“I don’t want to freak you out,” my friend said to me as I held a side plank on the fitness center floor. “But there is a cockroach right next to your head.”
I slowly turned my head and was face-to-face with a horrendous brown, leathery creature, its long legs lunging at me. I gasped as I jumped up from the floor and immediately searched for another place to continue my workout.
This was not the first time I had encountered a cockroach at school, let alone in that past week.
A few days prior to the fitness center fiasco, my English class was interrupted by a sudden shriek and students springing out of their seats. A cockroach had crawled up my classmate’s leg and back down to the floor before it was squashed by my teacher.
Not only is it disruptive and disgusting, but the growing presence of cockroaches within our school is just plain annoying. One of the major causes of this sudden abundance seems to be excessive trash and food left behind by students, including crumbs and spills.
Communal work spaces, specifically the couches and tables in SA Hall, are constantly littered with food scraps and wrappers. Some students using these spaces bring snacks and drinks while they socialize or work, and many fail to throw away their trash before leaving.
Most people do not enjoy dealing with cockroaches, so to avoid one crawling in your ear during your workout or scaling up your leg during class, students need to clean up after themselves.
There are multiple trash cans throughout SA Hall and other communal areas, usually placed by the doors so students can conveniently toss out trash on their way out. By reducing the trash around our school, we can try to limit the number of cockroach encounters.
The messes left around the school bug me. And the more I see cockroaches, the more they bug me. So unless you are looking for a new workout partner, I would be surprised if their presence did not bug you too.