In the tomb of horrors, there is a door that summons a monster to attack the players if the players stab the door. This is apparently something that not only happens in Gary Gygax's campaigns, but happens often enough that he encoded it into one of the most famous dungeons of all time.
It used to be a common strategy to poke or stab things to see what is real and what wants to hurt you, I think stranger things even touched on it a bit.
Yeah ten foot poles were standard gear for a reason.
I don't really like traps too much as a DM, it seems too easy to make a lethal trap (at least in a fantasy setting) and why would the makers bother with a non-lethal one?