Living in the dorms can be a stressful time. You’re surrounded by people you may not know that well, and for most of us, it’s the closest we’ve come so far to having our own place away from parents and siblings.

There are just enough rules to deter anything terrible from happening, but there are still plenty of ways to have some classic prank-filled fun.

Sources shared favorite tidbits of their own pranks, including rappelling out of a top floor window at Summit Hall, duct-taping door handles together to trap people and convincing a fellow resident that someone on their floor was pregnant with her fourth child.

“We took a pregnancy test and opened it up and drew a line to make it look positive, then put it back together. Then the ‘pregnant’ girl took the test and had a freak-out and we successfully convinced the other girl that she was pregnant again and she freaked out,” said sophomore equine science major Alyx Moose. “Everyone in the hall, including the RA, was in on it except her and it was great. We let her believe it for about two days.”

So what is it about life in the dorms that inspires these hijinks?

“I think the fact that we were living in such close quarters for a long period of time had something to do with it because it made it easy, and because we spent so much time together,” said Moose.

Another common prank among students is the moving of furniture from room to room. Sophomore biomedical sciences major Zach Pollack managed to move a bed from one room to another through the windows. He was able to gain access into his friend’s — now girlfriend’s —room by grabbing her key off the table she was sitting at while kissing her to distract her.

“She had no idea I had the key to her room,” said Pollack. “So, the guys and I snuck into her room and opened her window, stole the bed through the window, and into my room.”

Moose was also the victim of a bed-napping when she decided to go out of town for her birthday weekend.

“When I returned, I found my mattress was missing,” she said. “Locating it wasn’t bad — it was in the fire tower.”

What Moose didn’t realize until later was that her mattress was not the only thing unaccounted for.

“All my bras were missing. But not only were they missing, each one was hanging in a different person’s bedroom throughout the hall on display for all to see,” she said.

Missing underwear seems to be another common trait in prank wars. The battles between Pollack’s friends and his opponents included the abduction and public display of his friend’s underwear.

“We found them taped up to the ceiling, walls, and anywhere else the girls could reach in the stairwells and other floors,” said Pollack.

There were many battles in Pollack’s war with weapons such as baby powder, chocolate syrup and hundreds of cups of water placed all around his room.

“The prank war has never come to a defined winner, and is still not over. Who knows? Maybe retelling this story will motivate me enough to restart the war,” he said.

Collegian Writer McKenna Ferguson can be reached at news@collegian.com.