With the longer days and the warmer temperatures, the sprinkle of those little brown stink bugs many of us endured throughout the winter is about to become a deluge in the spring.

So, being a scientist at heart (and by profession), I decided to find a simple solution to the perpetual stink-bug infestation — a solution that didn’t involve any of the popular grab-and-flush, vac-and-sac, or crush-and-dump techniques that are so dangerously prone to dispense the little stinkers’ disgusting discharge.

To start my experiment I needed an observation. Of all the rooms in the house, stink bugs seemed to enjoy my upstairs bedroom the most.

That makes sense because, in my house, this bedroom includes the attic door where the drafty attic windows practically suck the little buggers from the air. Within the bedroom, though, the army of obnoxious invaders seemed to emerge from everywhere — everywhere except my closet.

What was different about my closet? Well, on the upper shelf of my closet was an unopened but still faintly odiferous box of moth- balls.

Eureka! This led immediately to my hypothesis, a veritable no-brainer: Mothballs stop stink bugs.

It sounded very plausible, but could this be demonstrated scientifically?

On to the testing phase of my classic science experiment.

For my experimental device, I located two identical clear-plastic, gallon containers and a clear-plastic empty tea bottle. I connected the sides of the gallon-sized containers using the tea bottle with its top and bottom removed to allow for a wide-mouth tunnel between the two containers.

To the lid of one of the containers I taped one mothball. Into the lid of the other container I cut an opening to allow for fresh air infiltration and an egress for possible escape of a stinky experimental subject.

Next, a carefully captured and unsuspecting brown stink bug was tossed into the first container, the one with the mothball.

Would he (or she?) behave deliberately to avoid any close association with the napthalic nugget? Only empirical evidence generated from a regimented (or, in my case, quasi-regimented) series of observations of the stink bug’s behavior would tell.

Over about two hours, after traversing many areas of the first container, the stink bug did seem to avoid getting close to the moth- ball. And, in about three hours, the bug did make it into and eventually out of the second container.

Not satisfied with inconclusive results, I plunged the exotic emitter one more time into the mothball-on-the-lid (first) side of the contraption. However, I needed to leave the experiment behind for a few hours while I attended an evening fundraiser.

Upon returning from the fundraiser, to my utter horror (actually, just simple surprise), I discovered the stink bug lying dead at the bottom of the first container. And here’s the part that really made the experiment rather inconclusive: Next to the demised dawdler was, you guessed it, the mothball that had formerly been lid-bound.

So, did the stink bug die of the fumes from the mothball or a hapless kinetic conk on the head? Or, maybe any one of a number or combination of other conditions like exhaustion, natural causes, or even simple experimental boredom.

Not willing to take any chances with faulty experimental design or observational error, I wasted no time deploying several boxes of opened mothball containers around my bedroom and in the hallway.

To date, the stink bug invasion has definitely been thwarted with substantially fewer of those brown, diamond-back devils haunting my upstairs abode.

But, stay tuned. Who knows, those champion heralds of stink might yet learn to live with un-hurled mothballs.

Anthony J. Sadar, a certified consulting meteorologist and environmental scientist, is an adjunct instructor at Geneva College and Penn State-Beaver.