HUSH: They Can Hear Building Guide: When and Why to Board Windows

Quick answer

Board windows while you are looting in town, after leaving the sewer safe zone, but only once your escape path is clear. Do it before you push deep into a building: boarding seals the window, and the extra seconds sealed windows give you can save a run.

What boarding windows actually does

Boarding a window produces a sealed window, and the benefit is simple: extra seconds. Sealed windows buy you time that an open window does not, and in HUSH that time matters — monsters track you by sound, and a run is won by reaching a marked exit before hunters close in. No exact second count is attached to a sealed window, so treat the gain as a safety margin you build in advance: extra seconds that can save a run, not a promised outcome.

When to board windows in a run

Boarding is not a one-time project — it is a step in the core survival loop of every run:

1. Leave the sewer safe zone and pick a quiet route into town.
2. Loot buildings carefully: close doors and avoid sprinting near monsters.
3. Board windows — or hotwire a car — only when the escape path is clear.
4. Extract through marked exits with your valuables before hunters close in.
5. After each wipe, adjust how loud your loadout and movement are.

Within that loop, two timing rules carry most of the weight:

Board before you loot deep. Seal a building's windows before you work into its back rooms. If a search goes wrong while you are buried inside, the sealed windows are already giving you those extra seconds — and those seconds can be what saves the run.

Only when the escape path is clear. Like hotwiring a car, boarding is a commitment you make only when your way out is already sorted. If the route out is unclear, fix that first — see how to escape — because boarding against an unclear exit spends time you may not get back.

How boarding fits the rest of your run

Boarding works alongside the quiet-run habits: treat noise as a resource, loot one building at a time, and keep early bags light so escapes stay manageable. Those habits lower the odds that you ever need the extra seconds — boarded windows are there for the moments you need them anyway.

If you are still learning the loop, the beginner guide covers a full run from the sewers to extraction, and the tips and tricks guide goes deeper on staying unheard between buildings. For the loot itself, see the loot items guide.

One caveat to keep in mind: HUSH is in beta, and patches can shift monster hearing, maps and exits. If boarding or escapes start feeling different after an update, recheck the game's Roblox page for the current behavior.