LOCKED OUT...

No - this is not a post about the NHL hockey season!
I want to say a few words about a situation that has happened to all of us...

Ever lost your keys after locking your front door? Closed the self-locking door but didn't take the right key with you? Forgot the code to your keypad or typed the wrong code too many times?

You'd be surprised how often people do this. As a property manager, I can probably tell you - statistically - just how often. I presently manage about 150 tenants. About once per month someone loses or forgets their keys. I leave it to you to calculate what the chances are that, on any given night, you get locked out (I tried to figure this one out myself and couldn't - if you're good at math leave the stat in the comments please!)

Anyway, here's my advice about what to do:

1) Prevention.
Leave a set of keys with a neighbor, a friend who lives in your hood, a family member, or under the garden gnome. Leave 'em in your car or at the office. Trust me - it'll pay off. It's just a matter of time.

2) Ok so you didn't listen to step 1. You're locked out for real now. Now what?
Be sure. Go check the back door. The back window. Really. Go now. The basement. Seriously. Think like a burglar. It might be easier to solve this problem than you think. Looking for an easy way to break in without causing any real damage is the second best way to fix this problem.

3) So for real. You're locked out. No chance of breaking and entering without physical damage. Now what?
Call the landlord. He or she will be pissed. It's Friday night, 11pm - fine. He or she'll be pissed. But they knew what they were signing up for. Blocked toilets and locked-out tenants are part of the job. Make him or her earn the rent !!


4) So the landlord's bouncing your calls or you're the homeowner. Lucky you!
Here's what's next. Look for the weakest link. Got a door with small window panes? Great! It costs about 7$ to fix one of those small suckers. In fact, any single-pane window is pretty cheap to replace. You just need to take the casing out and bring it to your local glass store.
Got a window left open but with a screen? Good too. Go on and cut a hole and climb on in. Your problems are solved.

5) Alright so there's no low-hanging fruit. The windows are all locked. They're double glass. There are no exposed screens.
Your next option is to attack the locks and door frames.
But be smart. Here too there are weakest links.

First, you want to identify which is the weakest lock (ha ha ha - weakest lock, not weakest link!!) Pick one of these:    

Those little pins are the easiest to pick. If you can slide anything between the door frame and the pin, you should be able to get the door open. Credit cards, bits of wire, or x-rays work pretty well. This is your last chance to get away without a major intervention, so really try hard.

If the frame and the door are too tight, you have no choice but to break stuff. My recommendation here is the following. If you have access to a drill, go get that sucker. You can drill out a cheap lock easily, while a door frame or a busted door are harder to replace.
If you've got no drill and the door frame is made of wood, go on an give it a kick. Unless you have a two-by-four on the other side, it should give pretty easy. It doesn't take too much work to fix a busted door frame and these little pins don't do that much damage.

6) No luck. You're at the drilling out the lock stage.
I'd recommend drilling out the lock yourself if you`re a bit handy. Locksmiths charge a lot of money for this kind of work and unless you have a super or expensive locking system you can probably get away with doing this yourself...

BUT you'll have to wait for the next lesson to find our how !! I'm going to get my specialist to contribute to the next entry!