Have you ever locked yourself out?

9 years ago

There’s nothing worse than that sinking feeling when you can’t find your keys. Or even worse, when the door slams shut and you can’t get back in because you forgot the keys inside...

Do you recognise it? Have you ever been locked out too? If so, what happened?

Lavender Cottage - Entry · More Info

Featured Answer

sootsprite

9 years ago

My cousin locked herself out once in the dead of winter in MN. She was in her sweats and had slipped on her husbands giant shoes. She plodded over to her neighbor's house to use their phone. They were not home but their door was unlocked, so she went in. Mind you, the owner worked for the FBI! Meanwhile, back at home, her 2 year old was drawing on the dining room wall with markers!

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Comments (27)

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Jaimie K Designs Ltd
9 years ago
tom I have two really bad experiences. The worst one though I was on site with a student( i mentor uni students) and the door bell rang with a delivery. I told her to carry on and i would see what had arrived. Now I usually keep keys in my back pocket but the student had been out to get coffee!!! Instead of carrying on she came out to also see what was arriving and the front door slammed shut behind her. It was one of those awful moments of realisation. She had them in her bag inside the house and we are stuck outside the clients house. we were so lucky on two levels. the very small upstairs toilet window was open and there was a window cleaner working further along the road. He was our hero of the day as he squeezed himself through the tiniest of windows and let us back in. We finished installing on time and a very happy and unsuspecting client.
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Jane Bateman
9 years ago
Never done it myself but I've had neighbours who have.
I have skinny flexible hands, so I was able to put my hand through the letterboxes and open the door!
Shh, don't tell anyone!
Carolyn
9 years ago
I'm petrified of this every time I leave the house. We've recently had a bike shed installed at the front so I've put a combination lock on it and hung a spare key inside it - just in case! I do have a friend who regularly locks herself out and keeps a spare set of keys at my house!
Sam Anderton
9 years ago
I seem to have a habit of locking myself out on a fortnightly basis. Fortunately my friend lives a few doors down who has a key. At my previous address I did have a bad experience being locked after going out with my housemate with only one set of keys between us. I returned alone 2am to realise he still had the keys and would not be coming back, so I was left with no option but to climb through the bathroom window. It was tiny, I can't imagine I was very quiet and it took me about 30 minutes to get through. Thank god for neighbourhood watch..
Abbie M
9 years ago
My boyfriend does this ALL the time, usually when he is with our 2 year old son, resulting in me having to leave work to bring him keys. Luckily we lived in the town centre do the solution was always to wait in a coffee shop. We have recently moved and the previous owner was a foster carer and had coded door locks on the side gate and back door. A perfect solution to a very forgetful man!
jn267
9 years ago
My son locked himself out if his London flat, wearing no coat and no shoes [don't ask!] He was about to catch a train down to visit us. Fortunately he had his wallet so he walked barefoot to the nearest charity shop, bought shoes and a coat and caught the train ... his flatmate had returned by the time he went home.
Norman Richardson
9 years ago
I have a Yale key-safe with a digital combination lock. Its fixed on the outside wall in a hidden location. It holds several keys on a magnet inside. It works a treat.
Barry Higgs
9 years ago
Absolutely opposite to all the above stories, I was once locked in! I was visiting and staying overnight in my son's first floor flat in London which had it's own ground floor entrance. He left before me the next morning and as a matter of routine, deadlocked the door on exiting. When I came to follow suit, I was locked in. I eventually had to call 999, as no other number was available, and ask for the Fire Brigade to quietly come and rescue me. They turned up with sirens screeching on a turntable ladder, attracting all the neighbours, helped me out of the window in my suit and tie with briefcase, had a great laugh at my expense then waived the £99 call out fee. I made a generous donation to the welfare fund and beat a hasty, red faced retreat.
soozmacrae
9 years ago
In my first flat which was luckily on the ground floor, I discovered that id locked myself out. Luckily I has left my kitchen window open just a little. I stood on an old flower pot and pulled the window open and hauled myself through onto kitchen work top. To add insult to injury Id left my hand bag in work with my keys and had to exit my flat the same way, out through the window the next morning!
PRO
Jaimie K Designs Ltd
9 years ago
Gosh Barry that brings back a memory I had forgotten. I had just had my second daughter and hubby with out thinking dead locked the front door with us inside. The midwife was coming that morning and I didn't realise until she knocked on the front door that i couldn't let her in and I couldn't get out. I ended up talking to her out of the living room window! Quite embarrassing at the time but laughed afterwards.
whiteleghorn
9 years ago
I did it, 26 years ago, with my 9mo old first baby daughter still inside. She was crying on the floor on the other side of the door, and the only way to get into this top floor tenement flat in a down at heel part of the city, was to get the key from my husband who was at work!
I rushed out into the street in my slippers and stopped passers by asking for a 10p piece to ring him from a call box. Most shyed away being sure I was a drug addict needing money for a hit. I suppose I did look pretty distraught. Eventually a man gave me a coin saying he did not believe me. I was grateful, and made the call, so 20 min later hubby came home. by which time my poor baby had cried herself to sleep on the floor.
I will never forget the awful feeling.
Cristina Ranchal
9 years ago
At least once per year I forgot to get my keys before leaving! Fortunately, I live with my boyfriend and he has always the keys!
PRO
Violet & Rose Vintage Emporium
9 years ago
ALL the time ! And yes both ways, out & in ! My trouble is I have a very large dog and I'm not the most agile. One time when we lived in Spain with all Spanish neighbours. We lived in a town house, Juliet balcony on 1st floor so the doors were usually left open of course this day they were not. Had to try to explain in my best Spanish to get a builder neighbour
with a big enough ladder to climb up onto the balcony. He was asking if he should break the window when the dog appeared on the other side as I screamed NO. We managed to jimy the door and I called he dog away from the door before he got eaten ! Again now back in Blighty had to call on services of very slight friend who had to climb up very old drain pipe to our flat and climb in bathroom window to come face to face with "the dog" (Fortunately he knew the dog ( though not for very long) he was very nervous and standing in the bath saying good boy, its's only me, good boy, don't come any closer. At which point I a calling to dog from outside telling him it was ok to let him in ! AND my daughter went out to work one day from the flat locking the door behind her forgetting that I had lent mine to her boyfriend the night before. Locked in with dog who needed a wee till I could get hold of her to come back from work and unlock !
Tony McIntyre
9 years ago
This has happened many, many, many times!

The worst one I can think of happened to my friend at our apartment complex. She locked herself out and was on the top floor! Our security man had to go onto the other apartments balcony, climb on to the roof (about 5 floors up!), and go back down on to my friends balcony. Whenever I went for a swim, I swam underwater and found the keys at the bottom of the pool!
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Worktops.co
9 years ago
Many, many times I've locked myself out and every time I end up climbing through either the smallest window or the one most highest up and furthest away.

I once popped out to the shops, took my time too and when I got back my dad was standing there with just a t-shirt and my dog, both shivering from the cold! Was funny for me to see, not sure about them.
iheaton
9 years ago
My husband looked me in the garden for 5 hours! He just locked the back door and went to the city centre. On his return he opened the back door without realising it was locked and said :' Darling, are you still working in the garden? Have a rest I will make your cup of tea'. I was going to kill him!
milfordmaid
8 years ago
Whiteleghorn - I think I would have melted if that had happened to me - just the thought of it.....
milfordmaid
8 years ago
Dad had a new PVC front door with a 3 lever mortise lock system fitted at home. One that you lift the handle + can single or double turn the key. At the time they were just on the market - very new + no-one else had one. He decided that the women-folk resident in the house needed full instruction on the correct method of entering + securing the house. He summoned Mum from the kitchen + dragged the 15yr old out of bed at 10am sharp + assembled them inside the front door. After the basics were covered he marshalled them outside, closed the door + double-locked it. He tried to open the door but then couldn't remember what/how he locked it. After fiddling + cursing for 10 mins he asked Mum to try. She promptly harrumphed, flicked her tea-towel at him + took herself down the drive way + let herself into the house by the unlocked back door with the 15yr old sucking her teeth + dragging her slippers in Mums footsteps. 15 mins late Dad sloped sheepishly in the back door + phoned someone to come + open the 'broken' front door. Of course the door wasn't broken- he just didn't know how to operate it. Make things even worse - Dad was a shop-fitter + glazier! This was his bread + butter day job!
PRO
Amber Jeavons Ltd
8 years ago
Hello Tom, Yes sadly I have had experience with this... first of all my heart sank, it was getting late and nippy and I had just popped outside, shut the door and heard the "click" After sitting on the step waving my arms around, swearing at the top of my lungs and muttering at my idiocy. I decided that I could save the day... So off I went in search of friendly neighbours.... and more importantly their hangers... I decided rather ingeniously that I could fashion a hook to open the latch from the cat flap opening with the help of said hanger and my arm and body shoved up against the door and what I could fit through the cat flap, in painful and oddly fashion (which on obtaining hanger from friendly peeps down the road... I had opened out and created a loop..... I say ingeniously because shoving my head through the cat flap to a rather interested furry head and two eyes... saw how it could easily work and indeed it almost did! Problem was the latch was just that bit too heavy to spring open the door as planned...

Swearing, tries, and more swearing and a arm nearly take out of it's socket endured for about half an hour...

My cat did not lend a paw and so... heart sinking again.. I set off once again in search of friendly neighbours.... and their phone... This time however, they were closer to home and upstairs having some grub. A chap was called and a chat and an hour or so later... Someone arrived...... Well................ what was used was known as "The flexible friend"

Yes folks........ The Barclaycard!... And no......... it wasn't mine by which to pay for his expertise, jiggery pokery, costly and lengthy tinkering and extensive toolkit!!!!....

It was in fact the tool kit!!!! 1 wave of it in the lock and "Open Sesame" my door sprang open, like it was never closed.. $**£%$3%!!!!!

I grinned inanely whilst shuddering at the thought of it... My innocent smiles did not save me a buck (as thinking it was so easy, I would be "let off" without the fee)... Sadly I thought wrong.. I almost needed my Barclaycard to pay for it... So the moral of the story is this...

When you're a spastic... just get the plastic!! ........(and then hide it in a plant pot, along with a snifter you'll need when the realisation hits that you've been had! :))

(The door in the story is no more!) :) )
LTS
8 years ago
When we locked ourselves out a few years ago we lowered our then 5 year old son through a small open window at the back of the house.

Another time when I locked myself out my husband had to catch the train half way home from work to meet me, give me his keys & catch a train back to work. I now have my house keys on my car keys!

I've also left the front door wide open with the keys in the lock whilst on the school run.

I need to be locked up!!
Laura
8 years ago
When I was a student living at home, my mum got me up to drive her to work. Being a student I went in my flanneling Primark pyjamas. On returning home I realised my house key wasn't on my car keys. Even worse, I didn't take my phone!!!

I had to drive back to my mums work - my former comprehensive school when all the kids were arriving - and walk through the main building to her office, to find out shed given her key to my brother (who was in the towns College - there was no way I was going in there in my PJs).

So, I had to drive to my dads work, go through security and ask them to call my dad to the front desk.

I haven't been anywhere in my PJs again!!!!!
PRO
Sara Corker Designs
8 years ago
I have done it several times, doors slamming, or leaving the key on the side, I find climbing through an open window my best option in!!!
PRO
Parker Bathrooms & Kitchens
8 years ago
I got locked out on my wedding night! Neither myself or any of the bridesmaids thought to bring the house keys with us to the church/reception....Firemen had to come out and help open the door well after midnight. Oops!
tvalentine
8 years ago
The layered garden book is called Lasagna Gardening! Good luck
PRO
More Handles Ltd
8 years ago
we've got just the thing for such an event! Keysafe
Steve
7 years ago
Yes I got locked out of our house after a day out with the old yale type locks. Upon our return we realised we had left the key inside, "luckily" my wife had left the front door wide open and hadn't closed it anyway!

Have you ever locked yourself out?

sootsprite

Comments (27)

Jaimie K Designs Ltd

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