Backrooms Level 0 (The Lobby), Explained

What is Level 0 in the Backrooms?

Level 0, nicknamed “The Lobby”, is the first level of the Backrooms and the place most people land when they fall out of normal reality. In the fan-written Backrooms on Fandom, it’s an enormous, non-Euclidean maze of rooms that look like the back rooms of an old shop: yellowed wallpaper, worn damp carpet and fluorescent lights that never switch off.

It’s the level that started everything. The photo of an empty yellow room that launched the Backrooms in 2019 is, in this version of the lore, simply a picture of Level 0. A few wanderers report arriving straight into Level 1 or Level 2 instead, but those accounts are unconfirmed; for nearly everyone, the Backrooms begin here.

This guide covers the fan-written Fandom version only. Other versions describe Level 0 differently (more on that below).

What does Level 0 look, sound and smell like?

Yellow walls, wet carpet, and a buzz you can’t escape. Every room on Level 0 shares the same surface details:

• Yellowed wallpaper, the level’s best-known feature.
• Worn, moist carpet. Dents in it suggest furniture once stood there, though nobody has proved it.
• Scattered electrical outlets and unevenly placed fluorescent lights.
• No two rooms alike. Beyond those details, every area has its own shape and layout.

The sound is the worst part. The lights give off a constant hum-buzz that’s louder than any normal fluorescent tube, and it gives most people throbbing migraines that last even after they’ve left.

As for the smell, the 2019 post that invented the Backrooms describes “the stink of old moist carpet”. The damp carpet is still there on the Lobby today.

Is Level 0 safe?

Yes and no. Level 0 is rated Class 1, “Safe”, with no entities, but it still kills people slowly. Its full threat index reads Class 1, Safe, Unstable, Devoid of Entities. Class 1 is the lowest of the standard 1-to-5 danger ratings the Backrooms’ explorers use (the special Class Habitable is friendlier still).

What makes it deadly is what’s missing. There’s no food and no clean water, and the fluid soaking the carpet has been judged unsafe to drink. Many who die on Level 0 fall to dehydration, exhaustion or starvation.

The other danger is your own mind. Because the layout never makes sense, researchers think the confusion itself breaks people down. Some wanderers report intense visual and auditory hallucinations, and in rare cases people descend into “utter lunacy”.

Are there entities on Level 0?

No. Level 0 is devoid of entities, and you won’t meet other people either. The level is affected by a phenomenon called Phenomenon 15, or “Alone”: it creates a separate copy of the level for every wanderer who enters, so each person walks their own private Level 0. Level 0 is the best-known level it affects.

So if you think you’ve seen someone else down the hall, the most likely explanation is a hallucination brought on by isolation. Researchers who returned again and again noticed small differences each time they entered: the wallpaper slightly darker, objects slightly out of place, a light flickering. That’s the sign you’re in a fresh copy.

Want the creatures you will meet further in? See Backrooms entities explained.

How big is Level 0? Is it infinite?

Nobody has measured it; it’s described as expansive and non-Euclidean, so it behaves as if it never ends. The original 2019 post guessed “approximately six hundred million square miles” of empty rooms, about three times the surface area of the entire Earth.

Size isn’t really the problem, though. Space on Level 0 doesn’t follow normal rules: you can walk in a straight line, come back to your starting point and find yourself in a different set of rooms. Mapping it is pointless, which is exactly why people get lost.

There’s also a hidden layer. Above the drop ceiling is a crawlspace about a metre high, full of wires, fixtures and ventilation ducts. You can’t really travel through it, because the dust makes the air unbreathable.

How do you get out of Level 0?

Keep walking until the halls turn into Level 1, rest in the Manila Room, or break through a wall or floor. The Fandom version lists five documented exits, plus the Manila Room:

How	Where it leads	What you’d be walking into
Walk far and long enough; the halls gradually turn into garages	Level 1, “Parking Zone”	Class 1: safe, stable, few entities. The easiest way out
Stay in the Manila Room for a long time	Level 1, or Level 2, “Pipe Dreams”	Level 2 is Class 2, rated unsafe
Break through a wall	Level 483, “Grayscale Halls”	Its page is mid-rewrite, so details may change
Break through the floor	Level 27, “Ligneous Desolation”; rarely the Void	Level 27 is Class 1 with no entities; the Void is the dark you fall through between levels
Find a rare emergency exit	Level 14, “Inhospitality”	Class 4: unsafe, with dangerous entities and hazards. Think twice
Go through glass sliding doors like a greenhouse’s	Level 13, “Vitrum Madness”	Class 1, but with psychological hazards

The short version: walk, and keep walking. The slow transition into Level 1 is the gentlest route. The emergency exit sounds like the obvious choice and is the most dangerous one on the list.

For what comes after the Lobby, see Backrooms levels explained and how to survive the Backrooms.

What is the Manila Room?

A small, calmer room that can appear anywhere on Level 0, and one of its few reliable exits. It has the same damp carpet and loud lights, but its walls carry a manila pattern that many people find soothing, and its single overhead light is dimmer, with an orange tint. Wanderers use it as a rough resting point.

Being near it dulls your senses, so many people wander in without noticing. Stay inside long enough and you’re reported to end up on Level 1 or Level 2. Some describe faint whispering from behind its walls (possibly just the usual hallucinations), and the room has occasional blackouts.

Why do people end up on Level 0?

Most people arrive straight from the real world, and Level 0 may be where reality dumps them. The most common way in is from the Frontrooms, the explorers’ name for ordinary reality. A theory holds that Level 0 is a “dumping ground” for people who go missing: sightings have been reported of people from real disappearances, including Amelia Earhart, the 1935 Yangtze floods and the MV Joyita. The same theory suggests water accidents are the most common route in.

There’s a darker idea too. The Limina Theory says the Backrooms are a prison made by unnatural forces, a kind of hell or purgatory. Most major groups don’t follow it, but it’s still the most popular non-scientific explanation among wanderers.

Where is Level 0 in real life?

The photo of Level 0 was taken in 2002 inside a former furniture store in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It was snapped on 12 June 2002 during renovations for a new HobbyTown hobby shop. Its origin stayed unknown until a Backrooms Discord community traced it in May 2024. The room no longer looks like that; it was turned into a radio-controlled car track.

The full story is in are the Backrooms real?

Is Level 0 “The Lobby” or “Threshold”?

On Fandom, Level 0 is “The Lobby”. On the rival Wikidot site it’s called “Threshold”, with its own description and different exits. Both started from the same 2019 post, but they’re separate fan projects, and their level pages now disagree.

That’s why search results and AI answers often contradict each other about Level 0, mixing the two names or listing exits that don’t appear in this version. This guide sticks to the Fandom version throughout.

Kane Pixels’ web series and the A24 film don’t use numbered levels, so “Level 0” belongs to the fan versions. In Kane Pixels’ series, a “Threshold” is something else entirely: a stable doorway between reality and the Backrooms, like the one Async built. Which Backrooms is canon? explains how the versions fit together, and what is Async? covers Kane’s Threshold.

More on the whole world: the Backrooms.