I had this model for 2 and a half years, where it continuously ran in a bathroom environment before dying. I live near a shopping center, and in the summer, a lot of flies from the dumpsters in the alleyway find their way into my house, along with the occasional mosquitos and moths. The bathroom this was in was at the end of some air flow path, so any airborne bugs would usually end up in that single room. Originally I got this to suck those bugs up, but ended up serving as a decent white noise generator and utility light for guests, since it was a guest bathroom.

The bulb lasted about a year, which was far longer than promised. The fan finally died after about 2 1/2 years, and I tossed the unit out as I was worried about a fire. Still, running for almost 2 1/2 years solid ain't bad for a cheap fan.

Catching bugs was not that great, though. Maybe the fan wasn't strong enough. It caught mostly moths, and sometimes a fly and a mosquito or two, but I had to find alternate methods to get rid of them since this fan really just ended up sucking a lot of lint and dust which had to be cleaned out periodically.

So I purchased one of these from Amazon in 2006 and I am just now writing a review. It's not that I have long-term experience with the product It's just that I am trying to figure out the disparate ratings and maybe what I have decided will be helpful to others.

First I purchased this in 2006 because my family returned from a vacation and the clementines & bananas; that I had been assured were taken care of ("Eat them or put them in the dumpster outside!") had only been tossed into the garbage pail that I had emptied an hour previously; had become a biology experiment worthy of Gregor Mendel and Thomas Hunt Morgan.

I battled them for 3-4 weeks before throwing in the towel and ordering one of these (for $25.90 + Shipping & Handling. BP you know, Before Prime.)

Initially I needed to empty the filter screen twice a day because airflow was being impacted. But after a week things were totally under control. I might have switched it on once or twice a week for the following month to mop up any stragglers.

I think I broke it out again for the Great Pantry Moth Infestation of 2008 (Who knew General Mills would send hitchhikers in my Raisin Nut Bran? Evidently it's not that uncommon for any cereal.) Most of those I vacuumed up or smacked and swept with a broom but the Stinger "Nosquito" was brought out of retirement for a week, again to catch any shifty mavericks.

I still have my old Stinger in the garage and I would put it to use but my clementine/banana smoothie drinking ex-spouse has the garage. (Don't feel bad for me, it was in Garland, Texas.)

So I decided I wanted another one for the occasional fungus gnat/fruit fly insurgence. I went straight to Amazon and found my desire, read the reviews as is my wont and was surprised to see so many negative reviews of a product I had found rather useful and effective.

I usually toss out the one & two star reviews unless they all mention a specific malfunction (FIRE! or Attracts Zombies!) But in this case 28% is a pretty darn significant number even when you consider that people are 5 times more likely to make a review if they are unhappy then if the product pleases them. (Take myself for instance...)

INVESTIGATION
Many of the complaints mention mosquitoes not being captured. Well I had never used it to capture mosquitoes so I have experience using this to capture such critters. I DO however have extensive personal experience with mosquitoes. Big nasty-looking tiger mosquitoes, great swarms of aedes aegypti that fly straight towards your mouth & nose and are rumored to carry off small children. I have had Dengue Fever, TWICE.

So I went off to Google to confirm my personal experiences. Yeah. Mosquitoes are one of the few flying insects that aren't attracted to light.
If you look at the product for sale it doesn't say "Mosquito" anywhere. But if you look at the photo of the box, it does. It even says it is "proven effective against mosquitoes." Maybe you're meant to throw it at them when when they land on a surface?

The cute little label on the grill has changed from the catchy "Nosquito" logo (still visible on the unit pictured on the box) to the more generic "Stinger" logo. So except for the box they have removed any reference to mosquitoes. Probably because it was setting them up for liability problems with the zika virus. I looked for the product on the Stinger website but it's been scrubbed clean of any mention of the product. So I went to the Internet Archive (The Wayback Machine) and found earlier renditions of their site where the Trap was for sale but interestingly all product images had been deleted even though other discontinued item images were still showing up on their server. (The Archive doesn't snag photos, it just copies their original location on the server and displays them if they are still located there.)
A few further minutes of digging around and I came up with the Owner's Manual from 2005! (I promise never to use my powers for evil.)
[...]

It mentions catching "flying insects" numerous times but only one nebulous mention of mosquitoes:
"Often insects will breed and "over-winter" or hibernate inside your home. Also during brief periods of warm weather, mosquito, fly and ladybug activity may increase."

FACTS & CONCLUSIONS (No links, no alternate recommendations)
1) This Trap isn't going to cure your mosquito problems unless one wanders by, gets sucked in and his friends come looking for him.
2) Ignore the writing on the box.See #1 above.
3) This unit might kill mosquitoes if you use a lure in conjunction. There are (mosquito) effective fan Traps that use a lure. Amazon has lures.
4) Flying insects are attracted to blue light, UV crosses into that spectrum. Blacklight UV works better. In the Q&A someone asked for a blacklight bulb and a link was given.
5) Lesser house flies aren't attracted to UV light either and I can't identify the differences between common and lesser houseflies.
6) There are THOUSANDS of fungus gnats, fruit flies, frit flies, true flies, ad infinitum and any number of them might be negative phototaxis
7) 1-6 explain why there are so many negative reviews.
8) I can't recall but I am sure it wasn't pithy.
9) Time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.

Living in Florida there are tons of bugs and a few are likely to fly inside every time you open the dang door. The only ones that really bother me are those that bite or sting - mosquitoes in particular.

I've owned 3 of these Stinger traps - I used 2 indoors and 1 in the garage. The first indoor one caught a bunch of moths (better than nothing but I don't really care about them) but only a very few mosquitoes. It just seems like the mosquitoes aren't attracted to the UV light this thing uses (though moths really, really are) - I've read that mosquitoes are attracted to carbon dioxide, body heat and odors like sweat and perfume.

The one in the garage caught all sorts of bugs including bizarre nightmarish albino bugs I've never seen before or since. Still very few mosquitoes though - seems like only the ones that happened to wander close to it.

When the first indoor one stopped working I bought another one on sale - same deal though, caught lots of moths over time, not much else.

Now the fan motors have stopped working on all of them - I don't plan to replace them again. Looking for an alternate product that really works on mosquitoes specifically.

This thing is awesome. It's quiet. You wouldn't know that it was even on or working. I used it for about two weeks in my camper there's a lot of naps here I didn't know that it was working until I opened it up and the pictures attached will show you I didn't even know there were this many of my camper it's unbelievable definitely buy this just what they said it would do

With a bit of help, you can make this into a better mosquito trap but if you're looking for a one time purchase, then look for another product as this needs extra attention to make it good.

1) You can bait the front of the trap with a soda bottle with some sugar and yeast in it to produce some CO2 while you're out during the day. They'll go towards the CO2 produced by the yeast and then get sucked in. However if that yeast smell bothers you, you can try to use this to lure the mosquitoes away from the area you are having the problem in.

2) Mosquitoes like standing water. You can put a small bowl of water on top of a stand so that the top of the bowl is at the bottom of the intake fan opening and they'll get sucked in while trying to land on the water.