I have a plastic worm bin..... it does not sound as nice as yours.... but I too had escaping worms..... until I lined the bin with a light porus material...... Landscape material might work. I used some polyester basket ball shirt material I had on hand. it worked great: no escapees for years. cecile

Your food was too old and had gone anaerobic. You want food that is fresh just starting to decompose but not rotten. If it stinks it has gone anaerobic and is toxic to the worms and the microbes that the worms eat. Both the worms and the microbes need oxygen the live.

Think of it this way.
With aerobic decomposition ( in the presence of oxygen ) the food should still smell like food. But just starting to spoil/decompose, starting to look and smell 'OFF'. You want the worms to eat it before it starts to rot.

Rotting is anaerobic decomposition ( without the presence of oxygen ). The Stinky smell is a dead giveaway. You should feed or store the food in a freezer before it reaches this stage. Don't let it sit out for over a week in any case.

Try cutting a large hole in the lid of a container putting a paper towel on top and putting the lid on over the towel. That should give you enough air.

fosteem1, thanks for your comment.
BTW, for how long (days) do you keep food (for worms) outside at room temperature before you put in in freezer, or feed it to worms? Or do you not keep it outside at all, and keep your container in fridge/freezer as you add food scraps to it?

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mcec, I've thought about lining the bottom with a porous material that won't allow worms to escape, and if I have more worms escaping, I will try that out. Currently, I have a cardboard egg carton (soaked in water and flattened) at the bottom. But escaping worms give a clue that something is wrong in the bin.

I put food scraps directly in the freezer. When I feed, they go directly from the freezer to the bin, though giving them a few hours to thaw would probably be better that putting frozen food scraps directly into the bin.

I keep the large rectangular plastic container that baby greens come in, in my frig and toss my veggie scraps in there. I peel my potatoes and carrots directly into it.

When it's full, I chop everything either manually or using the food processor, then put into bags and freeze.
I thaw and drain for a day, then feed to the lads. They've never complained about their food, and they get everything from potatoes, to lemons and oranges, onion butts, cabbage cores, etc.

When I put frozen food in the bin, the worms were all stuck to it like in the "Christmas Story" movie. I had to call the fire department.

Thanks everyone, for sharing their thoughts. I will make sure to feed the worms only aerobically active food, and not anaerobically active. That seemed to have triggered the exodus.