Have you ever been locked out of your home?

[AmbsPhillps]

I have , when I was about 10 , my parents hadn't came back yet and my brother wasn't back from school yet and so I was waiting about 15 minutes to get in.

Quite a few times.

Forgot my key a few times a year when in high school. Would have to call my dad or nana to come and let me in. After a few years dad finally bought a key safe.

Out drinking at 18/19. Parents had gone to bed and forgotten to take the key out of the door. Not answering the house phone, mobiles switched off, can't hear me shouting up at them. Just kept ringing and ringing and ringing until they finally woke up. Was in tears as it was so cold and I was a stupid teenager who didn't take a coat when out clubbing.

Age 19/20 in my student house. It had a Yale lock. Now DH coming to visit me for a few hours, I went to answer the door in just my dressing gown and the door shut behind me. He had to run round to my letting agents (thankfully round the corner), but before he got there my housemate came home through the back door and saw my pink gown through the panes of glass and let me in. So I rang DH and told him he could come back for his visit.

Thankfully not had it since. 3yo DS is tiny and can't fully reach the keys so not been locked out of the front door yet. 🤞🏻

Yes, once at work I discovered I'd left my house keys in a different pair of trousers. My lovely elderly neighbour Stan kept spares but as he had a hearing problem he didn't hear me knocking at his door, ringing the bell or shouting at the window.

I went round the corner to another neighbour, Sue who had a spare set for him, but he'd put the snick on so it wouldn't turn, after a while he heard us. Sue reminded him that the snick isn't a good idea as emergency services wouldn't be able to get in and we tried to make light of it. She stayed for a chat with him and then came round to see if I was all right. I was so relieved I nearly burst into tears. They were such lovely neighbours.

I have a different type of lock now which can't lock you out, thank goodness.

Touch wood in the 18 years I have lived at my house I have only locked myself out once, in 2005. I normally keep my keys in the door, but was in the process of going out when I had a 'phone call telling me about the death of an old, family friend. I had put my keys on the corner of my desk in the study. Once the call was over, I picked up my bag and went out of the door, closing it behind me. Then the realisation that I didn't have the keys.
However, in those days, I had a cleaner, who lived in the next village, with a set of keys, so I just 'phoned her up whilst I was out and asked if I could call in on my way home to "borrow" her key. No problem.
Returned her key on next cleaning visit and have never done it again.
Mind you, I do have a set of spare keys in my bag these days as no longer have a cleaner or anyone else with spare keys :-(

Addendum:
I have frequently gone out leaving the door from the house into the garden unlocked, but carefully locking the front door.

Yes. It's a horrible experience. I am now quite neurotic about double-checking if I have my keys. Are they in my hand, have I checked my pockets. Slightly mad.

Yes. I locked the door and posted the key through the letterbox myself I was very sleep deprived with baby DD and not thinking properly at all! Had to call DH at work to come and let us back in

When I was a latch key kid (without a key) the kitchen window was the only way in for years.
As an adult I have only once been locked out after leaving my door key in the car after leaving it at the garage and walking 5 miles home.
Thankfully it was summer and I had left one upstairs window open but had no ladder but the joiner working at NDNs brought his van over and I climbed up onto the van roof and managed to get in through my bedroom window.
Still couldn't get out again though as all the doors have key operated locks only.

Loads! I used to get very drunk and lose or forget my keys a lot as an older teenager and worked out how to remove the kitchen window vent to reach the handle and open it to climb in, or I would climb the wheelie bins up to the roof under my brother's bedroom window and get him to let me in. DH climbed the drain pipes to go in through the small bathroom window once when we were v young and locked out. I slept in the garden of my uni house a few times.

Yes a couple of years ago got home from work to find the lock had dropped and the key wouldn't go in, so had to call the council out to gain entry, this took about an hour, then they replaced the whole lock

Yes a few times.

Once in the early baby days had I been able to get in I think I'd have packed up and left DH. Thankfully I didn't have my keys and by the time DH got back we'd calmed down enough that we just sat in the garden together and talked honestly enough that it saved the marriage. Not sure he ever realised just how close I was to walking out though.

Once I was actually stuck in the house, not locked in but stuck in as we'd just moved into a new flat sharing with a friend and there were 2 back door keys and 3 of us. DH (then BF) and our flatmate had one each as they cycled to work and the bikes were kept by the back door. They both went to work and left the back door open (it was summer the door had been open all morning) without a key I couldn't lock it so I couldn't go to work myself.... thankfully I got hold of my BF and he came back to lock the door, he worked locally so even with the unexpected round trip nobody was actually late for work! We got a new back door key cut very soon after that!

I once managed to lock my house and car keys inside my car, along with my mobile phone. I had to walk 2 miles to the nearest working phone box to make a reverse charge call to ask my step-dad to come and rescue me

There was also the time I locked my house keys in the car. Dh had gone to work, locking the door behind him. Later in the day I needed to go to the shop. Realising I was locked in and where I'd left the keys, I climbed out of the window to retrieve them. When I got to Tesco I wondered why my bum felt cold, looked behind me and saw I'd caught my jeans on the window catch and torn them so I had to buy some more while I was there!

Yes, as a teenager. I got home, put my keys on the table, got some money and went back out to buy a newspaper. Of course I couldn't get back in as the keys were on the table. So I went back to the newsagents, bought a drink and sweets, and sat on the doorstep until my mum got home.

Yes, when I was a student. I went out (maybe to the bin) but forgot my bag, purse, and keys, luckily I had my phone. I had to call my placement and tell them I couldn't come in and then I went and sat in my friends house and watched tv until my flatmates came home from uni/work.

Our front door lock broke on Boxing Day one year just as we were loading stuff in the car. Kids in the car and I was about to get in and dh went back to get something and the door was broken we didn’t have the keys to the back door to get in there either and being Christmas we couldn’t get a locksmith out that day without paying ££££ so dh had to climb over the back gate and then up onto the flat roof and smash the top tiny bathroom window and climbed in that way and then let us back in we were all stressed at the time but it’s quite funny now. People stopped as they drove past when he was climbing over the (high) fence to challenge him as they thought he was breaking in! (They couldn’t see us all sitting in the car on the driveway)!

When I was a youngish teenager I went babysitting. When I was dropped home at around 2am they drove away and didn't check I got in.
My parents forgot I was out and bolted the door so I couldn't get in. It took me ages to wake someone up.
Solid parenting all round really. It was before mobile phones so there was no way to call anyone.

I’m sure most people have at some point. Luckily we rarely lock any doors now and boned a key in our hand to do so. There is a key hidden for children if they arrive without a key and others who need access when we are away.

I used to generally leave a window open somewhere so could post a small child through, if necessary.

We got locked out once with all the children in the middle of the night. We'd been to London for a long weekend visit to sils and on return as I put the key in the lock the mechanism inside the door snapped!
3 kids freezing cold January night and kitchen door only opened from inside.
My oh had to climb some bins to then climb over a neighbour's shed into our back yard and break the lock on the patio doors all whilst trying not to make too much noise and wake the neighbours.
Every time we visit sil now the older 3 DC's remind everyone of what happened!

Yes I have, very distressing at the time.

Yes. And I had about forty minutes before I had to leave for the train station to head away on holiday.

Luckily, someone had about two months previously had to break in for the same reason - and they told me how they'd done it, so I knew what to do.

I was locked out once - had my keys but the latch on the yale lock broke and dropped down when I shut the door. I didn't know until I got home. I had a small baby with me. Luckily my MIL lived locally so I could go round to hers as it was a really hot day and I didn't want the baby in the midday heat. I noticed a few days earlier when renewing our homecare insurance that it included a locksmith so I was able to ring them and get one out very quickly, and didn't have to pay.

I’m regularly locked out, it’s very irritating but it’s my own fault. I don’t even step out to the letterbox to get my post without my keys in my hand it’s happened so many times.
I locked DH outside naked in the snow on a skiing holiday once. He’d stepped out onto the patio to bring his boots in at the same moment as I shut the door without seeing him. The floor to ceiling curtains were closed and I got into the shower. He was out there for about 10 mins 🤣

Yes. I was in the garden and DH forgot this, and automatically locked the house up and went out. I needed a neighbor to drive me around looking for him at his usual haunts. Was not pleased.

Not that I can remember, but to be fair, we hardly lock the door and if we do, we need the key to lock it, so it's hard to get locked out.

Once though I got locked in my flat. I ordered a takeaway. It was a really old building with only a buzzer at the door (so people could buzz me up on the 3rd floor but we couldn't speak to each other). The delivery driver buzzed and I went to rush out the door to collect it downstairs and the door knob (very old victorian style door knob) fell out the other side and rolled down the stairs! Without the door knob, I couldn't engage the mechanism inside that unlatched the door. Driver just kept buzzing for like 10 minutes and I sat on the floor and cried about my Indian that I was so hungry for and my door knob that I could see at the bottom of the stairs through the hole in the door. I had to call an ex to ask how the f I could take the damn mechanism in the door apart to get out. It took about half an hour, but I did manage. And I went to collect my lost takeaway. But I was about 25 at the time and I remember it being such an (at that time in life) traumatic event!

DS2 when he was a baby locked me out of my car. I have a photo of him laughing and holding the keys. We could get him to press the buttons but only the lock one. Had to get DH to bring the spare key from home.