Locked out of my flat… faaaaarrrrk!

My wife flew out to Monaco today for work, I must've forgotten my keys this morning… she's not back till Wednesday, no spare sets in the country, I fly out to Thailand on Tuesday… have to get into my flat 🙁 Locksmith on his way, charging £65 + VAT which isn't too bad (first guy wanted £190 fooking pounds!!)

Ah well… I'll just sit here at work and enjoy a beer for a bit… not much else I can do 😆

I did the same thing a couple of years ago while my girlfriend was somewhere on holiday. I broke in by levering a window open. It was worryingly easy and opened my eyes as to how much better the flat needed securing.

Take another look at your property – are you absolutely sure there's no way in…?

Either way, good luck!

i did the same once… locksmith came along with a floppy bit of plastic, put it in the gap between the door and the door frame, where the lock was, and bob's your uncle. took all of 15 seconds.

charged me £80 for the privileged.

someone later told me that watchdog (on bbc) suggested making the locksmith a cash offer? or haggle with them at least… if i'd known the method i'd have done it myself.

breaking a small window is cheaper (unless you are double glazed!). £40 last time I lost my keys

Strangely it can be suprising easy to get into somebodies house,shed or garage.

I try to stop them.

Just walk around the outside of your home and think if you lost your keys,how would you get in.

Well, I'm in now… hurrah 🙄 Bloody costly moment of forgetfulness 🙁

Ended up having to go through the neighbours house (thankfully they were home!) to access our teeny tiny courtyard, then the locksmith had to destroy the lock on our sliding door (almost couldn't do it as the key was still in the lock)… so that had to be replaced in addition to the £65 + VAT callout charge. On a plus note, the chap did fix a front door lock that the landlady had asked us to arrange to be done, so now I can offset some of the cost to her 🙂

breaking a small window is cheaper (unless you are double glazed!)

That was my thought as well, but would've been a pain to sort out tomorrow before going to work.

Looking for a positive, it's good to see that our flat is fairly secure (without the use of power tools or actually breaking a window).

I've got three front door keys – one to carry, one hidden outside in case I leave the carry-set inside and one inside in case I leave the carry-set in the lock and go inside, closing the door behind me (deadlocked on the way out).

I did the last one about four times before I got sick of de-bolting the kitchen window to climbing out onto the landing to let myself in….

🙄

you need to give a spare set to a neighbour/ lover

I actually thought the landlady had… given a set to our neighbour that is 😆 shall be doing it now, along with leaving a spare set at work (it's only 5 minutes up the road from me).

How about mounting something from here near the back door with a front door key in it?