Every year my family descends upon Lake Crescent in beautiful Oregon for our family reunion/4th of July celebration. This year was more of the same… camp fires, beer, wine, marshmallows, boating, fishing, etc… The main difference this year was the amazing amount of mosquitos, BIG aggressive mosquitos! There were so many mosquitos that it was simply unbearable.
We tried everything to get some sanity. We went through gallons of bug spray (25% up to 100% deet), other than skin burns from the 100% product… it might as well have been water… the mosquitoes were unfazed. We tried a bug zapper lamp which seemed to catch more moths than anything else. On the second morning I was starting to go crazy from the sheer number of mosquitoes and mosquito bites, they were relentless. We had bites everywhere (not going in to details… but trust me… EVERYWHERE).
In a final attempt to get some relaxation we drove 1 1/2 hours into Bend, Oregon and stopped by Home Depot to buy a $300 dollar mosquito gadget (pictured above) with high hopes of being the campground heroes. We also bought and filled a propane tank, and an extension cord. We returned to the mosquito ridden campsite and quickly set the Stinger Mosquito Vacuum CT-100 unit up according to the directions. The unit was supposed to work for one full acre. This is where the massive disappointment begins. The unit caught 6 mosquitoes over 5 days! At a cost of $50 per mosquito this was a bad investment. I will write to Kaz (the manufacturer) and let you know what they say.
I am home now… scratching my wounds.
If I had found and read this last year, I would have stayed away from this unit. But on the whim, I bought one for $200 with a $100 rebate last year. Sat in the garage till last Sunday. Followed directions to start catching skeeters, and it has been working great. Caught hundreds in just 5 days. When I emptied the unit, there must have been 200 plus dead, and another 50 plus still alive. Killed the live ones with a hair dryer-much better than waiting hours for them to die off per the manual. I am still leery because temps have not been above 88 here yet. The unit hasn’t seen rain yet, and the temps are within range. So far, so good. Placed on the edge of woods that are infested. I live in Wisconsin, and this year the skeets seem to be tiny. Over 6 inches of rain last week, that seemed to spark the activity. I’ll hold my breath and see how long this lasts. Unit doesn’t see much sunlight, so maybe that helps too. Compared to others costing much more, so far I am extremely happy with this. Although it has only been 5 days. We shall see. And, no, I do not work for this company or have any affiliation with them. If it goes south on me, I will be the first to follow up on this, and let them know what I think.
Thanks for all of the posts, I was planning on buying this unit over the weekend. I will do more research to find a good solution.
Purchased a unit Aug 1st and I already have at least a quart of dead mosquitos. My unit has been operating fine, it shut down during a rain storm but started up again without a problem. I was first going to purchase a Mosquito Magnet but looking at all the complaints on the internet and the fact a friend has one that quit working I opted for the Nosquito. I paid $149 at Menards, this weekend they are on sale for $49, should have waited.
Wow… I’m with Don. I set this thing up about 3 weeks ago and have a full basket of mosquitoes. No problems. Until… the tank ran out. Putting on a new tank I couldn’t get it to fire again last night, but only tried for a few minutes. I’m going to give it another shot tonight, and we’ll see if it will fire up or not. If it does, I highly recommend this thing. For those who say it catches no mosquitoes there could be several issues: 1) I’ve heard that different types of mosquitoes may or may not be attracted, 2) Location!!! I think I got lucky where I put mine because they started getting sucked in as soon as I put it out, 3) Give it time! It’s been 3 weeks with mine and it definitely is better in my yard now, 4) defective units. Sounds like there are issues, so either they fixed them now or I got lucky. Try again because this is an inexpensive unit compared to others and it works great for me!
Update – I actually reset it as I was leaving for work this morning and when I got home tonight it was indeed working. So again… no problems and catching a lot of mosquitoes. Maybe just my dumb luck, but I’d certainly recommend this thing.
Dan and Don both from Wisconsin? How odd (actually suspicious)…
Wisconsin seems to be the place this works. Had mine now for over 3 weeks, and it has been eating up those little blood suckers! Had to change propane exactly 21 days, and it fired right up with the new tank. So far, so good. Almost bought another one when they were $49 at Menards. It’s a good feeling to empty the basket with hundreds of dead ones.
I purchased this product, and I live in Minnesota where the unofficial state bird is the mosquito. This product works absolute wonders, contrary to the very poor, possibly fictitious review. In the first three weeks, I was emptying the basket on a weekly basis, with a chunk of solid mosquitoes close to 2″ thick. I previously owned the Skeeter Vac made by Blue Rhino in China, which quit on me after a second season. This product is absolutely amazing, and highly effective.
As a hint, when you remove the basket, if there are still live bugs in it, spray the outside with a little insecticide, wait a few minutes, and you’ll have nothing but dead bugs in the basket.
I am glad a few peeps in the world got this piece of crap to work. The only thing my mosquito vac sucked was money out of my wallet. I can outperform this thing with a flyswatter and 5 minutes.
Dan again. I don’t know who Don is, or Mark, or John, but I tell you it works for me. Propane lasted 3 weeks for me too. I had some trouble getting it going with a new tank, but it finally did. I wanted to buy one of the $49 ones to have a second one on the property, but they were sold out almost immediately. The only negative I can see is the cost. $149 to start with, (unless you were lucky enough to get one of the cheap ones), then $15 or more every 3 weeks for gas, plus $10 or so for attractant, and not sure how long this thing will last. You could spend $200-$250 in a summer on this, and that is about what a good mosquito spraying costs by a professional. So… it’s not utopia, but I do believe it’s not the crappy device that some people have said.
I’ve had the same experience as most of the posters. The basic problem is that even if the unit works initially, it will at some point refuse to light up, even with a full propane tank. After the initial one failed I got one, then two replacements while it was still under warranty. #3 worked fairly well last summer, but it won’t light this year, and I can’t even turn it off using the power switch; I have to unplug it. Kaz Customer Support says that no one works on these, so I am out my investment of $300 or so dollars. The moral to the story is to do thorough research before buying a product.
One of the overlooked details is that the machine needs TIME to expand it’s range…. the other is that TEMPERATURE influences the start up and functioning. I had problem with my unit and with the help of Kaz reps It is now up and running.
I AM satisfied.
Has anyone been able to bypass the thermal sensor?
The excuse that Tech Support gives about operating temperature is poor at best. Because of this ‘feature’, the unit I have will successfully start up but then shut down because it can’t determine that it has reached operating temperature.
My belief is that the unit is looking for some resistance value from the thermal sensors(2) to keep from cutting the gas supply off and restarting the startup sequence prior to entering ‘standby mode’.
Any electrical engineers care to chime in?
My unit has NEVER WORKED. They always give me some songand dance at the company. I lost all my money on this deal here in Arkansas. I should have know something cause they took it off the shelf at Home Depot where i worked at the timeDANG!!!
I’m currently trying to get my CT100 working full time. Placement and setup is flawless. Brand new shiney propane tank, I can smell propane as it attempts to ignite. Seems to go out often and then spends many minutes attempting to reignite. Mosquito population around the base of this unit is so dense that it should accidentally catch a few even just by aimless flight into the basket.
Previous poster timeline suggests units initially were good in theory and cheap in execution. Around 2010 this trend seems to adjust to more positive reviews. Unsure of the manufacture date of my unit as it was purchased secondhand. Trial conducted in Arkansas will update progress..
We got the CT100 in late summer 2011 and it seemed to work quite well that year. Last year we took it out and it seems to start and appear to be running- bate in – green light – fan running etc, but – – hardly any mosquitos, and we live in the woods between a pond and a river – lots of mosquitos.
This year we thought we would try it again – same routine – bate, propane, fan on – set in a place where you can’t stand to be without bug spray and then maybe not – so PLENTY of mosquitos – we have had lots of rain this spring. Mosquitos everywhere but in the basket – been out there for 3 days – and still don’t have any to show for the spendy bate and not so cheap propane!.
not happy campers, would not recommend this one.
Can anyone tell me what the reset procedure is when the lights constantly flash?
$300 plus two propane tanks. 5 mosquitoes.
I would not recommend this to my enemy. Maybe some of them work. Mine definitely does not. Gave it to my sister who probably felt I was doing something wrong. She brought it back one tank later. No mosquitoes.
What a ripoff.
Had my Nosquito CT100 unit since 2012. Still works great although it’s sun beat. Lol. My bait chamber drawer sun cracked and fell off in the recent move, but you can still slide the bait attractant in the lower ring that circles the bottom of the chamber where it’s still in the vicinity of the he propane burner that gently warms the attractant and creates the smell that keeps the mosquitos coming. Still killing a lot of mosquitos after 7 years of solid seasonal use. Hasn’t needed any service either. Very happy with our unit. Instructions are also awesome. For those who say they weren’t getting the results they want, I can definitely say the location is the thing you want to pay close attention to. We have a water shed on one side of our wild back yard and that’s where these guys love to breed. So naturally we are gonna set up our unit somewhere in the path of these guys hatching and heading for human habitation. Our unit distracts them before they get to us. So…that’s why ours catches so very many of them. And for the ones who get lucky and make to our patio, we have another unit to catch them too. We also have birds and bats who eat them. All very handy!
Houston, TX Bought a New in box unit of craigslist 2 Months ago and also have had disappointing results with the unit. It may be the bread of skeeters versus what is up North as We live near a pond and the back yard is infested with mosquitos yet after 6 weeks I have 2 large dead ones and maybe 50 small ones. 2 tanks of propane later now mine seems to keep losing the flame now. I took mine apart to see what the heck was going on and I feel something in the burner chamber is missing possibly. Anybody have a manual or parts info of what should be inside that burner chamber?