A CALIFORNIAN family can sleep a little better after they were awarded $2 million for enduring a severe bed bug infestation.

At the apartment they previously rented, they spent months dealing with the creepy crawlies and this week a civil court jury ordered their former landlords to pay them the hefty compensation for the ordeal.

The $2 million figure ($US1,593,500) is reportedly the highest amount ever paid to a single family in a bed bug case in the United States.

In the complaint, Liliana Martinez, 34, and her husband claimed their apartment building became infested with bed bugs back in 2012. They complained to the management company that maintained the building and even had their home fumigated and got entirely new furniture and bedding.

But the bugs did not abate.

The infestation was so bad their 3-year-old son has been left with scarring on his body from scratching the bites.

After finding him one morning with bites all over his face, Ms Martinez took him to hospital where she learned the family had a bedbug problem.

“As soon as I found out, I was horrified, because I had never seen something like that before,” she told The New York Times following her $2 million payout this week.

The family’s daughter who was about three months old at the time of the infestation was also bitten on her back.

During the ordeal, the family would sleep together after thoroughly cleaning a small patch on the apartment floor.

“All we could do is just vacuum a little place on the floor,” Ms Martinez said.

The lawyer that represented the family also won a $4.6 million payout for group of tenants at another Los Angeles apartment complex over a bed bug issue.

Due to a growing resistance to once highly effective chemical pesticides, bed bugs have become notoriously difficult to get rid of in recent years. It’s believed the increased resistance coupled with other factors has allowed them to storm back in greater numbers after nearly being wiped out a few decades ago.