Watch the Lock Picking Lawyer on YouTube. It is depressing (and amazing) how fast he can pick almost any lock. Granted, he is expert at lock picking, but he shows that many locks require alarmingly little trouble to open for anyone with a modicum of know-how (if that much).
From experience with Job Boxes (holding tools) any padlock with a brass cylinder takes literally seconds to open with a cordless drill and a 3/8" drill bit. Like butter.
I bought a $12 set of lockpicks from Bangood a few years ago, and taught myself how to pick a lock, just for fun. It’s not that hard for most locks. I can get through our residential door lock in a few minutes, usually. I’ve managed to open a couple of padlocks with them as well.
If you aren’t picking I’m told a bump key as mentioned above can work well on many locks, and doesn’t require much skill.
Most padlocks can be opened in seconds by someone with minimal experience using a jiggler pick, a city rake and an improvised tension wrench, or shims cut from an aluminum can. Some can be opened just by whacking them with a mallet while turning with a tension wrench. Padlocks are pretty much useless for real security.
Or if you don’t mind ‘wrecking’ the lock, you can use this…if you have the cojones to handle it.
Stranger
Using a rake is also a low-skill approach that will open many locks.
ETA Ninjaed by stranger.
Yeah lockpicking is some percentage of skill, art, and luck. The ratio will vary by person.
Professionally, we’d give ourselves a 3-minute time limit in front of customers. Any much longer than that, it starts to look like you don’t know what you’re doing, because they don’t understand sometimes it takes some time to feel it out, and sometimes a lock simply cannot be picked for various reasons. Somewhat unintuitively, brand new locks are generally easier to pick than old, worn locks.
I, too, was going to mention raking open locks. There is an art to doing it well, but it’s much easier than single pin picking and works for an alarmingly large number of locks. The Bogota rake and city rake are my favorite first pass picks.
Many years ago I was talking to a local pharmacist who had relocated from a rural area. He mentioned something similar, they had put bars on the windows and doors, barred all but the front door with 2x4’s, etc. Eventually some enterprising and desperate druggies cut a hole in the roof, which was basically similar to a regular house - plywood sheets and shingles.
There’s a few videos of brazen thieves in downtown cities using battery-powered grinders to cut through those fancy bike locks while people watch and video them. They don’t care, (And for personal safety, nobody tries to stop them) and a good mask and hoodie makes them unidentifiable. (A police officer told me the key is shoes - all these crooks will change clothing and masks but wear their same expensive amd distinctive running shoes.
Moved it to under the mat. Heh heh, outsmarted the Dope.
Hehehe, I love the Lock Picking Lawyer, but not everyone is as skilled as he is. When I bought my old house, I replaced the locks with the nicest, most pick-proof locks I could afford. Of course, my wife and I locked ourselves out the first time we took the trash out after I installed them.
This being before the advent of the smartphone, my wife and I both didn’t have a cell phone on us. So I got to introduce myself to the neighbors to borrow their phone and got a locksmith to help. He tried picking the locks for about 45 minutes before he asked if he could just break a window and pay us for the damage. Sucks to be him, because there wasn’t really a window that we cold break cheaply that would gain entrance. Most of them were tiny slat windows separated by aluminum partitions. There was a large plate glass window and a sliding glass door that could be used for entrance after smashing, but he was willing to pick a bit longer before incurring that expense. Fortunately, he was successful at picking one about 10 minutes later.
And of course about four months later I figured out a non-destructive method of getting into that house when I was locked out again, and wasn’t standing around in my underwear at night. It was stupid easy and 100% reliable. Fortunately you’d be unlikely to come up with it unless you lived there.
I haven’t figured out a similar means of entrance to my current house, but it has the convenient 9-paned window in it’s back door. If I locked myself out of this house, I’d probably break in that way before I’d call a locksmith.
The only way that would work would be when the lock was not installed properly. You might be able to develop enough force if you used a 24 inch pipe wrench. But I doubt it.
If the set screw is set tight you are going to have to turn it with enough to sheer the screw and drag the stub end through the cylinders’ threads that are now a mess.
Agreed
There is a small field near me where the Scouts go camping and they had a wooden hut to store their equipment. After it was broken into several times and then burned down, they decided the replacement should be as secure as possible.
The current building is made of brick, salvaged from a nearby demolition site. There are windows, but they are high up and when there is no one there, they have steel covers. The roof is also steel.
To get into the hut, you need a key with a shaft nearly a foot long. It unlocks a small panel that allows you to reach in and move the 2x4 bar that is holding the door shut. The door is covered with a steel plate that extends out to cover the frame.
I was taking care of neighbors cats and lost the key. Pipe wrench on the handle took about 10 seconds. Luckily, they didn’t lock the dead bolt.
I then just bought and instaled a new door nob/lock.
It has been decades since I have had locking doors on my house. They are very stupid for the reasons you site.
Instead have locking deadbolts and non-locking doorknobs. It is impossible to inadvertently lock yourself out that way since it takes a key to lock the door from the outside, and it can’t lock itself.
You are still at risk of going outside keyless, then having a housemate see the door is unbolted, then locks you out. But unless they are deaf, stoned, or malicious that is recoverable by loud knocking or a phone call since they are still inside.
In recent decades I’ve upgraded all keyed deadbolts to electronic combo locks. Even a clueless housemate can’t lock me out even if I somehow got outside buck naked and phoneless. Which “happens” to me a lot (j/k).
Did you also pay a locksmith to rekey it to their key, after they got home?
Only entrance to their house. I just gave them new keys. Owner said he was going to replace it anyway.
Some newer locksets allow you to re-key it yourself. Has to be the same brand as the original.
The “Master Key” is also an extra 12Ga short barrelled shotgun made to fit under an AR barrel.
I have a Master Key for any type of padlock that looks like this.
Ah. I have 5 locks that open to the same key, and several copies of that key. It would be a substantial nuisance to replace one of them with some random other lock.