It’s that time of year again. Takeout boxes are stacked high on our counters, laundry is piling up in our hampers, and notebooks are sprawled open on our desks. The home stretch: final exam season. And while we spend every waking moment in Robarts trying to nail down Euler’s method or finish our papers, some secret invaders take the opportunity to sneak into our dorm rooms. With our attention diverted, a bustling microscopic world begins to thrive in our very own dorm rooms.

In fact, in your dorm room, you are stirring up around 37 million bacteria in the air every hour. Researchers note that the major cause of this bacteria is floor dust. The Innis carpet is notorious for trapping clumps of dust, and in general, carpeted rooms are confirmed to host a significant amount of microorganisms. Lucky for us, only 0.1 percent of all microorganisms indoors are infectious. Here’s the catch, though: all infectious diseases we get, we get indoors.

The most common types of infectious microorganisms found in our dorms are bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Bacteria are single-celled organisms that are so minuscule that one thousand bacteria could fit across the edge of a pencil eraser. Disease-causing bacteria can either produce toxins that can make you ill or directly invade and damage tissue. Common bacterial diseases include strep throat and tuberculosis. Viruses are even smaller than bacterial cells – so small that they basically are just capsules of genetic material. Viruses reproduce by invading your body’s cells and hijacking the cellular mechanisms, often destroying the cells in the process. Viruses are responsible for many diseases, including the infamous finals week cold. Lastly, we have fungi, where some types can be eaten as mushrooms, yeast, or blue cheese, and others can cause illnesses such as thrush.

While most of the microorganisms in our dorms are harmless free loaders, others can be a bit more malicious. Let this serve as a gentle reminder to do the humbling trek of carrying the heavy, yellow vacuum up through the elevator to your dorm room to clean out the dust bunnies before your first final. A quick vacuum will keep your unseen roommates in check while we go on with being academic weapons.