The shame that dares not to speak itself - except on anonymous forms - bedbugs

I'm even mortified as I write this, but some advice is gladly appreciated.

Over the weekend we discovered bedbugs living in the box spring underneath our mattress. We don't have a bed frame, just the mattress and box springs, and the box springs rests on six caster wheels, and the colony was living in and around where one of the wheels inserts into the box springs.

It's the first time we've ever seen or noticed bedbugs in the bedroom and neither DH nor I have ever had unexplained bites or red welts. So we think it's a very recent infestation and probably from bugs we picked up on an airplane. Interesting enough half the bugs we saw were dead-or rather, smashed from the moving wheels as the bed is pushed aside on the wheels at least once a day, whether from the maid when she vacuums and washes the bedroom floor and changes the sheets twice weekly, or from either DH and me because the cats love to knock their toys underneat the bed and whine until we retreive it.

Within a half hour of the discovery both the mattress and box springs were outside, a man with a van hired to take it away, all linens stripped from the bed and from the linen cupboard and hauled to the dry cleaners. The maid and I thoroughly checked all the other beds in the house, including the boys' beds and her bed, but so far nothing. We have no other furniture in the bedroom other than two small bedside tables (wood) from ikea, which were also thoroughly checked and washed. The bedroom floors have been mopped, bleached and vacuumed twice daily since Friday, the day we found the bugs. We do have built in wardrobes with our clothes and I'm thinking of taking every last article of clothing to the cleaners as well, just to be on the safe side as while we have a washer, everything is air dried.

I'm left wondering what to do next? I'm still paranoid about the prospect of discovering bed bugs in the rest of the house. Do they bite cats? Would the cats carry bedbugs to, say, the living room sofas? Should we call in pest exterminators - are they even any good? Obviously we need to get a new bed but I'm hesitant to do so until I know we're completely free of bedbugs.

Anyone who's had bedbugs before - what did you do to get rid of them and how do you know you're fully rid of them?
<em>edited by Tallybalt on 13/02/2011</em>