Hi all, I'm new to the world of bed bug horror. My boyfriend and I live in a four unit apartment complex above a restaurant. We discovered an infestation of bed bugs Wednesday morning after a few days of seeing mysterious blood stains on the sheet and red inflammation on my arms (my boyfriend was largely unaffected). I awoke at 4:00am to a burning sensation on my arms, and with a sinking heart I turned on the light and saw a number of tiny bugs crawling over the covers. I immediately roused my boyfriend and we collected as many as we could in a zip lock bag before they could run away. We got from 5-10 of them.
We alerted our landlord who (after yelling at us) called an exterminator to do an inspection. They wouldn't be able to come until the next day so we slept over at a friend's. (I know, not the best idea, but my anxiety was so piqued I personally had no choice). They came, confirmed that we had bed bugs and told us it was their equivalent of a "level 0" infestation (1-100 bugs) so I was hopeful. The guy said it was localized to the bed. They told us they would come the next day (Friday) to vacuum and steam the bed. The guy advised us that we had to spend the night in the bed to act as bait. I had a panic attack at that news, so my boyfriend slept over alone.
On Friday they vacuumed and steamed the bed and put on an encasement on both the mattress and the box spring. The guy doing the vacuuming and steaming said he got about 5-10 bugs again. My boyfriend slept over again that night. We had bought a new cheap sheet and pillow so we could see spots easily. Nothing. He reported no bites. We still laundered his sheets and pillow just in case and I decided to try sleeping over Saturday night. Well I woke up at 4:00am again to more burning on my arm and sure enough, we found a few of them. We picked up about 5 of them. Two of them were on the wall near the bed. No spots on the sheets at throw point, just the bugs. We were still exhausted so my boyfriend suggested the couch (we had bagged up the sheet at this point and had nothing to sleep with). I thought this wasn't a good idea, so my boyfriend went to sleep on the couch and I've been awake ever since, just watching his sleeping body for any sign of bugs.
At this point I'm just dejected. I wonder if the inspectors were incorrect in their assumption this was just localized to the bed, or if they were dispersed during the treatment (the guy was rather rough with the mattresses, banging them all around the room). I don't know where their harborage could be and since it's the weekend (and a holiday weekend at that) there's nothing I can do about it. They were going to bring in a dog next week to sniff out any left over bugs but I don't need a dog at this point since I saw them with my own two eyes! We have a few zipped up for the next time the inspector comes in, whenever that is. At this point we are at the mercy of our landlord who is "upset that we could let this happen." The property manager is more sympathetic to our plight.
I just don't know what to do at this point. I have missed work due to my anxiety over this. I'm exhausted and feel sick. It's hard to even eat though I'm forcing myself to do so. I know this forum isn't the place for this, but I'm afraid that this will drive me into another depressive episode (I have a history). I just want this to be over.
Are there any steps I should take right now before the inspector can come back? Should I get inceptors? Should I steam the bed myself? Steam the room? Move the bed? There's so much information out there that I'm overloaded. Thank you.