NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Aaron Schalk couldn't figure out what was eating his family alive.

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"My original thought was that it was fleas," Schalk said.

Then a pest control company solved the riddle.

"The woman said, 'Can you please lift up the couch?' Then she said, 'No, those are bedbugs,'” Schalk said.

Bedbugs are blood-sucking creatures whose bites itch. Schalk lifted the couch and showed Channel 4 a bedbug hiding underneath. It scurried away in the light.

Schalk said his 3-year-old stepson has been covered with bites and showed Channel 4 marks all over the boy’s arms.

“These are all little bedbug bites,” said Schalk.

Schalk said the pest control worker asked where the couches came from.

"She said, 'Did you get them from a rental place?' We said, 'Yeah.' She said, 'Those bugs came in on those couches.'"

Schalk’s fiancée, Alma Arroyo, was making payments on rent-to-own furniture, but whether the bedbugs came in with the couches is the subject of some dispute.

The furniture rental company confirmed the couches were used, not brand new, but said they were treated in the store in accordance with store procedures.

“We are confident we are not the source of the infestation," said a spokesman for the store.

An entomologist at Mack's Pest control told Channel 4 that bedbug infestations have become more common since the pesticide DDT was outlawed. He said bedbugs can be killed with pesticides, heat or freezing.

Schalk said he would rather just get rid of the rental furniture and is frustrated the company won't take it back.

"I was hoping they would exchange the furniture for something that doesn't have bugs in it. Now, I just want them to send their people to just pick it up," he said.