I got rid of mine by doing what I describe below.
WARNING :: WARNING :: WARNING Do NOT follow my advice if you have small children, pets or respiratory conditions such as asthma!
Following my advice will cost you less than $20. But it's not me you have to pay your money to. Although I wouldn't mind a donation if this web page helped you to got rid of your bed bugs.
You probably need to buy items from home improvement stores (in Canada you'll find stores like Home Depot, Rona, Canadian Tire. Here some stores in the US...). It will take about a month until so see real improvement, so please be patient. You should also only follow my advice if you have no pets. People with respiratory conditions such as asthma might also want to not try this.
Otherwise: Do it yourself and get rid of the infestation - be your own pest control.
You cannot usually see where bed bugs hide. That is the main problem. Although you can see bed bugs themselves (they come in sizes like an apple seed or smaller and dark, but younger bugs are yellow-ish, almost transparent and very small and thus not easily visible with the naked eye. They know well where to hide. They usually come out at night when you sleep and suck blood out of you, which you usually won't notice. Then they hide again. Even if you wake up they will notice it and run off, even alerting others to also flee. Out of reach again. They are attracted by CO2 emissions by the breath of humans or animals.
According to Wikipedia bedbugs can tolerate temperatures above of 112F(44C) and below 6.8F(-14C). Hot water steam applied to parts of your bed might kill off most or even all of them. Freezing is supposed to only help if you can expose items you suspect bed bugs in to the extreme cold for several days.
Bed bugs are no risk to your health, unless you develop symptoms against the bites. That is because they usually stay with the same host. That is you.
Bedbug nest with eggs
I was about to call an exterminator. But that would have been costly. Plus since other apartments in the building had bed bugs too the PCO had to also clear those. And although it might be the duty of the landlord to deal with this (payment, making appointments...) he seemed to not care. So I thought to first try DIY to fight the bed bugs myself.
The rest is here:
Do it yourself: How to control, fight and kill bed bugs
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