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Um, when we had our zapper up and running, there was a big old pile of fried mosquitos below the zapper with a moth or two thrown in so I am having a hard time buying the completely ineffective statement. Downside is they are really noisy killing the mosquitoes all night long so don't put it near a bedroom window! We unplugged ours after the barn swallows moved in.
I use the best sweat-proof permethrin available for my horse and she still has mosquitoes, stable flies and deer flies (my bane) that will torment her, just not in as high of a number. The permethrin is much more likely to kill off all the 'good guys' if used as a perimeter spray instead of just on the animal. It wouldn't be my first choice for control because it is so broad spectrum.
I do like dumping all water collecting in anything laying around they can use to breed in and I have goldfish in one horse tank and guppies in another to feast on the mosquito larvae.
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As for stable flies there are predatory wasps you can buy to release that feed on the fly larvae to keep those numbers down thus avoiding those nasty stinky jars to attract the adult flies. You sprinkle them on manure so it may not work in your case unless the farmer will let you at his manure pile. You have to repenish them every month and start early in the summer to get a head of the problem.
I stand corrected that they actually are attracted to the zappers. I cut the below information from the internet and there are many other similar findings.....
What's wrong with bug zappers?
They kill beneficial insects, attract mosquitoes but don't kill them, help mosquitoes find standing water to lay their eggs, and spray insect fragments into the air. The Ultra Violet (UV) light from zappers attracts all night-flying insects. Each night zappers kill about 3,000 beneficial insects such as moths and butterflies, which pollinate flowers, but only a handful of mosquitoes. A Notre Dame University study in South Bend Indiana showed that people with a zapper in their backyard got bit 10% more than people without one because zappers attracted mosquitoes but did not kill them. UV light also helps mosquitoes find water where they lay their eggs. When UV light is reflected off the surface of water it is polarized. Like polarized sunglasses that reduce glare and help you see objects more clearly, the mosquitoes follow the polarized light to the water to lay their eggs. Because they attract large bugs, they are purposefully designed to explode them so they don't accumulate and become a fire hazard. Exploding bug-fragments drift on the air. People and food nearby may be contaminated by insect-fragments from the zapper.
