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

Once went out to take rubbish and door slammed behind me. No way at all of accessing round the back and frustratingly, I could see my keys on the table through the letterbox. Went to the garden centre about 10 mins walk away and paid £2 for a long piece of bamboo, then went to Robert Dyas and bought a magnet. Garden centre bloke also gave me some wired twine, so spent ages attaching the magnet to the end of the bamboo with twine and sellotape from next door neighbour. Then when I was confident the magnet was secure, I poked the stick through the letterbox and picked the keys up with the magnet before slowly pulling the whole lot back through the letterbox.

I honestly felt like a jewel thief that had dropped into a museum on a rope from a helicopter and dodged a million laser alarms. Really satisfying.

DH has a story about how his gran locked herself out in the 60s. Her next door neighbours were ‘that’ family - the local crime wave. Rough as hell, but they adored his gran.

Anyway, all she had to do was knock on their door, and their youngest was up the drainpipe, through the bathroom window and letting her in in two minutes flat.

It was almost as if he’d done it before…

I helped some friends round the corner back into their house when I was about 5. They removed the fan light windows then passed me through it onto the sofa and I opened the door from the inside. A core childhood memory.

I drove to the library, parked my car, dropped off my books and chose two more, checked out, got back to my car and spotted the keys (plus house keys on the same fob) on the driver's seat.

Went back to the library, gave the books back, walked home, got a ladder from the shed, climbed up to the bathroom window and squeezed in head first, pulling down a towel rack as I tried to manage a soft landing.

I found the spare car key and left the house unlocked because I remembered one of the DDs had taken the spare house key to make a copy that morning. To save time, I decided to ride DS's bike back to the car. Huge mistake - I got off the bike after a few blocks because it was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever tried to sit on, and wheeled it the rest of the way. Got to the car, unlocked it, managed to get the bike in (SUV so there was room) and drove home after quite a morning. I fixed the towel rack and walked around like John Wayne for the rest of the day.

I got locked out all the time as a teenager. I once dismantled an Expelair from the outside. This then enabled me to reach the handle of a window in a downstairs bathroom.

I also climbed through a bedroom window of a terrace house as a student by climbing onto the kitchen extension, going up a drainpipe and onto the windowsill and balancing sideways to get through a small window. There.was a scary few seconds when I was stuck and the frame creaked and I luckily got through but the weight was close to breaking it and the window so could have been a horrible death!

I have also many times got into a house by using a garden cane to reach the keys on a console table in the hallway.

I’ve used a bank card to jimmy open a lock, surprised how easy it was!

Once in College I got locked out in my pyjamas at the weekend, I was alone in the house and the door shut behind me leaving my phone inside. Walked up to the College library, met someone from my class who just happened to get one of my housemates phone numbers the week before. Used her phone to ring my housemate. She put the key in an envelope and gave it to a bus driver who was going to the city I was living in that had just stopped at the bus stop outside the shop she was working in. Was back in the house 3 hours later!

Recently my mum went to put something in the bin when she came back the door had locked itself. Luckily she had remembered we had taped a spare key to the back door to the under side of a pot in the garden, it took two neighbours who are in the window fitting trade the most of the day to open the lock- it involved removing the glass and drilling numerous holes in the door!

I once shut the door behind me leaving my keys in their usual spot on the stairs, which are about ten feet from the front door.
I got the neighbour opposite to get his fishing rod and poke it through my letter box - we managed to get the keys hooked on the end and out through the letterbox.

My mother did this several times when I was child. She climbed up the drainpipe and let herself in an upstairs window. Why the window was open I don’t know..

I once locked myself out when I was a student and a neighbour did this in a few mins. Quite worrying really.

Add me to the catflappers club - locked myself and kids out last summer, so unlocked back gate by reaching over, then used tent peg from garage to push backdoor key out of lock to land on kitchen floor, then bust through cat flap to pick it up. Was honestly quite proud!

Lol at pp's DH Cheeks - reminded me of the viral video from last year of the strapless dress boob woman

Took the teeny window out of the garage door and got in that way in my 20s, would never manage it now (replaced anyway).

Also climbed pregnant over our gate to access the back door once too.

Have a spare key hidden in the garden now. Have used it quite a few times.

Caught next door neighbours son trying, and failing, to break into his house late one night. Parents hadn't left a key with us so we were talking over the fence about what he could do when a man popped his head over the fence and asked what was going on. We explained and he asked me to confirm that he definitely lived there. He hopped over the fence and opened the kitchen window in about 20 seconds, popped back over the fence and was gone.

Don't know if he actually lived behind us but we think he may have just been a helpful burglar passing by at 1am.

We’ve sent my gymnastic loving daughter through our tiny toilet window in the past. She wouldn’t fit now.

I locked myself out in the snow with no coat or anything when I ran out to fill bird feeders. My dog opened the door for me that time! It’s a pain because we have to key lock the door because he can open it but sometimes it’s useful!

Contorted myself through the world’s smallest window. We had always left it open because we knew no one could fit through it. Turns out I could, although I removed the top 3 layers of my epidermis, laddered my tights and strained my shoulder in the process 🤦‍♀️ Still can’t believe I managed it, but it was the day of my Grandmas funeral, I was totally pissed off and I was getting through that sodding window come hell or high water.

As a teen, I had to get the garden slide to act as a ladder to get up to an open wide and shimmy through to land head first in the kitchen sink.

In a different house, I had to break the window to get in when I locked myself out.

Unlocked my padlocked shed door 2 years ago, to get rid of some cardboard boxes i'd used for the move. I condensed all the boxes to go in the recycling, and put the key, with my house key on also, on a shelf in the shed. Took the flat cardboard to the recycling, and - then- pushed- the- padlock - down, realising i .had left my house key inside ! Standing there on a on off rainy day, no coat, no phone, no glasses and i'm hopeless without them, and then realised i'd taken something from my car minutes before, and Thank the Lord, the car was still unlocked with a spare house key inside ! I was able to go back inside and get the spare shed key to recover the original keys.
Since then I still keep a spare house key in the car and another in my locker at work, just in case.

Everyone should have a side hustle....

Dare I call it "moonlighting"
😂