I tried the over the counter flea bombs - twice - and they took care of the immediate problem of the live, adult fleas for a day or two. The problem with the over the counter stuff is they don't contain a growth inhibitor. Once the fleas have been allowed to bred in your carpet or your furniture or even cracks in a hard wood floor, they can remain dormant for months.
Fleas are "activated" (motivated to move) by two things, heat and motion. Fleas can remain in the egg state, waiting to be "born" until conditions motivate them to move (heat or motion detected). Larva can remain for quite sometime as small fleas even without a blood host, as they will eat anything they can find (a cracker crumb dropped from a snack eaten in the room for example) and remain dormant for months.
After two attempts with the bombs from the store, I finally did my research to discover that the over the counter ones have less than 1% of the active ingredients that the pros use. The pros will also use a two part process not accomplished with the bombs alone. They will spray the carpet (not the furniture) with the solution that contains both an growth inhibitor and a residual "poison" that will keep killing for 30 days. The fog they use will disturb the adult fleas as well as the young fleas and motivate them to move. They will then usually seek the carpet in an attempt to escape the fog. Once they hit the carpet, they are then exposed to the second element which will finish the job on any that were resistant to the fog itself.
It was not cheap to have them come in and do the job professionally, but the other way was no cheaper in time spent as well as having to wash EVERYTHING that the fog touches before you can use it again. The laundry bill was astronomical as everything needed to be washed at once, so I couldn't do it at home. I did this twice at a cost that was not much less than what it cost to have it done with a guarantee from the pros.
I have always used preventative products on my cats, but I had an old cat that just couldn't tolerate the meds any longer. She came to spend more and more time outside and obviously brought them in when she did come in. My other cat was a house cat that only went outside when she "escaped". LOL My older cat was treated (finally when we could catch her) with the meds and promptly died about a week later. She was about 19 years old and just couldn't tolerate the meds again. I miss her, but her legacy was the infestation left behind in her wake.
Unless you have the entire house done now, I would suggest that once you locate a new place, have a pro treat your belonging while they are in the moving truck. That way, you won't just move the problem from one place to another.
Good luck!!! I know just how much it sucks!!!
Good resource --
http://www.fleasmart.com/life.htm