I had a CFL that lasted more than three years — then it caught fire when the ballast failed.
Funny thing is that I like CFLs. I’m one of those people who wants light in the whole house when I’m home, so I do use low wattage CFLs around the house. ...but I won’t leave one on when I’m not home after two had ballast failures and burned.
Great. One more thing to look forward to with these confounded things. I bought a 50-100-150 watt CFL ($15.00!!!) a while back for my nightstand lamp for reading. It simply doesn't give off enough light for me to read, even at the 150 watt setting. So I'm now supplementing that light with another lamp using a 60 watt incandescent.
I have no idea with this 150-watt CFL/60-watt incandescent combination whether I'm using more or less energy than when I used just one standard 50-100-150 incandescent, but somehow I doubt this was the idea.
When this CFL goes, I'll look for another 50-100-150 incandescent, if they're still around.
Oh, and did I mention, the 50-100-150 watt CFL cost $15.00?!?!?!
Because there's just the two of us at home, we turn our lights on and off frequently. As a result, about half of our CFLs get replaced almost as often as the old bulbs. Not much of a savings.