Katchy Original Insect Trap

I purchased a scratchNdent and found my item had been used and slightly damaged, the top swirl grill was missing a small piece, and one of the sticky disks had been put into the unit already with a gnat stuck to it. Okay. I plugged it in, pushed one of the setting buttons (standard) and the light came on and the little fan makes a little bit of breeze, but wet a finger and hold it at the bottom and it is breezing out. It is also bigger than I expected, but I have such a tiny bug issue in this place, I don't care as long as it works. Something was mentioned about it works better in lower light levels. So. I plugged it in and set it up in a place I have been having issues. Four hours later, I pick it up to look down in. There's a lot more than one gnat on the mat already. It's doing the job. Great. The local little winged wildlife has resisted: letting the pots dry out good between waterings, watering with a mix of hydrogen peroxide and water, top mulching the pots, and the yellow sticky trap things. This seems to be vacuuming them up. YAY! If this works out I will get a couple more as I have plants in a few areas in my house. Trust me, I have at least six different microbugs including fruit flies, fungus gnats (arrgh!), a different gnat, and not sure exactly but a few are like tiny tiny various sorts of beetles... keeping the swarms down would be wonderful, without killing my plants. I will update this as it goes.. The picture isn't quite truelight because it is fairly dark in there, but. That's what it sorta looks like ON in the dark. To the right that is a matte BLACK surface that it's reflecting off of. Edit: my house is large, my buggie collection is way down on one end of the house where I have my first one, but. I just got a second one, also scratchNdent, to deal with the other end. I seen where someone complained that it is a fly-spa. This will NOT work on houseflies. They are too big and strong to be whooshed down onto the sticky pad. There are other ones built ($60-80) as wall sconces that WILL do the houseflies. This isn't built for that. However all the assorted little gnats and such are collecting at alarming rates on my sticky pads. It is nice to sit at my computer in the evening and not kill at least a dozen tiny assorted buggies. And my fungus gnat problem that came in with some potting soil mix, is pretty much gone. I can't say enough, if you have a grow booth and issues with little critters, that putting one of these in the booth at about two weeks for a night will not affect your grow and if there is anything in there it will clear out most of the problems. I have one room where the booth and most of my houseplants live (plus my spring starts as I go into that season as I update this) and the first one is outside the grow booth on the floor where it clears that room pretty well. Second one installed near the kitchen sink and other bathroom on other end of house, as there is a persistent problem there. I don't think it will catch sewer flies but those tend to respond to hot vinegar flushed through a running disposal with hot sink water, then follow with a cut up lemon and some icecubes run through the disposer. I will let you know if I get those little buggers back and if it can catch one or not. On both I am turning them off during the day and on after dark, as that is when the UV light seems to be the most visible to the little winged pests. I also want to see if the kitchen one will draw spiders. There are a few kinds that are drawn to dead prey, and though I have sticky traps for them, if this will be able to stick one down or not if it comes to check it out. Another thing I will update. Edit update. Plant area one is catching mostly gnats, vatloads of them. Kitchen has only a few, but is getting the fruit flies from the bananas. I put spider traps near both and the kitchen catch is up. Could not be happier with both Katchys. Have spring bedding and flower starts going and a new grow in the tent. I’ve put one in the tent a few times and no gnattie problem (last time will be day/ night 18 so as not to mess up auto blooming). No chemicals. Still worth the price. Replacing the sticky pads is super easy too. Edit: very late fall. We are the house servants of two mixed breed part Persian purries. The grey and white one in particular has very fine hair and a very full coat despite daily brushing/grooming. So we have slightly pre-used fur all over. Plus lots of house dust-joys of where we live. I have to take a q-tip to the top of both my Katchy’s weekly to keep the house glorp from obstructing airflow (also have to do it to our tower fans). Still catching the tiniest no-see-ums, fungus gnats and fruit flies. With fall garden harvest, the fruit flies moved in. I added a capful of apple cider taped off with a few holes next to the kitchen one, and it was literally carpeted with fruit flies in the bottom. The plants that came in brought micro buggies, and those numbers are quickly dropping as well. A Katchy doesn’t instantly get your population but in days you should have a disgusting collection on the bottom pad… I purchased a no- zap UV/sticky pad catcher meant for houseflies and installed over the toilet at the ceiling. It also does the job with a little time. So. Katchy do their job well, are easy to use and maintain, and paired with a true flycatcher, really helps keep you unbothered. $40 well spent.

The item arrived broken :( I am SUPREMELY disappointed because I was so excited at the thought of having an effective method to combat my nemesis that is the mischievously thriving fruit fly colony which plagues me, and this item arrived this morning broken. :( The blades of the fan internally are not connected and are banging about inside. Though I don't normally pay full price for things unless necessary (I either wait for a good sale or use applicable coupons/promo codes), I took the plunge on this purchase due to my need for a competent and efficient resolve combined with it's GLOWING reviews! First, I had to wait 9 days to receive the item, which I wasn't happy about, but not upset either. I have literally been checking tracking daily and looking forward to it's arrival. Then it arrives *HAPPY DAY*. I opened the package, removed the unit (felt/heard something odd but didn't think too much of it at that moment), reviewed the directions, plugged it in and although the light came on, the fan did not. I thought maybe I need to press a particular button or what-have-you, so I re-read the directions. Nope, it should be automatic. So I then began inspecting the unit and realized the fan blades were not connected. I then even looked for a way to open the unit without busting it so that I can fix it myself (I'm incredibly handy and that's how much I wanted this to work!). No go. I could probably open it up, but then it wouldn't be returnable. Ok, so THEN I go to the item link on Amazon and as of earlier today, it said "This item is currently unavailable" followed by something to the effect of 'and we don't know if or when it will become available'. I attempted to contact the seller to no avail. My only viable option was and is to return it. I don't want to return it for a refund or leave a bad review. Rather, I want the working unit I paid and patiently waited for. Errrrr. I decided to go about my day knowing I'd come back to this later and here I am. ... I pull the item up this evening, it is in fact available again, but instead of the $39.79 price I paid 9 days ago, it is right now (6/15/2018) listed at $54.49. Whaaaa?? So I am leaving this review in hopes that the seller will contact me and make good on my purchase, at which point I would update my review to reflect the working conditions of this seemingly enigmatic device. In summary, this 1 star review encompasses only that the item arrived broken and therefore did not operate as intended. A working unit may very well be worthy of all it's positive reviews. And maaaaybe even the new $54.49 price. I hope I am a unique case. I also hope this review was of help to you. Update 6/17/18: The seller contacted me today apologizing for my inconvenience and explaining that Amazon is responsible for the damage done during the shipping of this product. I responded immediately that I appreciate the response and although I completely understand that Amazon assumes the shipping responsibility, I am also concerned that I cannot repurchase a working unit at the price I paid 2 weeks ago. I inquired how this can be rectified, stating that I fully intend to update my review according to their level of service and the actual benefits of a working unit. And now I await their response. Honestly, if I have to repurchase at the higher price, I won't and I'll leave my review star at 1. It's not the price as much as the principle. Products can be damaged in shipping, that's understandable. But the seller is also responsible for commitment. So I'm really hoping they come through with a reasonable resolve that honors the price I paid for a working unit. I'll keep you posted. Update 7/1/18: The seller not only replaced my originally bought unit, but included extras as well. They have been extremely diligent in correspondence and I can honestly say that I am not only satisfied, but impressed. With that said, I would not have altered my review to 5 stars for customer service alone. ...these units works amazingly! The home I live in was built in 1924 and does not sport insulation the way a new home would. So pests are/can be/were a problem. The units do in fact attract flying things very well! The sticky pad of results had 2 bugs I didn't know I had and don't recognize. I am extremely happy with my purchase! And may very well buy more. The unit itself is aesthetically pleasing and is relatively quiet. Night is the best time for results since that's when it's darkest and the bugs can 'see' the light. The blue light transitions in brightness, which is even more effective in attracting it's prey. I'm changing my review from a 1 star to a 5 star. I saw other reviews stating it was a flimsy design. I do get what they're saying, but how thick must this unit be to rectify that?? It works as intended and looks good doing it. The bottom is easy to open to check and/or replace the sticky pad. There are only 2 buttons so it's super easy to operate. And it doesn't look like a bug catcher at all. No one would know. So I feel it's 'flimsiness' (is that a word?) is of no concern. As long as it performs, who cares how heavy or thick it is? This is 5 stars from someone who had to work for it. I hope this review helped you! Happy bug hunting :)

TL;DR Buy a hand vacuum for $20 and a $20 present to yourself so you can put up with hunting the bugs yourself (instead of buying this item... if the bugs in question are moths). My picture misleadingly shows a lot was caught, but this was a span of over 21 nights. (Arguably I should change trap out often, but you’d have to read on before you try making that point.) So I’ve got a moth problem. Lots of moths + kitchen area x many weeks = annoyed me. (Sorry, pun was just there.) I’ve tried a variety of ways to have this product work well. Left it near food or problem areas, kept the place dark so only light source is the UV, stuff like that. I even tried shoving a live one above the fan (after a while you learn how to catch them by hand) and clasping my hands over it so the only way the moth can move is where the fan is sucking in... I peeked in from the gaps between my fingers and it was just chilling on the plastic fan guard. If it chose to fly it would probably get sucked in but it just started crawling on the guard trying to escape without flying. I had to startle it into flying a couple times before it finally got sucked into the trap. (The first attempts had it land back and grip onto that fan guard so maybe it wouldn’t get caught even if it did try to fly) I tried giving it over a week to see how effective it was at catching anything (Manual says it is effective with moths), checking periodically. After a few nights I had about 4 or 5 caught moths. I resorted to using my dirt devil hand vacuum ($20) and within a span of 3-5 hours with occasional 30 second vacuuming, I caught more than 4 times the number of moths than the trap did (in ideal conditions for 3 days). I kept observing the next few weeks. And no, I don’t have those large moths that won’t fit through the guard. The product concept is sound on paper but actual execution falls short. This is probably ideal for smaller-lighter insects like gnats, but “can still catch” stuff like moths from time to time. If this item was for like $20, I’d try to self-argue the efficiency issue with the device being a passive way to catch things. Maybe even get a second one in hopes of bettering the catch rate. But at $40 for one with this abysmal success rate... Here is the math: My picture has 25 moths, caught in more than 3 weeks of nights, generously averaging to a little above 1 moth caught per night. (That’s about the same rate as the first 3 nights as described before.) I’ve tested the adhesive after taking the picture and it is still quite sticky and some of the recently caught moths are still moving so it’s not as if it can’t catch anymore due to poor adhesion (but I’d probably toss it after a few more days tops, just in case). Some baby fruit flies were also caught but even the manual says the device can’t be used for adult ones. The rating system is also pretty bad. Easy to use, thickness, and adhesion. Easy to use is deceptive; still gave it a 5 since it was simple but as mentioned, does the intended job poorly. Thickness? Really? Maybe it means how visually discreet it is? I don’t want to give good/bad ratings over a misunderstanding. Adhesion, small bugs that get stuck stay stuck, but only if caught; 5 rating, but again, kinda moot if things aren’t caught often. (The only thing I didn’t follow in the manual was changing the sticky trap frequently. If I did, I’d be going “Woo, 3 moths... time to change the trap”) The manual claims this to be effective against moths but that seems to be a lie... or they had the gnat sized moths forcibly crammed into the trap in their testing facility.

I live in an area where, apparently, flies and fruit flies/gnats are just part of life. I HATE them!!! I'm trying all the things, including this. After 2 weeks, it caught a good many of these annoying things (see pics). However, this is not "the answer" to the entire issue. Has it reduced the number of bugs? Yeah. Has it eradicated the issue? No. There was a situation that gave a sudden rise to these things in my house and I've been fighting them for days. I also put bleach in/on all the water source areas (sinks, bathtubs) in my house. Anytime someone leaves a door open, flies get in as well, so I'm always fighting those. In the first week I had this, it didn't catch flies at all. The ones it caught were just in the last couple days, so I guess it works on them as well. But I've also been killing a TON of them - way more than this machine caught. The gnats are not *gone* and there are still the occasional flies. I end up doing most of the work to get rid of these things and they are STILL not gone. Does it catch some? Yeah, and that's nice. But don't buy this thinking it will solve the problem. The pics are after a couple weeks of leaving this thing on ALL day long! I have put it in kitchen and near a window. Both were about the same number caught. I'm glad to have help in the fight against these horrible things, but it has not solved the issue. It does seem to be more directed at gnats, than other bugs. Which is fine. But don't expect this to catch any and all bugs, or to get rid of them entirely. I'm told I don't have a lot of these bugs in my house (the pics beg to differ!), but I honestly don't see a massive difference. Less? Yeah. But get a hot day and suddenly there is zero difference. They're still thriving, somehow, no matter how much I clean and bleach and make sure nothing is left out, change the rubbish bins often, even keep food in the fridge well and tightly covered/wrapped. I don't even buy fruit for my counter any more. I'm not mad, just a little disappointed that it hasn't solved the issue I bought it for. But I'll accept the help in this war on these vile bugs.

TL;DR - IT WORKS REALLY WELL! Unbelievably well. If you have problems with small bugs, just get this! Because we live in Florida, my husband and I have to deal with fruit flies and mosquitos in our house, a lot. We keep the house pretty dark too, rarely turning on overhead lights, so the bugs are attracted to our computer screens, buzzing around our heads and in front of our faces. In the past, we dealt with this problem by making a "Fly Cup" - a Solo Cup with fly paper wrapped around the top, and filled halfway with apple cider vinegar and a touch of soap. It works well, but it's obnoxious to make (fly paper glue on everything), and you have to be careful to never let it touch anything (fly paper glue sticks to everything), or knock it over, and you eventually have to toss it once the fly paper glue drips down the side of the cup. So while it works, it's not a great solution. I didn't want a "bug zapper" either, because we have ferrets, and I wanted something that couldn't possibly harm them, should they manage to get up on the counter or desk. Additionally, because bug zappers basically "explode" the insects, they send pathogens into the air, and can also sometimes be a fire hazard. The Katchy Bug Trap is the best possible solution! The glue area is protected by the "cage" at the bottom of the device, you can't accidentally bump the thing and have it stick to you. It's safe, convenient, and easy to use. The instruction booklet said the device is "not for continuous use." It works so well, we wanted to keep one running for more hours per day, so we immediately turned around and bought a second one. We keep one running in either the kitchen or bathroom in the evening (from sunset until we go to bed at 2-3am), and then when we go to bed we turn the first one off, and turn on a second one in our office until we get up. As you can see from the photos, this thing gets to work fast, and keeps working for weeks! The traps themselves came with four glue pads each. The glue pad refills seem to disappear off Amazon from time to time, but then Katchy sells them again. So when they became available again, we got an 8-pack refill (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GKG19MV/), which we haven't needed to use yet. We are still on the first glue pad for each, so we haven't even gone through what came with them yet. We also bought a 20-pack of Kensizer glue boards (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B07KRRJT5J/). I traced one of Katchy's glue pads onto some styrofoam, and then cut it out so I can use it as a pattern to make circles in the Kensizer pads. Again, I haven't had to do this yet, but other reviews here say the technique works just fine. The effect of having the UV light is noticeable. We're having repairs done on the house right now, so sometimes people leave the door open and a bunch of bugs make it in. My husband and I then notice them swarming our heads and computer monitors again. We turn on Katchy, and the UV light immediately attracts all of the bugs and gets them away from us. PLEASE NOTE: the area hit by the UV light is pretty broad. I do NOT recommend running Katchy while you're sitting right next to it. Do it for long enough and you are surely likely to start getting burned. It *is* a UV light, after all. Much better to put Katchy in another room that you don't plan to spend a lot of time in while it's running. I do sometimes prepare food in the kitchen while Katchy is running, but that's only for roughly an hour, and I'm all over the kitchen at the time, not sitting directly next to it. The one in our office is on my husband's desk, but we only run it after we both go to bed. Again, I cannot stress how well this thing works. I am SO GLAD we found it!

-- Update -- This device worked great for the first ~4 months or so, but over time has gotten far less effective. We bought this last spring, and it literally wiped out our fruit fly problem in a week. Now that spring is here again, I'm seeing more and more fruit flies in the kitchen. The device naturally gets dusty, and I use compressed air (as recommended by the company), but this does not completely clean the fan blades. Given the product's design, it is not very easy to take the device apart to actually clean the blades. I suspect that the dust is weakening the fan's suction power, thus it is less able to pull in flies. Minus two stars for not being a long-term solution. --Previous Post-- We've had fruit fly problems for the past year in our kitchen. We've tried lots of different home remedies (wine bottles, apple cider vinegar dish with soap, apple cider vinegar/soap dish with plastic wrap on top with holes, baking sheet with soapy water and a light), but each method seemed to get most of the fruit flies, but not all of them. I even started vacuuming up the fruit flies in the kitchen every few days, but again, we could never get them all. Installed this device, kept the fan on high, and left it on continuously. Within a few days, literally all the fruit flies were gone. Now we just keep it on high all the time and no more fruit flies! We'll probably see one random fruit fly a week. (We could probably switch the fan setting to low, but I don't find the noise bothersome or annoying enough to switch to a weaker setting) This trap is extremely effective for fruit flies, plain and simple. I can't speak to it's effectiveness against other bugs, as we only had a fruit fly problem. The fan does emit a slight, low, humming sound when it's in operation (the mechanical fan operates on a motor, so it will make noise), and it also emits a black-light aura around the device. So keep the slight noise and light in mind for where you want to physically place the device. In terms of size, it's about the size of a can of coffee ground. We just put it in the corner of our kitchen, so it's not really noticeable or in the way, but you probably wouldn't want this on your coffee table in your living room. I read reviews about people being concerned about the sticky fly trap paper being expensive and only getting three sheets. I think this is overblown. We've used the same sheet for the past 6 weeks, and it's still sticky and effective. At this rate, those 3 sheets will probably last the entire year, so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Another reviewer found cheap sticky sheets that you can purchase from a different seller if you really want lots of sticky sheets, but I don't see the need. Highly recommend the product for fruit flies!

This thing will catch and trap bugs but not on any sort of large scale. I ordered this gadget 5 months ago and it has about 10 bugs in the trap over that timeframe. I think maybe the few that are there were caught accidentally. It’s true to say we don’t have too many flying insects in our house but those that are, are not overwhelmingly attracted to this little noisy machine. We still have other gnats and Asian lady beetles left to their own devices. We’ve caught more bugs in vinegar and dish soap than this thing.

THE INSTRUCTIONS STATE TO WAIT THREE DAYS TO SEE THIS UNIT IN ACTION. Therefore ,I will post review over a three day period. DAY 1 - The item arrived and it was super easy to setup. All you had to do was press a button open up the bottom compartment, place a glue-paper pad inside it (after you peel off the protective sheet off of the sticky side). Then you connect up the power cord, plug it in, and then choose a power setting from the two buttons on top (Low Setting and Standard Setting). I set it up at Standard Setting during the day, and then set it at Low Setting at overnight. I also set the unit up right beside an open bowl of Apple Cider Vinegar, to help attract the fruit fly pests to the unit. I checked it the next day, with the unit still running, and saw fruit flies flying and walking over the fan grills and not being sucked in at all. Meanwhile, the Apple Cider Vinegar bowl did it's job at attracting the fruit flies, and even killed a few that landed inside the bowl. DAY 1 VERDICT - ONE STAR, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T MDO A ZERO STAR RATING. IT STRAIGHT UP DID NOTHING. Day 2 - After turning it on the Standard setting, within a few hours, there were a few fruit flies stuck on the pad. After leaving it overnight, there weren't hardly any more fruit flies on the pad. Meanwhile, my apple cider vinegar and fly paper traps had a significantly higher of captured insects. In fact, these lure-trap combinations did better than the "Katchy", even though I paired it with an apple cider vinegar lure. DAY 2 VERDICT: It is now sucking in fruit flies, though not apparently attracting very many of them. Day 3 - The Katchy trap, on standard mode, works best in the dark. During the day, with ANY ambient lights on, insects just aren't attracted to it. Placing it next to another lure works - like a dish of apple cider vinegar. There are all kinds of DIY, Apple Cider Vinegar and soap solution traps you can pair with the Katchy, as well as fly paper strips and sheets. But the Katchy is not a one-and-done, singular solution to your fruit fly problem. Fruit flies reproduce FAST, and they lay about 400 eggs at once. They also live for 25-30 days, so you must focus on eliminate their food source, and then use traps to control their population. DAY 3 VERDICT - It starts slowly, and the results will not knock your socks off, if you were looking to this device to eradicate your pest problem. I can be used as PART of your more comprehensive pest plan, but it's not the silver bullet that they advertise themselves to be. THREE STARS. It's okay, but there are more effective solutions.

The charger provided with the item is not EU compatible. When I use some other charger that I have, UV light and fan works but couldn’t catch a single mosquito in a dark room with more than 10 mosquitoes for several days.

This works perfectly, it actually helped us get rid of our fruit fly problem in our kitchen. When I opened the device after 1 week, I knew where all the fruit flies disappeared to hehe.

Works as expected and does the job as expected. This is my 3rd Katchy, now have one in every bedroom.

Great for small flies

I bought two of these because we were dealing with a hostage situation and I was desperate. I repotted a plant and apparently the soil was the Trojan horse. Anyways. I love these. I love how effective they are. I used all 8 sticky traps in two weeks and they were all disgustingly full with treasonous flies. I don’t even know where the flies were coming from, but they just kept coming to the machine. I swapped out the traps every few days. I recommend having a container of some kind to put the old traps in to wait for all the bugs to die. This way you don’t restart an out break from the garbage. When the traps get full there’s obviously less sticky surface left and you get some flies that are trapped in the machine but not dead yet. I just used the plastic the traps came in. There’s reviews saying it didn’t work….. I’m wondering if y’all didn’t know to put the sticky side up cause I have no clue how this wouldn’t work. My only complaint is that the refill pads are expensive. I don’t mind the initial investment into the machine, but a set of 4 per machine is just not enough when dealing with an outbreak.