Ingenious ways you've got back into your house after being locked out

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This is not one. But I did just get locked out. I forgot I have to pick something up after work tomorrow and just remembered that I have stuff in my car boot so decided to nip out to empty it. Stupidly for such a blowy night I left my front door ajar (it doesn't have a latch for some reason) and of course when I came back it was shut. I do have a lock box in my back garden - under a bush, not attached to a wall so I went and got that but even under the porch light I couldn't see the numbers without my specs. Eventually I got the right code by luck rather than judgement. So, I'm stood there in my pjs, door locked, no key, glasses or phone and started to think about of alternative ways to get in. I didn't come up with any! But now that I am back in and safely on my sofa I was wondering if anyone here has come up with an ingenious way of getting back into their house after getting locked out? And give me tips for next time I get locked out

When I was a teenager, a police officer broke into our house in a similar way when I got in from school, house was all locked up and I could see DDad collapsed inside.
Police man told me if you can get your head through a window, you can get your whole body through.

Possibly in the 1980s. I suspect this doesn't apply to the chunkier society we have now.

I was working the night shift alone and shut the office door without my key to get back in again. Window was open (ground floor) so I got the vacuum cleaner out and took it outside and put the end through thr window and managed to suck up the key. I then realised I was now locked outside because the key for the external door was attached to the key for the office.. so I had to rummage through the contents of the vacuum, outside, st 3am, to find the keys.

Impossible to get in to our current house with no key! I have forgotten my keys a couple of times - once h came back from an early meeting and realised. My teen DCs were in but asleep still. I got as far as the back door so I sat in the garden til one of them came down for breakfast 😆 luckily it was warm. Another time DS was in and up but wasn’t answering his phone so I called dh to call him on his computer as he was gaming- that worked.
When I was a very young child I apparently locked my mum out and couldn’t open the door, so she got the neighbour to climb in the window!!

I was taking stuff out to the car. DM was supposed to be looking after DS who was a toddler in the house. DS toddles out after me, then DM realises he's gone and comes out the front door, which slams behind her because a draft from the open patio door at the back of the house. You can't get around the side without climbing 2 x 6ft locked gates .

The neighbour who holds a spare key is out so I approach the neighbour who works for the fire service thinking he'll know what to do./will get in for me. No, he phones his mates at the station.
5 minutes later they arrive in the fire engine with sirens and blue lights on! Strategically place their ladders to climb the gates and walk I through the house and to the front to let me in.
DS thought it was brilliant that a fire engine came to his house and even got to sit in the driving seat and sound the siren.

My then boyfriend posted 17 year old me through the tiny top kitchen window at his house, when he had forgotten his keys. It wasn't fun!

Not a daring break in story, but I once locked us out of the house doing the school run. My house keys usually lived in my coat pocket, so I had put my hand in pocket to check and felt what I was certain were keys - right size/weight/level of pokiness. Get back from dropping DD, with toddler in tow. Reach in pocket for keys and out comes a Hot Wheels car/plane thing (toddlers fave). <Sigh>
Toddler now demands loudly that he needs a poo <Deeper sigh>
I haul us over to neighbour in the next street, beg to use her toilet and phone. Call DH (cause I can only remember his number), he calls MIL because she has a spare key. Fortunately she is in, but I have to wait for half an hour for her to arrive.
Next day get a spare key for neighbour to look after!

We still have that Hot Wheels, I think it's still DS favourite (he is now 15!)

Arrived at Airbnb hours later than expected as car broke down. Midnight and couldn't get hold of anyone. Posted 5yo through a tiny open window to open the front door for us. Landlady never did enquire as to how we had got in!

Posted DD through a window, I remember it being cold as I'd first posted my big coat as a soft landing 😁.
Opened a few doors using the credit card trick and in an old basement flat I used to hop over the railings and down (probably 3/4ft below ground) then lift the sash window and slide in that way, not secure but helpful if I'd accidentally locked myself out.
Thankfully my flat now needs a key to lock but still my DD and my mom have a spare!

Borrowed a child from a neighbour to put through a small window.

When I was a teen we lived in a house that had sliding glass doors at the back of the house. The lock just needed to be pushed down to open them.
I trained my dog to scrabble at the lock until she unlocked it, so when I came home late at night without my keys my dog could let me in!

I left my keys on the hall bench one day. I had to ask a neighbour for a long stick with a hook on the end so we could fish them off the bench through the letterbox.

As kids we had metal framed windows a judicial thump would make the top window latch jump up so you could open it. A bit of a tight fit and a big drop to get in.

I did break a window above a French door to get in when my DH was away for work and I was locked out, also a tight fit and a big drop. It was also a very hard piece of glass and I was told I should have picked any window but that one to try and break.

Definitely a career in burglary!

The only window ever left open in my parents bungalow when my siblings and I were teenagers was the bathroom. It was just the upper part of the window that opened, and the loo was underneath, so we all got very good at managing to get in headfirst and sort of slither down, using our hands to control speed, onto the toilet seat lid. Looking back, we could have had careers as low-grade contortionists…

That is very cool. 😀

There’s some amazing burglars in here!
love the hoovering of the keys and the lock opening dog.
no dating deeds from me, but several years ago DP and I went away for the weekend with youngest and eldest DC, middle one 14 didn’t want to go so we arranged he would stay with friends locally.
i was cleaning a week later and noticed a downstairs window had been opened then almost closed, with the latch tucked in to look closed. The little bugger had climbed in with his mates whilst we were away! Had to admire his ingenuity.
another time when I was an older teen, my mum got back from two weeks in Greece, and DSis and I had locked her out! She couldn’t wake us so slept in the summer house 😂

Keys left on kitchen table. Used a bamboo cane and a wire from the runner beans to fashion a fishing hook. Poked through letter box to hook them.

I went next door and got the spare key that I had ingeniously given them for such scenarios.

Now you’re being far too logical. We can’t leave keys with immediate neighbours as we have (1) a pair of unpleasant retired surgeons usually off on their boat, (2) an elderly woman who lives in a distant part of her large house, is usually out of earshot in her big garden, and is clearly very rattled by unexpected callers if she does hear, (3) an empty house and (4) a cheerfully shambolic 3-bed houseshare inhabited by at least fifteen Deliveroo riders who seem lovely, but I’m not sure I’ve ever met the same ones…

I'd have gone to my neighbour who has a key for our house.

Many many years ago when I was a lithe slim teenager, a family friend showed up at the door with her toddler who had locked them out. We went to a neighbour, left the toddler there and walked back down the road carrying my dad's big ladder. I then wriggled through her tiny bathroom window headfirst into the bath whilst she waved at the police car that went by without asking what we were up to! I'd never get through that window now. Mind you, the toddler is nearly 40!

As a 6-year-old I was posted through the tiny bathroom window of our bungalow to open the front door. I was a very fearful child (still am a fearful adult) so I'm amazed I managed it!

In Singapore I remember all our windows had wrought iron ornamental grills on, except the bathroom which had a high up louvre window. We got burgled, they came through the bathroom window!

Flykicked the door in. Lol. Not sensible. It worked a couple of times. I can get to my back garden via a neighbour's house but if the back door is locked it's harder to break into than the front. But if one specific window is open I could just about haul myself in, through some extensive shrubbery! Luckily there's pretty much always someone in the building at all times now to let a locked out person in. Begrudgingly obviously.

In my old house I got in by crawling through the dog door/flap thing.

I did this exact thing! I did warn my mum how insecure it was - but only after I moved out

Our neighbour locked herself out of her house, so she asked DH if he could help her.

He takes over a ladder, and proceeds to shimmy through an open bedroom window.

Unfortunately, his belt was caught by the climbing rose, & as he wiggled one way, his trousers & undies wiggled the other, showing a very pale, full moon to the whole green.

This was precisely the moment our neighbour’s husband turned up, with his colleague (both in-uniform Police Officers), who were bent double laughing as DH tried to release his tangled strides, flopping around like a fish on a hook.

Plod neighbour opened the door with his keys, through sobs of laughter, went upstairs and pulled DH free, and all we could see was a bare arse sliding through the window, followed by the trues that were, by now, pooling around his boots.

It was like watching the moon set.

And that was how DH got the nickname (on our green and with our friends and family in the local constabulary) as “Cheeks.”