i don't know about bed bugs, but a nice long soapy bath is all it takes to get rid of red bugs. i couldn't believe it, but there are actually people around here in southeast texas that don't know anything about red bugs.
had a woman talking about the bites her sons had all over and they couldn't figure out what was wrong. they scrubbed them with all kinds of fancy bug-killers, burned the bedsheets, and just about everything else you could think of, but to no avail. i told her, "sounds like chiggers to me." they took a bath and that was the end of it.city folks... (and i live right next to "chigger creek")