In jail or with Mom is my guess.
I think the footlocker idea is the best one. It is a reasonable solution to the reason for needing a lock. He gets his door lock back when he pays you $45 for the locksmith. At 18 he can work a fast food or job and make the money back in no time. Sadly, you don’t seem to get to choose what will happen to him. Tough situation.
Haj
Sounds like you dealt with it wisely.
You’re not the poster who’s stepson tried to stab and kill him awhile back, are you?
As far as the lock…in the house I primarily grew up in, all the doors had those locks that you could open from the outside with your thumbnail (or a coin if you just cut your nails.) In the 13 years I lived there I can only remember once that my parents opened one from the outside and that was when we first moved in and my little sister accidentally locked herself in her room (she was 4 at the time.) We knew not to lock them out when we were mad so that probably saved a lot of outside openings but they would never come in just to snoop, which your stepson probably thinks you would do (whether you would or not.)
I did break a few doors and frames roughousing over the years and had to go with the blanket door for a couple extended periods of time, but then people just knocked on the wall outside the door.
Living with our parents.
Oh yeah, so is my 46 year old sister.
You could also spend around $ 20 and just make 10 - 15 key duplicates. You don’t have to get in a huge fight about the door and access will never be denied.
Are both these kids stepkids?
Why would I want to do this? If he wants to do this, no problem.
Yes they are.
First thing: It sounds to me like this was an honest mistake, albeit an irresponsible one.
However, he isn’t owed that lock on the door. It comes with responsibilities, the most obvious being that he can’t lock everyone out of the room. Seeing as how he didn’t take that responsibility seriously, and seeing as how there were tangible consequenses ($45) to the family, at a minimum, he loses the lock for some period of time. Perhaps some additional punishment is due as well, more chores, or whatever stock punishment is appropriate in casa blue sky. Unless he has a job, in which case paying back all or a portion of the $45 is appropriate.
It sounds to me like the big issue here is between you and the wife. Personally, I think you should take a bigger hand in raising your step-son. You say your wife doesn’t give him enough discipline, but that means that you should. Your role and responsibility in parenting him needs to be clear between you and your wife; you really need to sort that out.
Tried that early on. If a situation arose that required some sort of disciplinarian action by me, she would almost immediately undo it. Her deal is that she does not like confrontations. She’d rather have peace in the house. This style of parenting has caused MORE turmoil than there would have been if he’s taken his punishment and gotten over it.
I tried to explain that I didn’t want him to turn out like my brother, but she wouldn’t listen DESPITE THE FACT THAT HER BROTHER WENT THROUGH ALMOST THE EXACT SAME TREATMENT!!!
Her brother is a nice guy and all, but if had not received preferential treatment, he probably would’ve not gotten into as much trouble as he did.
My wife and I are alike in that we never gave our parents any trouble. Our other siblings (she had one, I had four) were royal pains in the ass.
Jeeze, that would be a really frustrating situation. Your wife obviously doesn’t see the danger in treating her kids this way. Is she at all open to the idea of couple’s counselling so maybe a professional can tell her that she’s not doing her kids any favours?
She sees it, but doesn’t want to accept it. She’s a teacher and she sees the damage this kind of parenting does. She’ll even admit what she’s doing is not the best course of action, but keeps on doing it anyway.
He recently got his learners’ permit and let’s him drive home from school. I happen to get behind them one day this past week and I notice he’s not wearing his seat belt! She says she forgot to tell him to wear it! This doesn’t surprise me since I’ve been behind them before and I’ve noticed him not wearing it when he’s a passenger.
Call me old fashioned, but it sounds like you need to bend him over your knee and give him an old-fashioned thrashing.
I suggested early on (when she and got married, he was 5) that the occasional pop to the behind would not turn him into a raging killer. She would have no corporal punishment.
It didn’t matter what I did - send him to his room, make him stand in a corner, take his toys away, etc - she would always go behind me and reverse whatever I had done. So, I finally said, “He’s all yours. Just remember, I don’t bail anybody out of jail.”
First of all, my sympathies. Sounds like a tough situation.
Now, my opinion. It sounds like you and your wife have a lot of work to do together. First step is to get on the same page about how to deal with raising kids. As long as your not in agreement, things will get worse, and the kids will have no sense consistent rules.
My preferred way of doing things is to enforce the consequences of things. In this case it would be (as was suggested earlier) taking the lock off and leaving it off until he can afford to replace it himself. But this is really the smaller issue.
You need to sit down with your wife and talk and talk and talk until you both understand each other’s position. Then you need to find compromises that work for both of you to approach parenting from the same place. The sooner you do this the happier your household will be.
Done that on several occasions. She’ll agree and even go along for a couple of weeks and then it’s back to the old behavior.
I’m at a point where I’m trying to survive until he moves out.
Wow, that sucks. There’s gotta be a good solution to this though. One that doesn’t involve you “trying to survive” for another 6+ years.
Are there reasons that you know of that your wife can’t commit to a more constructive parenting style? Can you make her see the long term results of the current situation? If she is similar to people I know, it could just be a very acute aversion to confrontation. If this is the case, it is going to be hard to oversome, but not impossible.
The next 20 years will go by like a blink of an eye. 
Haj
I’ve had a revelation:
After much thinking, I went ahead and removed the lock from his room and replaced it with the standard turn-and-lock knob from the laundry room. The wife is at school working on graduation ceremonies and the stepson is staying with friends.
It’ll be interesting to see the reaction when they get home.
He’ll get his lock back when he pays ME the $45 for the locksmith. No credit will be accepted from doing extra chores around the house. His grandparents will have him cut their grass (and it’s a big piece of property) and wash their cars from time to time. He can pay me from that. He wants to get a summer job this year, so that’s an option. If he gets the lock back and he locks his key in there again, it’ll cost $1 the first time I have to open the room and the fee will double each time afterwards. If he doesn’t have the money, I’ll gladly take his PS2 as collateral. When he gets sick of this, the lock comes off for good.
The discipline thing is a wash, but I will not be run over in my own home (and I’m sure I’ll hear “It’s not your house” from him and/or his sister before it’s over) by a 15 year old punk wannabe.
The stepdaughter is next. She’s been given a date to get her act together or she loses her phone, the AOL (both of which she pays for, but are in my name), and her car insurance (I pay as much for her car as I do mine and my wife’s) and she starts paying rent.
Sounds like a solid plan, good luck!
Great=) good luck…and pit him all you want!
Do not be upset with your wife. Does that help?