I went out to wash the windows. Plain water wouldn’t cut it. I came in after the swabbing brush and the Dawn dish detergent. And I headed out again to hose down the windows and scrub.
“I’ll help,” says Jane. The wind is blowing a gale. She comes out of the house.
The door slams.
We are, yes, locked out. We have a 6 foot fence around the back yard, and we believe the back door is open. But—it requires climbing skills to get over that fence. The ladder is lying, yes, inside the fence. All the locks but one are locked, and the key is, yes, IN the house.
So…”We have a ladder,” say I, dump the bucket (5 gallon) and head for the gate with the open lock. But it’s not tall enough.
Poor Jane has to get up onto that inverted bucket, on uneven ground, and climb on to the empty (and tippy) rolling city garbage bin, which I am holding steady with my right hand, while my left foot is hooked around that bucket trying to prevent it tipping.
Up goes Jane. And she got it. Yes, the back door was still unlocked. And Jane managed to get back down off the rig without breaking her neck.
Sometimes you’re glad the camera is also locked in the house.
I have been notorious for locking my keys in the house when I go out to do yardwork. I have one set of keys on my keyring, another set in the car, and it seems whenever I lock myself out, the car ends up being locked, too, even though it’s in the garage.
I’ve climbed over a windowsill in the side yard (which now hides the litterbox), used a stepladder to get into the living room windows, even one time, when the windows were all locked, I found a spare key (I won’t say where), but didn’t know which door it opened. After working around the house, I discovered it was the front door, which is never used because it opens up into the living room, right next to my recliner, and there is no walkway up to that porch anyway. The screen door was unlocked, but the door to the inside was locked. I thought that I was in big trouble if the key didn’t work, but I got lucky. I’m wondering how many people drove by while I was crawling up the stepladder to get in through the living room window, or when i “broke” in through the side window.
At least, my spare car key isn’t anywhere around, my parents have that one, and if I ever need it and they’re not home, I’m in trouble.
Been there, done that, at least twice.
Last time: over the stair railing, over the board fence (starting from a faucet setup), to the back door that I rarely locked because it was so hard to get to. The fence was taller than me, too.
Once, years ago, it involved climbing a ladder to the balcony, where I could break a small pane of glass to get a door unlocked, instead of a big pane. After which I took a spare set of keys and hung them on the back side of a stud in the boiler room. (Easy to get to, not immediately obvious, and in a more-or-less clean dry location.)
Where I live now, I put the keys in my pocket every time I go out past the doorstep.
Each of my adult children has a spare key to my house and we have one in a decoration that hangs on the outside of the house in case we get locked out. But once I had to dangle a teen-aged son over the roof to get access to the open window of an upstairs room that one of the pre-teen daughters had locked herself out of. We still discuss that incident at Christmas dinners!
A friend and I went out to lunch and he forgot his keys at home. We got back and walked around his house looking for a way in. I noticed his dining room window had a batten between the sliding and fixed parts of the window held by exposed Phillips screws. I unfolded my Swiss Army knife, and voilà . Took about a minute.
So, good to walk around the house and see it from a burglar’s point of view. And those funny screws, like Torx or the stars? I got a set to open all different kinds and sizes of them at Lowes for $10 or so. Don’t depend on those for security.
Even single paned windows are harder to break than one would think. I’d hate to have to try double or triple glazing!
We never lock our garage door (both the one from the outside into the garage and the one from the garage into the house), so it’s rarely a problem. Then again, burglars could very concieveably be a problem.
I have, on occasion, left my keys in my dorm room. And once, I left my entire purse at home coming back from a weekend at my parents’ house… no keys, no cash, no ID of any kind… I had a dickens of a time getting the mailbox people to let me open, without ID, the package that CONTAINED my ID (and a better Catch-22 I have never come across)!
Ha! I can beat all those stories. First, let me give you an overview of the spot I was living in. It was the end unit of set of two story row homes, with a fenced in patio behind it and then the garage. Really a rather nice little starter home.
Well, I woke up in the middle of the night to the sounds of a terrible cat fight. Somewhat groggy, I got up to break it up, only to realize that one of the cats was curled up on the bed. Highly intrigued at this point, I went downstairs to find little Rana-cat having a very noisy spat with the neighbor’s cat through one of the windows. Lots of yowling and slapping the glass and hiss-spitting. I figured the only way to get any sleep that night was to make sure that the invading cat left what Rana considered her territory. So I went to the back door, with a very angry cat on my heels, and quickly opened the door, slipped through it, and quickly shut it so that Rana couldn’t get out. And just as the door closed, I thought to myself “oh no… it’s locked!” (It was one of those doors that you can open from the inside while it’s still locked.) Sure enough, it’s locked. And it’s 2 am, in a residential neighborhood. And I’m wearing a t-shirt and my undies. I was standing there trying to figure out what in the world I was going to do, with no phone, no money for a pay phone, no keys. And I had just a few days earlier gone and put charlie-bars in all the downstairs windows, so I figured I was pretty much out of luck with getting in through any of them.
Thankfully, my next door neighbor worked the graveyard shift, and came out to smoke a cigarette. She loaned me a robe and let me use her phone to try and find a locksmith that would come out in the middle of the night. I finally got someone out at 3 am. Someone in a car, with a drum kit, and wearing what looked like pajamas. And of course, their first question was “Can you prove that you live here?” I just looked at him and said I could, if I could get inside, since all my ID was in my purse inside my house. He managed to get the door unlocked, and then I had to get dressed and go drive to an ATM so that I could get him cash to pay for unlocking the door. Since he only asked for $45, I’m pretty sure that he was working off the books for that job. Apparently he’d been practicing with some band mates when my call came in.
And the neighbor’s cat? It ran off when I opened the back door, of course! Rana had gone back to sleep by the time I got in.
When I was in college, I drove to visit my boyfriend 2 states over. After a night on the town, I discovered my keychain was missing, with both house and car keys on it. A locksmith was able to replace the car key (this was one of the old Omnis, where the same key let you into the car as the ignition), but the house key was a deadbolt. Trying to call my roomies was fail, since it was a holiday weekend and they were all elsewhere. I ended up driving through the night to get home, and sleep/wait in my car for one of my roommates to get home and let me in. We lived on the second floor of a house broken up into flats, and the only ways into the unit were a solid front door that immediately led into a staircase to the second floor with no convenient windows, or the back door, again with no convenient windows, accessible only from a fire-escape staircase.
One of the nice things about living Well off the beaten path. No near neighbors, dead end road, long way from anything like a population center, etc. We never bother to lock the house, or the cars. In fact the keys are normally left in the cars. With four vehicles and two cars worth of garage space there is always something sitting outside, and the keys are most likely to be in it.
This applies no matter Where we may be, no matter how long we are going to be away.
There is no point in locking the place up. If someone Did ever manage to Find the house with the intention of breaking in there is no one who would see it happen (assuming we weren’t Home at the time). The only real option would be one of the monitoring companies (Like ADT, for example), and even with that it’s an “after the fact” thing, any break-in would be long since over and gone before police or sheriff could be expected to get here.
It’s hard sometimes, when away from the house or travelling, to remember to take the keys out and Lock the car, or the room..
Hmmm, upon reflection, there Is a circumstance where the keys would be taken out of the car(s) at the house. During the winter, if I was planning on using the Truck in the morning and it was going to be snowing overnight (or just Really cold) then I would bring the keys in that evening so as to be able to use the remote start in the morning.
Nice to be able to start the thing up from Inside the house and let it warm. Just have to plan ahead and remember to turn on the defroster and the seat heater..
I was coming back from a business trip abroad last year, on a friday night when my family was away. I realized in the cab I didn’t have my keys, and worried all the way home that I’d not get there by 1 am, when the doorman went off duty. We pulled up at 1245, with great relief, to find he’d left his shift early for once. I had to go to a hotel for the night. When I checked in I realized I had left my blackberry in the cab. I needed the blackberry, of course, to get the cab company name so as to call the cab company to bring me back the blackberry.
One of the first things I did when we moved into our current home (about 13 years ago) was to replace the locks. Yes, everyone should, but I also replaced the doorknobs because I hate those “push and twist” locks on doorknobs that even allow one to lock oneself out of the house. So, we have gone to deadbolt only in our house – no way to lock oneself out!
– S
I managed to lock my self out to discover what a good job we do of securing our house. Only key I had was to the front door but the chain was on. I had moved it from it’s original postion to a higher one because my son was sleep walking. After doing a thorough walk around and battering the door jam in my garage and decided we were going to have to break the chain lock. So being a manly man I gave it a good kick and viola the door opened…along with most of the trim around the door. I mangled it pretty good and I eneded up having to replace all of trim so it would match. That in itself ended up being a madium size job for the non-handyman.
Todd, next time that happens 😉 just get a short-handled Phillips screwdriver, reach in through the gap, and remove the anchor plate from the door jamb by backing out the screws. I disconcerted my parents considerably by doing that at a friend’s house at the age of 9 (for full and sufficient reasons).
As you proved, the chain is not an impediment if you really want to get in.
Heck, if the chain is long enough you can just partially open the door, reach in and slide it out of the holder-thingy. Used to do it all the time at college, when the roomie would put the chain on the door and go to sleep before I got back.
Ah, yes, locked out. Years ago we lived in an upstairs apt. in an old house. The door was on a porch and opened onto stairs that led to our apt. Bill was out of town on a band gig. I can’t remember how I ended up outside without keys, but I did. Fortunately the landlord’s garage was not locked, and there was a very tall ladder in there. It was at least 10 feet tall; I am 5ft1inch. I got the ladder out and struggled to get it propped to the bathroom window, the only one with easy access; pine trees blocked the others, but the branches were too far away to make climbing safe.
I climbed this tall ladder, very nervously, and managed to balance on it while pushing the inside of the place where the two bits that slide up and down came together. I managed to get the lower pane to move up enough that I could get my hands under the bottom and push it up. I was then faced with the top of the radiator that came up about 4 inches above the bottom of the window. I had to get myself over this and inside somehow, without falling off the ladder in the process. Oh, and the bathtub, one of those comfy clawfoot ones, was about a foot from the radiator, so I had very little space to fall into if I fell into the house.
I could not get my legs up and through the window, so I leaned forward, pushed my head and upper body on the radiator, and worked my arms through to grab the radiator sides and pulled hard. At some point I had to take my feet off the ladder and wriggle; of course, I kicked the ladder and it went backwards in the yard, hanging up on a lilac bush.
Somehow I wriggled in and got turned around on the radiator so I could reach a leg down to the floor. Now I wonder that I did not fall in and hit my head on the bathtub; I could easily have broken my neck.
Re the security of most modern doors: Jane and I were leaving for England…big anxiety about NOT missing our flight. My parents agreed to drive 20 miles in from Edmond, OK to OKC to take us about 10 more miles to the airport…and be sure we got off in good order.
I closed the door. And the plane tickets were inside, along with ALL our house keys—I discovered this when I went to hand the house keys to Dad. They were on the other side of a stout solid hardwood door.
We were hosed.
I was so upset I gave that door several bashes with my hip—at the time I was a woman pushing 50—and heard the doorframe splinter. We got the tickets. And the keys. Dad took us to the airport, and Mom stayed to guard the house until Dad could get us to the airport, get some lumber, and come back to fix our door.
The wood to which the door is attached is definitely the weakest link, and it is very commonly not hardwood.
When I was living in an apartment in Norfolk, I installed a chain lock that could be opened with a key from the outside. That would have prevented having to kick in the door if the chain lock was on it.
You might also consider a double-cylinder deadbolt, which requires you to lock and unlock it with a key, both inside and outside. Make sure that when you install the screws for any door hardware that you have a couple of extra long screws that will reach into the studs. Otherwise, it’s just surface fasteners, which break away very easily.
I’ve locked myself out a couple times while I was living alone, the second time, I broke one pane in the back door. This was the OLD single pane glass that felt like it was bulletproof. I took a rock and tried to break it, and after a lot of tries, it finally broke. I reached into the kitchen, unlocked the door, and as I pulled my hand out, I encountered a hidden piece of glass that embedded itself above the knuckle of my little finger. Four hours later, I finally got to see a doctor at the ER at the Naval Hospital, and when he gave me the anesthetic, I told him I didn’t feel the needle at all. He was concerned about nerve damage, but it’s been all right.
I guess we should all face it and admit that we forget our keys far too often, as well as other things, which ties to the thread of what we lose most. I try hard to pat myself down now before I leave the house, Wallet, keys, checkbook, cell phone, brain……well 4 out of 5 isn’t bad, I guess.
Since I moved back to Portland from the hinterlands of southern Oregon (where, like remer, I was so remote locking the house was pointless), I’ve been living in a “secure building.” A lot of things to like about that, but it also means that should I forget my keys, they will be behind not one, but TWO locked doors. Being let back in by the semi-resident (lives in the building next door) manager means a small(ish) charge…entirely reasonable, as it’s a big p.i.t.a. for him.
Oh, and the front door to my apartment itself can’t be set to do anything but lock automatically upon being closed. I do _not_ enjoy that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach as I realize I left my keys inside…and just fail to stop it from closing.
Back when they were still doing snigglets, I heard that described as an “ohnosecond”… the amount of time between realizing that you left the car keys in the car, and the door closing.
I met a good friend MANY years ago when I was still a city dweller. She, new to the area, was parking her car in the lot next to my apartment. She watched as I looked for my keys,picked up a near by rock, broke the bathroom window and climbed in, came out with a new pane of glass and replaced the broken pane. By this time she was bending over her car laughing. It was many years before I reformed and stopped locking myself out of buildings.
I once managed to lock myself out of someone else’s apartment building. Not that I particularly cared to get back in (it was 1:00 am and the party was over). But I would have liked to be on the street, where the are buses and things… not in a courtyard with a swimming pool, bounded by a fence where it wasn’t surrounded by locked building. A wooden fence whose very flimsiness (or so I thought it) made it more secure. Because I couldn’t put my weight on it while going over. I eventually found a way (dangling over the fence by the insides of my elbows while holding onto a metal railing that was below the fence) but it was not enjoyable.
One procedure I’ve adopted to avoid locking myself out of my apartment is to take my key out of my pocket before I close the door. (Then I use the key to lock the deadbolt.) If I can do that, I must have my key with me.
Running out for “just a moment” is where that breaks down.
Unless, of course, you then walk off leaving the keys in the door which DH has done innumerable times. He keeps his car keys separate from his house keys.
I installed an electronic deadbolt on the front door. Works really well, no key (except as a backup if the battery fails). Very convenient.