St Petersburg's Channel Five said the man's wife, upset with her husband for being drunk and refusing to get up, kicked a handle after an argument, activating a mechanism that folds the couch up against a wall.
The couch, which doubles as a bed, folds up automatically in order to save space. The man fell between the mattress and the back of the couch, Channel Five quoted emergency workers as saying.
The woman then walked out of the room and returned three hours later to check on what she thought was an unusually quiet sleeping husband.
Police refused to comment.