Kate, I don't want to come across as being stern with you at all, so don't take it that way. I think you've got to find a way to provide worms to your newts. If your roommate refused to allow live food, you should have considered other options. Now that you've got the newts, you have to find a way to give them what they need. If they stop eating pellets, you need to try live food. I am guessing that you got your newts from a pet store. This means that they were wild caught, and once had live food. Now, all of a sudden, they don't. If you got them captive bred, they were surely fed live food. Either way, they were not always raised on pellets. Granted, there have been a few on here that have successfully fed newt pellets and it has been "okay". (Define, "okay".)
The best thing I've learned from this forum is that if I want to raise newts either for enjoyment or for breeding purposes so that I too can benefit the hobby (or both, of course) the best thing I can do is provide as much of a natural environment for my newts as possible. Pellets are not natural.
Maybe you could setup a small mini-fridge elsewhere for the worms so that your roommate's food would not be near them? I think that you would find many benefits to live food. They may be more active, they may gain weight better,... I have found that my newts gained and maintained their weight better while on live food.
If you need to feed, but they won't enter the water, try to feed in a small plastic container with a very shallow amount of water.