Cicadas are "pouring out of the ground" and singing to attract a mate.

They're in offices, covering the footpaths, inside light-fittings. Their chorus is deafening. Now they're even riding the bus.

Cicadas have emerged for the season en masse, and people are finding them hard to avoid.

Lower Hutt's Nicole Sole said the insects had taken a liking to her office building, which was "covered" in cicadas.

Supplied Cicadas swarm an office in Lower Hutt.

"Ew, they are on the wall all around the whole building, on the foot path, even inside our building, in the light fittings.

"Feels like a horror movie! The screaming noise they make is crazy!"

Others reported cicadas riding on public transport.

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Cicadas have been "pouring out of the ground" thanks to the warm, dry weather in Wellington, Victoria University professor of entomology and ecology Phil Lester said.

"It's been a really nice warm spell and that will promote their emergence ... right now they'll be crawling out of the ground and going onto the trees, and the pressure is on to mate."

He said the loud singing was the desperate call of the male cicadas trying to attract a mate.

"They're singing away to mate and they'll mate and lay their eggs," he said.

Despite the mass of insects conjuring up visions of a post-apocalyptic film where insects take over, cicadas were not dangerous, Lester said.

"They do get loud but they don't do anything to people, they have no stinger and they're not going to bite you, they're just flying around."

It was possible that the cicada season was a little later than usual thanks to the weather not really heating up until the last month.

But Wellingtonians were lucky compared to some places in North America, Lester said.

"They have cicadas that will stay underground for 13 years, and then all of a sudden the whole ground erupts.

"They are just incredible. And the sound – it drives people bananas."