Wireless sensor networks have been widely considered as an effective tool in various application domains. One of the major implementation issues is on the network deployment problem. In this paper, we target issues in the deployment of wireless sensor nodes in three-dimensional indoor environments and with irregular radiation patterns for both message communicating and sensing. Our objective is to develop a more effective way to deploy sensor networks and to minimize the number of deployed nodes. We propose several search-oriented strategies to improve the performance of search algorithms, such as simulated annealing. The capability of the proposed strategies is demonstrated by realcase studies in the deployment of sensor networks in several office flats.