Dean Street shop owners say the massive swarms of grasshoppers, crickets and locusts are adding time and money to their day.

They say they are spending up to two hours a day sweeping footpaths or using blower vacuums to move the latest infestation of long-horn grasshoppers.

Click here for more photos of the Border's bug invasion

The entry way to Myer in David Street and its David Street car park were yesterday centi­metres thick in bugs.

Inside, the grasshoppers and crickets were clearly visible in piles on the floor and around clothes racks.

A team of cleaners had cleared the footpath and just after noon donned vacuum backpacks to enter the store, ultimately opening doors at 2.30pm.

Shopping centres on both sides of the Border and in regional towns have reported the swarms.

Car yards too have been plagued for the past two weeks.

Amid the piles of rotting grasshoppers are field crickets, also in near plague proportions, and locusts.

The insect feast has also brought with it scores of praying mantis and scavenger beetles.

Fonzies’ Ben Sudano was sweeping the Dean Street footpath of his eatery yesterday morning.

“I’m sick and tired of the clean-up, we sweep before we leave each night and first thing in the morning,” he said.

“It is never ending.

“Last night was like that scene from the Bible with the great locust plague.”

On the opposite corner, La Porchetta worker Keryn Norman was busy cleaning bugs from the restaurant’s windows.

“This has become someone’s job every day for the past two weeks.

“It takes at least two hours to clean-up.”

The plague also spread across the region yesterday, Culcairn newsagency’s Ken Scheuner having to battle through a green skin to his shop front door.

“You could not see the front door for the grasshoppers this morning, they were caked on,” he said.

Locusts are also making a pest of themselves in Yarrawonga, swarms invading the town since last weekend.