20 minutes before I wrote this article I just encountered face-to-face in our apartment, for the fourth time this summer, a cockroach. Specifically, the American Cockroach: found in the apartments of Atlanta, also known as my current home over the summer. The following article is a tribute to our struggles this summer with sharing our beloved apartment with this particular species of cockroach.

To any Emory upperclassmen reading this, please for your sake and everyone else's sake, invest in "Raid" Roach Spray. It will turn into your favorite item in your cleaning supply cabinet and is worth every penny. That magic bottle turned a terrifying task into one that you can handle with just a little screaming, heavy breathing, and some background motivation from all your fellow roommates.

Apartment living in Atlanta is a wonderful experience. Don't get me wrong: now that the summer is coming to an end, I am beginning to appreciate and fall in love with all the little quirks of our little two-bedroom home: the lack of door locks that allow us to always barge in on our suitemates to hang out, the miniscule trash can that magically seems to fill up ten minutes after we just took out the trash, the lack of three-prong electrical outlets that make you wonder how you are supposed to charge anything outside from the single outlet in the living room, and of course my wonderful roommates who I couldn't have possibly survived this summer without.

Shreya, thank you for being my lovely - always singing with me - always-down-to-dance - food-sharing - bickering Indian aunty - who I've had the fortune to spend all summer with and so glad we got so close these past few months. Love you.

Jojo, thank you for being absolutely flawless with a heart of gold. For always keeping it real and for all the evening kitchen-table talks with your fantastic mellow music that we both love. Can't wait to catch up with you during our breaks in Philly <3

Christy, thanks for being the hype-woman (tbt karaoke) and enlightening us with all of your stories and mom advice. You always find us a way to make us laugh no matter what mood we're in and I hope we stay in touch next year <3

Out of all the things that have bonded the four of us this summer, the most recent one that comes to mind and the topic of this article is, of course, our close encounters with the cockroach. I have to say I am proud of how far we have come in our cockroach-killing skills: a necessary skill to survive apartment living in Atlanta and one that will definitely be going on all of our resumes after this summer. We started out the summer one night on cockroach-watch duty, sitting in our lounge chairs at night waiting for the cockroach to come out from under the oven. If that wasn't the most depressing thing we've done I don't know what is.

Our next encounter was with this monstrosity of a creature on the top of the wall in our living room, bothering us the day before I had my midterm for a summer class. But, rather than spend the night on cockroach-watch duty, this time we teamed up and took at least thirty minutes to kill that cockroach, using up a third of our bottle of cockroach spray and learning in the process that the cockroaches FLY. The third time we didn't mess around, and the cockroach was killed in under ten minutes, and twenty minutes ago, we hit our roommate world record of five minutes.

1. Get a step-stool if you need it because more than often these cockroaches creep up on the tops of your walls near the ceiling.
2. Get your handy-dandy cockroach spray that should be stocked in every college apartment.
3. Don't be afraid to get close to the target.
4. Spray like there's no tomorrow.

If you find yourself still reading this article, congratulations you have made it to the end of Apartment Living PSA: Dealing with the American Cockroach with your Roommates!