'Your security gate is a ladder': 20+ Exceptionally flawed designs

Mistakes shouldn't be this funny. Some of these designs are just baffling, and the poor people who encounter them daily must think the same thing. 

One of the funniest design flaws I've encountered are the sinks in the bathrooms at Penn Station, as well as some other public places in NYC. As you can see here, the automated sink design is quite unusual. If you look closely, you'll see that there are symbols for soap, water, and hand dryers, as you look from left to right. But the first time you encounter one of these sensor-activated things, it's almost impossible to operate. You turn on the water in the middle, only to immediately have the air dryer part activate, thereby spraying you in the face with water. Then you move your hand over to avoid that, and get a glob of soap automatically dropped onto your coat sleeve. It's very funny to witness (well, maybe not during your own first time, but seeing people encounter it with surprise for the first time is pretty funny. And yes, people are usually nice enough to tell others how to use it). Now that a few years have passed, some of the little symbols have also worn off, leaving it even more of a mystery for the thousands of travelers who pass through each day. Why couldn't they have just installed regular faucets? Would that have been so difficult? No, instead they decided to make your travels a little more quirky, and we're all just living with the results. 

Anyway, check out some other really bad design flaws below! Then, read about one upstairs neighbor who thought of the worst possible solution to a flooded kitchen.