If they're not hopping around your floors, they're crawling out of your bathroom sinks - a plague of crickets has engulfed the region and they're not going away.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
This year's cricket breeding frenzy, described by one insect expert as more enthusiastic than usual, has hit the Riverina area due to a "long, hot, wet summer".
And if more rain comes our way - a possible thunderstorm is forecast for Friday, February 23 - the creepy crawlies are expected to keep procreating.
La Trobe senior environment lecturer Michael Shackleton, who lives at Baranduda, said he had not seen cricket numbers as high "in many years".
"The increase in numbers is due to warm and wet weather," Dr Shackleton said. "Crickets lay their eggs in dirt and the eggs and young survive best when there is some moisture in the ground.
"The high numbers will be due to the double hit of more young surviving, that then lay more eggs, and the crickets maturing quicker with the warmer weather so there's more generations hatching.
Dr Shackleton said reports of residents seeing the insects coming out of their bathroom plugholes were not surprising.
"They might be falling in an outside grate and they can swim somewhat," he said. "Probably enough to get from your outside drain into the inside drain.
"It might be that the drain doesn't have enough water in it so it might be worth chucking few buckets of water down.
"In terms of keeping them out of your house, just keeping doors shut and maybe having like a little seal on the bottom of the door to stop them getting through the crack."
But there's nothing to fear, Dr Shackleton said.
"Crickets don't bite," he said. "They're harmless, in fact, some people eat them - in some countries they're a food source."
The abundance of crickets is an advantage for other critters.
"The birds will really benefit from them," Dr Shackleton said. "That's true for lots of these booms that we're getting.
"Frogs, lizards, any of those sorts of things that are going to be eating insects that will help their next generation because they're going to be feeding those crickets to their young.
"This will be a bumper year for them to fatten themselves up."
