This is how we kill our bed bugs (it took us two long nightmare weeks):
We both shampoo and shower daily. He washed all of our clothes, towels, etc. daily. We check each other daily with a flashlight; and while my husband kept getting new bites, we continued with the routine.
The couch
We were very careful not to let anything come in contact with the sofa and bed. I found a dead bed bug on our mattress pad after it came out of the wash, so it is important to wash and rinse with hot water.
We stopped sitting on our sofa and sat in folding metal chairs. Our sofa is a poly / cotton blend fabric so we spray it once a day with 91% isopropyl alcohol which dries and kills bed bugs, and then we vacuum it up. I found five bed bugs under a cushion, so the sofa needs to be sprayed and vacuumed everywhere, in crevices and even behind buttons.
Bed
We stopped sleeping in our bed and slept in a different room. We spray our mattress, both sides, and the bed bases with 91% isopropyl alcohol, we vacuum them. We even spray along the rails and at the joints where the rails go to the bed frame.
It worked?
Every three days or so, my husband would test the couch and then the bed by sleeping on them. Since he was more allergic to stings, they appeared faster with him. We could say that the number of bites was decreasing, but I still had them.
The sofa, phase two
Then we move the sofa away from the wall. We spray the back of the sofa and underneath with alcohol, and vacuum. We sprayed alcohol and vacuumed along the baseboard and the rug around the sofa as as they matured the bed bugs seemed to be on defense and on the move.
The bed, phase two
We lifted the bed frame and sprayed, then vacuumed the carpet underneath, where I found three more nearly mature bed bugs, so they had actually left the bed!
Bug Bomb
After that, we decided to try an insecticide. We lift the mattress and the tip-top box to expose as many of them as possible and leave the railings exposed. We lit a bug bomb in the middle of the carpet that had been under the bed, and we used a plastic garbage bag hidden under the door to prevent fumes from escaping.
The next day, we started a bug bomb where it was under the sofa and the cushions were out of it, standing on its ends as well. The sofa had been pulled to the center of the room and was away from the wall.
SUCCESS!
The bug bombs killed all the bed bugs for us. The good thing about using the alcohol is that it forced the bed bugs into hiding, which made it easier for the mist to reach them. The product we used was RAID Concentrated Deep Reach Fogger in a small 1.5 oz. can of orange, from Wal-Mart. It is not intended to kill bed bugs, but it worked for us.
One more thing
Don’t forget to throw out the bed bug-filled vacuum bag, or they will eventually crawl again. Bed bugs are not stupid.
