. They can jump 12 feet. They lay eggs in their soft homes to perpetuate the cycle. The best daily prevention is vacuuming, vacuuming, vacuuming. However much you might want to avoid the bug bomb if you are really infested you will have to go there at least once. Fleas can go up to a year without feeding so you cannot out live them. Once you have your home flea free, and you have pets the flea prevention pet meds out there on the market are you best bet. By the way I am highly allergic to flea bites and for me they are not just itchy but quite painful. the best treatment I have found is to daub the fresh bite with vinegar to relieve the intense painful itch.