30 Hilarious, Stupid And Just ‘What The Heck’ Moments Escape Room Staff Have Witnessed People Do

An employee of an escape room told me this one.

The room was in English, but one of the guys was Italian and for some unknown reason couldn't communicate that he wanted to go to the toilet beforehand. So they go into the room, there is a bucket there that is supposed to be used as a clue, but this madman waits while the lights are still off (horror based room) and PEES IN THE BUCKET! And because the bucket was in a camera dead-zone and there was a sponge in it, they found out after the room was over.

Not an employee, but I have a group of friends that I do esscape rooms with a lot.

On one room, at some point you found a few ping-pong balls and rackets. Two of us cleared a table and started playing while the other two looked at us like we were out of our minds.

I just assume any non-common rules given at the beginning are because some idiot has already done it.

Don't jump out the two-story window. Don't eat or drink anything that you find. Don't try to climb into the ceiling. Don't touch anything with an orange sticker (which turns out to be 80% of the room including electrical sockets).

We went to one in Ottawa Ontario where there was, among other things, a landscape painting hung on the wall upside-down. The five of us spent a significant amount of time trying to work out what the painting meant for us, because it was clearly intentional. Wasted most of our time, didn't solve the room, and when the employee came in we asked him to walk us through the rest of the puzzle. He didn't even reference the painting, so I asked him about it. Apparently, despite being told not to remove the painting from the wall (as we were) the previous group had removed it and left it on the floor. When the employee went to reset the room for us, he didn't notice he had hung it inverted.

I believe that was the same place that required us to open a type of padlock we'd never seen before, with a sort of joystick in the middle that you slide up, down, left or right. We thought we knew the combination for sure, but the stupid thing wouldn't open. We had to call the guy in to ask what the real combination was so we could progress. He said we had the combo, then sat down on the floor to open it for us (it was on a short cabinet, he wasn't just lazy). Took him like 4 tries to get it open.

I went with a group of 10. First room, we solved all the mini puzzles, but we couldn't figure out the letter combination lock. There were words written on the wall so we started trying them. We couldn't get it...so eventually my friends were like...hey, this window opens and there is a key against the other wall. Maybe we're supposed to grab that key. So we used a fishing pole to try and grab it, but it was too far. Next thing I know, a guy lifted me up and pushed me through the window. And in doing so, the fake wall broke. They let us finish and we had the second lowest time for completing it, but we got a stern talking to about not going through windows. And they told us that in the first room, we had to press a button on a flashlight twice and it turns into a black light and the combination was written next to the door.

Lots of things can be credited to nerves, first time, or just "whoops" moments.

I've had two groups now that immediately try every code they find on the door they entered from. Would you really be happy if the first code you found let you escaped? Seems like a waste of money to me, but hey, you guys do you.

Something my group did. At the very beginning, we were supposed to find 2 keys to get through a door. We found one of the keys hidden behind a picture, but we could not find the second one at all. Instead of calling the employees for help, we used the same key for both locks to get through...

Not an employee, but once when I was leaving, I looked up to see someone's upper half hanging out the window and he was shouting "ALMOST OUT!" - to this day I wonder if that guy was alright afterwards. I just don't think he got the whole idea of an escape room...

Said clearly during the rules, that anything with a DO NOT TOUCH STICKER was NOT to be touched. Said sticker was on a electrical outlet.

“I’m so smarter then the rest of you” person decides the best place to put the key was in?....

The electrical outlet.

Not an employee, but I once tried to use a magnetized tool behind the camera they were using to watch me because I thought there was a key there. Even the game maker was confused.