This is the little story of how Noah and I ended up locked out of our apartment Friday night and spent 250 € for a locksmith’s 30 seconds of work. The kicker – we had our keys. Read on….
Ever since we moved in, we have been paranoid about our door. Sounds silly, but the outside door handle is just a knob – it serves no function other than something to grab onto when closing the door behind you. Here is a photo to show you what I mean – the door handle on the right doesn’t turn:
Basically this means when you are outside the apartment - even if the door isn’t locked - you have to open the door using your key as a ‘door knob’ – turning it slightly in the lock to open the latch. This is one point of paranoia – we are terrified of shutting the door behind us with the keys inside, essentially locking us out even when the door isn’t locked (Noah points out this is similar to a hotel room, but we have no 24 hour front desk). But this isn’t what happened.
Another scenario we worry about is one of us locking the other IN. Since the only way to lock/unlock the deadbolt from either side is using a key, what would we do if Noah left in the morning and locked the door, and I left my keys at work? I would be locked in the apartment with Noah kilometers away on his regional train. But this isn’t what happened either.
This is what unfolded on the day in question. Noah and I arrive home from dinner/shopping – with Noah carrying a huge wicker trunk for our guest room. Typically we use his keys to get in/out, but since his hands were full, I used mine. Then out of habit (to help us remember to take our keys), I stuck my keys in the door on the inside (you can refer to the photo above for a visual).
We set everything down and suit the dogs up for their evening walk. I notice my keys in the door, and ask Noah if he wants to take his keys (since he doesn’t have key chains, making them easier to pocket). He agrees, so I open the door with the dogs and head downstairs. Noah is behind me. He sees my keys in the door, but thinks nothing of it (since he has his), and shuts the door behind him.
This is where it turns south. Noah tries to lock the deadbolt behind him, but the key won’t go all the way in to turn. After a few attempts, he thinks, ‘I’ll just open the door instead’. Nope – the key won’t turn that way either. At this point I come back upstairs to see what the problem is.
As we look closely, the key is about 2 millimeters from going all the way in. Somehow, my key on the other side is preventing his key from working. I stupidly say we could call his aunt who has a spare key to let us in. My mind hadn’t wrapped itself around the situation yet – we didn’t need a spare key, Noah has his keys in his hand!! At this point we both realize the gravity of the situation – we are locked out, with our keys.
And for those of you thinking we could just shove the key in to knock the other one out – we tried. But if you shine a light through the lock (as our neighbor did on his door to see if this was a solution), it doesn’t shine through. It is not aligned.
Now we know this isn’t something we can fix. It is time for the locksmith. Luckily Noah has his phone and wallet with him (I have nothing in my pocket but poop bags), he calls up a locksmith. As Noah is on the phone, our other neighbor comes home. I explain to him in a mix of English and German what is happening, and he says he has had that happen twice. Awesome – we aren’t complete idiots if the German guy has done it not once, but twice! What did he do? Oh, he kicked down the door, and then it was ‘kaput’ (German for broken). Yeah, that isn’t what we are looking to do.
25 minutes later, the locksmith shows up. He wouldn’t let us watch him work, but we think he just had a narrow metal tool that he slid in to pop the ‘latch’ (that thing that goes into the door when you turn the handle – not the deadbolt). Which by the way, we did try to use Noah’s student ID for this same method, but it was too thick and flimsy.
What did he charge us for his 30 seconds of work? Yep, the 250 € mentioned above.
In conclusion: German doors are smarter than us.
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