It must be nice living in the 1950s. 
Out retired neighbor has a key, and one is hidden, though I don’t know where. I never forget keys.
When I was in grad school I was locked out of the half house I rented because the key broke off in the lock. Luckily I had my Swiss Army knife with me and I was able to take apart a window and get in. That’s another thing I’m never without.
I did, but now I gotta find new places. Thanks a lot!
If you have a garage door opener, you can get a remote keypad controller for it. Relatively cheap and serves multiple purposes. I’ve always put mine on the back (house side) of porch pillars, out of sight from passersby but easily accessible.
I hadn’t been locked out of my house for a couple of decades until a year ago last summer.
Sis came up from Houston and we were to take separate vehicles 400 miles north to the folks’ house and go to the family reunion (she was staying longer, hence the separate vehicles). We went out for breakfast, leaving her herd of chihuahuas in my apartment until she returned for them. I gave her my house key with instructions to lock the deadbolt. She was to return it when we reached our first common stop.
Well, right before we left, an auto accident up north made taking funeral clothing necessary. Sis did return a key when we both stopped for lunch. When I returned, I found that the door knob lock was locked and the key didn’t fit (same key as the deadbolt). She had given me the key to her boyfriend’s apartment! :smack:
Since my key was 400 miles north and my spare was with my guy who was vacationing in Florida, I was screwed. I called my landlord. She was there within two hours and upon hearing the story, waived the $50 lockout fee.
Now, I keep a spare house and truck key with my retired downstairs neighbor.
We–my other siblings & I–used to mock my little sister for her hobby of learning how to pick locks. Until the day one of my older sisters got locked out of her house and Lil Sis came over and defeated the lock with contemptuous ease.
Reminds me of the time I tried to pick my own lock just to see if I could do it. I used a seam ripper as one of the picks and part of it immediately broke off in the lock. It was late so I waited until the next day to call a locksmith. He comes and tries the lock and it works like a dream. There on the carpet was the tip of the seam ripper, which had managed to fall out on its own. The guy, having heard my story, was nice and only charged me twenty bucks or so for his time. He even showed me how to use real lock picks.
It’s almost impossible to lock myself out of my house. I enter and leave via the garage. The garage has a keypad. The door from the garage to the kitchen is unlocked. If the power went off I’d be out of luck, but I rarely leave the house without my car, so I can go in through the front door cuz my front door key is on my key ring. And my front door is deadbolt so I have to lock it from the outside.
I always carry my keys on a carbineer on my hip. I always pat my hip before leaving just to be sure that I have them, its an unconscious habit…like how men often pat their butt to check for their wallet. I have never locked myself out of my home.
I did once lock myself out of work. I went in and the phone was ringing, so instead of using my right hand to put my keys where they belong, I dropped them on my desk and answered the phone. The poor frantic legal clerk needed me to go to the mailroom and check for a file that was to be delivered that day because her attorney needed it right away and she was going to come right over. I stepped out of my office, the door auto closed and auto locked. So now I’m locked out of my office, have no way to get into the mailroom and don’t know the number to facilities because its on my desk phone. Yeah, that was embarrassing.
Senior year of college, living in a dumpy second floor apartment. The doorknob was a bit loose - and one day it just wouldn’t work. The back door had a chain on it so we couldn’t get in that way.
So I called the property management company from a neighbor’s place (this was long before cell phones), knowing we were going to get evicted when they got there and saw the highly illegal cat sitting in the front window observing the proceedings.
LUCKILY, the neighbor’s boyfriend arrived. He noted that the attics were actually connected - so he went up their trapdoor (I don’t think there were pull-down stairs but I could be misremembering), across the joists, and down into our place, where he let us in.
Then 2 years later, different apartment - and I actually went out without my keys and pulled the door shut behind me.
And dontcha know, another neighbor did exactly the same thing for me. Makes you feel really secure (even if it did save me twice).
At our current house, we have a keypad on the garage door. So if I forget my keys (hard to do since we usually leave via the garage), I can get in that way as long as
Once, my key broke off in the lock. No one had a spare and it was 1am. I had large windows in this 1920s garage apartment, so I decided to break out the window. There were apartments next door, and out of one of them came a voice: “what are you doing?”
“My key broke. I can’t get in.”
“I’m calling the cops.”
“Don’t call the cops. This is my apartment. Burglars run away. I’m standing here talking to you.”
Nothing. So I go in, take out my contacts, and go to bed. Just as I’m drifting off, a light blinds me and a man says “Get your hands where we can see them. Sit up!”
Now, when I’m startled, I shake uncontrollably. The cops crawl through the window. They want to see ID, but I’m blind without my contacts and it’s dark. I start looking around the apartment, still keeping my hands where they can see them. So I finally find things and convince them.
“You need to get that window fixed. Anyone could come in.”
No shit, Sherlock.
Then they asked me to let them out the door, and I had to show them that the door couldn’t be opened from the inside because the key is broken. So they had to crawl back out the window.
I must be the only person I know to have ever locked myself inside a house. Sorta. 
What happened was this … some friends of mine were living in a communial house that was well short of any kind of maintenance standards. They lived on the second floor, with a stairway leading down to their own door, which exited onto a main street.
The inner dookknob fell off. To adress this situation, they jammed a spoon into the socket where the inner doorknob was supposed to be. Turning it to open was very stiff - the lock was, needless to say, ancient.
I was visiting a girl I knew who lived there, and on my way out to go home, I turned the “spoon” to open the door - and it broke off in the socket. There was nothing to grab to turn the door mechanism. It was now impossible to open the door from the inside (we tried!).
So I opened the mailslot and started to ask people walking past to open the door - none would stop for this purpose … hearing this explaination, they all hurried up to go past faster.
I had to hang-drop out of a second floor window to escape!
What is this device that operates on quarters that can be used in place of a cell or smart phone? And tell me more about this “information” place that has contacts stored.
When I let the dogs out in the morning and have no pockets, I tie the keys to the laces on the jogging pants I sleep in.
What the hell do you call that string belt on sweat pants?
:rolleyes:
Tell me about keypad locks. If you give the combination to rude friends, can they change the combination?
Well, I didn’t really lock myself inside the apartment, but–well, a few years ago, the key for the deadbolt lock was acting up more and more, you’d have to jiggle it around to get it to go in all the way. One evening, when the driving instructor called to tell me he was there, I musta gotten way too forceful with my jiggle, because I bent the key into at least a 150 degree curve, about halfway down. There was no way to use it from outside any longer.
So I could get into the apartment and out, but not lock it from outside, and I wasn’t wild about the idea of leaving the place open when I was gone. So I cancelled on the driving lesson, and got permission to work from home. Luckily the landlord was able to install a new lock the next afternoon. 
Worst lockout for me was my second day in Detroit. I couldn’t find my cats, and worried they had gotten outside, I went out to look for them. Didn’t realize that the back door automatically locked. Didn’t know anyone for hundreds of miles. No cellphone to call the landlord, whose number I didn’t know. The only thing I had going for me was that a window was open, but it was about 10 feet up. I wandered down the street looking for someone who might help, and finally found an old man who was home and lent me a ladder. Trundled down the street with the ladder, popped the screen, and climbed in. Never locked myself out again.
I have an arrangement with a trusted neighbor several doors away. A key to my house is under her doormat, and a key to hers under mine. Neither of us has ever needed them, but we are the only people who know what doors they fit.
Cool.
I was a forgetful latchkey kid. I’ve gotten very, very good to jimmying windows open. My worst lock out wasz when I was watching the front desk at night for a motel-- I was filling in for a friend and it was my first time working at this particular venue. It was a family owned motel, so I’d spend the night in their living wuarters behind the front desk.
A group of visiting cheerleaders was making a lot of noise, so I stepped outside to tell them to quiet down. What I didn’t realize was that the living quarters were converted hotel rooms-- meaning the doors locked automatically. The front desk was locked up tight. So there I was, in PJs, in the middle of the night, in charge of a new and potentially lucrative motel that I wasn’t going to be able to get in to.
Luckily, I managed to rattle one of the windows opened. Whew!
Wow. Something is seriously wrong with my keyboard. Apologies for the typos!