Ikea to Customers: Our Stores Are Not for Sleepovers

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Ikea is a popular spot for money-conscious shoppers to snag affordable, ready-to-assemble furniture and home goods. But now the Swedish furniture retailer is also a hot spot for teenagers searching for a little adventure and a place to rest their sleepy heads at night.

That fact is giving Ikea a headache and has the retailer warning its customers: Our stores are not for sleepovers.

In just the past few months, Ikea has discovered “at least 10 sleepover ‘incidents'” at its stores, CNN Money reports.

The Swedish furniture giant says people started trying to sneak into their stores and spend the night after two teens staged a sleepover at an Ikea in Ghent, Belgium, and then filmed the exploit and posted a video of it — dubbed “Two Idiots at Night in Ikea” — to YouTube.

The video, including favorable reviews of the Ikea beds’ comfort, has been viewed nearly 2 million times since it was posted on Aug. 24. “[The video] went crazy as hell,” Florian Van Hecke — one of the teens — tells The Washington Post.

Van Hecke and his partner-in-crime, Bram Geirnaert, hid in wardrobes on display at Ikea for three hours before emerging into the closed store for the night. The teens then spent the rest of their night bouncing on beds and pretending to sleep. They hid in the wardrobes again in the wee hours of the morning, then fled the store after it opened, the Post explains.

Since the two Belgian teens posted their video on YouTube, several other wannabe Ikea crashers have attempted to spend the night in Ikea stores across the globe, leading an Ikea spokesperson to issue this statement to BBC News:

“We appreciate that people are interested in Ikea and want to create fun experiences. However, the safety and security of our co-workers and customers is our highest priority and that’s why we do not allow sleepovers in our stores.”

What do you think about pranksters attempting to stage illegal sleepovers at Ikea stores? Sound off below or on Facebook.

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