Locked out

[Jazzy]

Have you ever accidentally gotten locked out of your house?

If yes, how did you get back in?

 

[Lamb]

I locked myself out of the house I think twice only...my mom had a spare key, thankfully and came to let me in. We don't have anyone out here where we live with a spare, so we'd have to break in. But that's the reason I always grab the key whenever I go out, even if it's to the mailbox.

 

[Castle Church]

Yes....but we have a big dog door that I can fit through.

 

[tango]

I went for a walk with my wife. When we got home I got the key out of my pocket and found.... I'd picked up the key to my friend's house by mistake. Oops.

I tried to pick the lock but without any useful tools it was impossible, so we called a friend who has a spare key. Now we have a spare key hidden away.

 

[Stravinsk]

When I was married, we found ourselves locked out a few times and it involved calling a relative who had a spare key.

Nearly everyone died in my Aussie family within just 3 years, including my spouse, so one of the first things I did as a single person was find a place for a spare key if I do happen to get locked out. It's not anywhere easily accessible or easy to come across, and if I do need it it's a pain to get to, so I'm pretty diligent about keeping my keys on me when I leave.

 

[tango]

When I was married, we found ourselves locked out a few times and it involved calling a relative who had a spare key.

Nearly everyone died in my Aussie family within just 3 years, including my spouse, so one of the first things I did as a single person was find a place for a spare key if I do happen to get locked out. It's not anywhere easily accessible or easy to come across, and if I do need it it's a pain to get to, so I'm pretty diligent about keeping my keys on me when I leave.

It's remarkable how many people still leave a spare key under the doormat, or under the plant pot beside the door. If the key is a pain to get at when you know where it is, it's fairly safe to say nobody else is likely to find it.

 

[Lamb]

They sell fake rocks to hide a key inside of...I don't have one of those, but considered it. We have a lot of rocks that it would be hard to figure out which one it was LOL Even for us!

 

[Albion]

They sell fake rocks to hide a key inside of...I don't have one of those, but considered it. We have a lot of rocks that it would be hard to figure out which one it was LOL Even for us!

I've seen those, and they look good so the idea probably would work. But then I think, "why can't I just use one of these real rocks?"

It seems to me that the main thing is not to put the key, whether you're using a phony or real rock or some other garden decoration, right adjacent to the front door. If it's around the corner of the house, for instance, the neighbors or passers-by won't easily see it being retrieved and think "oh, those folks hide a spare key there."

 

[tango]

They sell fake rocks to hide a key inside of...I don't have one of those, but considered it. We have a lot of rocks that it would be hard to figure out which one it was LOL Even for us!

I've seen those. A friend of mine had one, on its own, right outside his door. He might as well have put a big sign saying "key hidden here".

If you've got a rock garden and one of them is a fake rock that works better. Ideally it needs to be something you can go right to without alerting anyone passing by, and not something that will leave you outside in the heavy rain trying to figure out which rock has a key hiding inside of it. The last thing you want is to find someone turned around in your driveway, drove over the rocks and broke the fake rock leaving the spare key loose somewhere among the rocks.

I considered using a magnetic keysafe to hide our key but figured they were big enough there were limited places to hide them. A key on its own is small enough to hide in a much wider variety of places.

 

[Albion]

I think tango and I are on the same page with this. Assuming that you're thinking of emergencies and not that some family member comes home late all the time and never seems able to find his own key, then it's not important that the hidden key is easily reached.

For those few times when the spare might be needed in an emergency, convenience is not important. You could just as easily put the key in a plastic bag at the bottom of a flowerpot since you won't care if retrieving it might be a bit messy. That would mean nothing when compared with being locked out and helpless.

 

[tango]

I think tango and I are on the same page with this. Assuming that you're thinking of emergencies and not that some family member comes home late all the time and never seems able to find his own key, then it's not important that the hidden key is easily reached.

For those few times when the spare might be needed in an emergency, convenience is not important. You could just as easily put the key in a plastic bag at the bottom of a flowerpot since you won't care if retrieving it might be a bit messy. That would mean nothing when compared with being locked out and helpless.

I'd agree with this - convenience isn't much of a concern beyond not wanting to be outside in the pouring rain spending 20 minutes recovering a key because you forgot yours, as anyone passing by can see you're doing something very strange and you end up needing to think of another hiding spot. That said if the only place you can hide it is outside you do the best you can. If you have a porch, breezeway, mud room, shed or some other structure where you can hide it such that you can recover it while sheltered from the elements that would seem preferable.

I've seen some people with PIN pads on their garage doors, which would make it possible to use a magnetic keysafe under the car so that you can use a code to access the garage, then retrieve the spare house key and let yourself in that way.

 

[Faith]

Have you ever accidentally gotten locked out of your house?

If yes, how did you get back in?

When I was a teenager. I climbed through the window.