OK, a bit off-topic, but some people here seem to know their insects.

For a couple of weeks we've been a bit concerned we have had bugs, as we keep on getting bitten at night and occasionally we have been finding bits of insect in the bed, though with my 50-yr-old eyesight it is hard to be sure they are insect fragments as opposed to bits rubbed off clothing (my socks are especially prone to shedding fragments). Though having caught what I presume to be the offenders, I'm fairly sure they aren't bedbugs. But what?

So, finally, yesterday, my wife caught a live insect in the bed, and boxed it, but only after manually killing it. But examining this 3-4mm object? The best I could think of was to take a photo of it with the macro setting on the camera and try to blow it up on the computer. Unfortunately it was a bit squashed and the technique was rather less effective than using a microscope, which in our case we have not got. And being squashed I wasn't really sure of its true shape. I could just about see that the abdomen is segmented, which is true of bedbugs, but many other insects also.

But then later yesterday evening I was just sitting there in the front room and I found an insect walking up my shirt that I'm pretty sure was just the same as the one I had recently been examining, and it did seem to attempt to bite me from time to time when it got onto my hands, though I persuaded it not to.

I'm pretty clear that this is not a bedbug. The most clear reason for this is that it is laterally flattened, like a flea, whereas a bed bug, so far as I can find out, is flattened topically. Also it is very dark, pretty nearly black, though very dark brown on closer examination, and shiny, whereas bedbugs, especially younger ones, tend to light brown. It clearly isn't a flea, as it walked over me with the locomotion similar to that of a beetle, and it had a pointy end at the back. Though it did have the tiny head and swollen body typical of various biting things. Nothing in the insect book seem to correspond very well. My best guess at the moment is that it is a true bug, ie same family as a bed bug, though I'd need a microscope to be sure that its body layout corresponds.

Any thoughts on what this might be, why it is in my bed at night, and is it going to sod off of its own accord when the seasons turn?