You may have even seen a few scampering about the house, lurking under clothes or under newspapers, because this year is the unofficial year of the earwig, thanks to perfect conditions being put in place over winter.

Orange Agricultural Institute collections curator Peter Gillespie said that recent climactic conditions had ticked all the right boxes for earwig breeding.

“All the conditions were put in place long ago,” he said.

“They’ve had just the right amount of rain and some good warm weather now to get it all happening.”

The earwigs that we find in our homes are an introduced European variety, perfectly suited, unlike the native species, to urban environments.

Nocturnal and omnivorous, the earwig is ideally designed for what it does says retired entomologist Murray Fletcher.

“It has evolved as the perfect detritus scavenger,” he said,

“Compost piles are the best places for them to live and breed. The problem is that when people go spreading compost around the garden, they are also spreading the earwigs that also like to chew on the new growth of your seedlings.”

The pincers at the end of the earwig’s body play a number of roles including mating, holding pray and as a defence mechanism.

“When under attack the earwig will roll itself up, folding the pincers over its abdomen,” Mr Fletcher said.

“You see them doing that when you disturb them or when they’re being eaten by blackbirds.”

When it comes to getting earwigs under control, Mr Gillespie said that with the hot weather set to continue the numbers would return to normal, but there were non-toxic methods available.

“Earwigs are attracted to cover so you can lay a few sheets of cardboard down, keep it moist, and then every few days go out, lift the sheet and stomp on them,” he said.

Another method is to cut lengths of hose about 15 centimetres long and bend and tie off the ends.

Plunge the tube into the ground, keeping a small hole poking out of the soil. Every few days pull the tubes out and shake the critters out into the chook house, or on the ground and stomp on them.

Dangerous to seedlings, the earwig is harmless to people.

“It’s an old European myth that they crawl into your ears,” Mr Fletcher said.