I got home from work about an hour ago, and found that my front door lock is broken. The door will not open. I can’t turn the knob. I called my daughter inside the apartment, and she can’t turn it from her side either. I had her open the living room window and pass the step stool through, which allowed me to get inside.
I then took a screwdriver and removed the inner knob to the lockset. It STILL doesn’t open. I haven’t found a youtube video that explains how to proceed from here, but I’d sure appreciate it if I can get out before the apartment manager manages to contact the maintenance guy.
All suggestions gratefully accepted.
ETA: My right hip is a couple of years past its use-by date. I REALLY shouldn’t be crawling through the living room window.
If you have a giant croquet mallet handy (who doesn’t?) you can enter the apartment Book Jack Torrence style. If, for some odd reason, you have no giant croquet mallet, you must have an axe. Use the axe to enter the apartment Movie Jack Torrence style.
Possibly the door is warped and the lock is bound against the strike plate. Try using a pry bar above or below the door (near the door’s outer edge) and see if you can get it to budge, taking pressure off the bolt.
The central knob shaft (spindle) doesn’t come out. Here is a video about removing the lock cylinder, the first step of which is to remove the spindle, but the operating assumption is that the lockset is already out of the door. There is no instruction for removing it in situ.
I’m guessing that something broke inside, and that some little piece has fallen down and is jambing the part that engages the strike plate on the door jam. This bolt will never move again.
This is a ten minute job for a decent apartment maintenance person, they’ll have power tools that will cut through this like melting butter. Anaheim CA … yeah … it’s included in your rent payment.
The “outside” part of the lockset is stuck as well, it won’t come out unless the bolt can be retracted into the door.
Right, that center spindle won’t freely slip out unless the bolt is retracted into the door. Typically some slip of metal has wedged itself such that the bolt won’t retract. Saws-All with a metal cutting blade is the best option.
I’m glad it’s all being resolved okay, and all that, but I was really hoping for a more dramatic ending to this scenario. Y’know, including but not limited to abseiling out a flaming top floor apartment, with your daughter tucked under your arm.
The locksmith had to enter through the window. He pulled the outer doorknob out (including the spindle), and even then had to take a reciprocating hacksaw blade to the bolt. He then proceeded to change the lockset and deadbolt. The deadbolt didn’t want to extend into the doorjamb, until I pointed out that the door was sagging.
He then obtained some 3-inch screws to more firmly anchor the hinge into the door frame.
Just to clear up a few matters wrt the dramatic potential of the situation: our home is a single-level garden apartment (a few years ago, the owners of the complex replaced our back fence so as to eliminate the gate that once provided access to the back yard from the driveway), so no upper floors.
My daughter is a nineteen-year old woman, completely able-bodied. In a pinch I suppose I could have lifted my wife out the living room window, but more likely an emergency would have sent all of us out to the back yard on foot.
