As sophomore Matt Racila entered the central locker room to get changed for gym class, he encountered a nasty scene. A lone granola bar sat in the middle of the floor covered with a swarm of hungry ants, gathering the remains of some careless student’s snack. He quickly goes to his locker, hoping to forget this event and move on with his day.

This scene is not uncommon within the locker rooms of Huntley High School. Many students have seen the ants that crawl around and near the bottom of the lockers, along the top row of the lockers, and everywhere in between. This infestation has to be caused by something, but what? The answer is quite simple: food.

As many students have probably seen, the locker rooms are not the most well-kept places in the high school, far from them, in fact. Most of the time, clothes are strewn about the locker rooms and most importantly, food is left on the benches and in lockers. It’s an example of how poorly treated the locker rooms are by the students who use them every day — and the ants are the consequence of that. 

“What it comes down to is students taking care of the facilities and students taking care of the places where, in this case, it’s a place where you keep your clothes and a place that you would want to be clean. So, if there is an issue with ants, you think maybe the student body needs to take a look in the mirror and say “what are we doing to keep this place clean?” gym teacher Colin Kalamatas said.

However, this brings up the thought that many students will have of “What if I have to eat right before my gym hour and still have food with me? What will I do then?” 

“If you’re coming from lunch, we get it. Or, if you’re trying to get some breakfast in before P.E. class, we totally understand. We’re totally accepting that you guys need to do that, but use the trash can before you bring it in. Use the trash cans that we have inside if you do bring [food] in. Just don’t leave it in your lockers,” Kalamatas said. 

This problem can only be solved by us, the student body. Since the locker room is only fully cleaned at the end of each semester, it is imperative that we clean up after ourselves. We are at the age where we should be starting to, or already, act like young adults and making this school an environment that we would all be happy to call home.

In the end, if you see that someone has left some unwanted food in an open locker or just lying around, don’t hesitate to either tell a teacher about it or throw it away yourself. 

By doing this, we can stop the infestation of ants and return cleanliness to our locker rooms.