Husband stuck in bathroom after door jammed, any tips to open it?

[DoorJam]

My husband is stuck in the bathroom - the door has jammed!

Does anyone know any tricks for unsticking doors?! I’ve tried googling but can’t work it out. He’s been in there over half an hour now.

How to keep the magic alive, eh? 😉

Glad he's out!

Aw I was enjoying that 😄

Our worst was when my late husband had a fall in the living room. He landed against the door which opened the wrong way - towards him. He was a stroke survivor and couldn't get up himself. Also - it turned out - somehow fell so that his head was between the telephone table and the wall.

I was 60 and 16 stone at the time. Feared I'd have to go outside and break a window myself. It was lockdown and my mobile phone was in the living room with DH...

In the end, I remembered the old kitchen hatch. DH had put shelving across it from the living room side and we used it for books.

I went back into the kitchen (where I'd been making us a cup of tea) and swept everything from the worktop. Then I pulled off the board at the back of the hatch and punched through the shelves.

Used a kitchen stool to climb onto the worktop and somehow got my huge arse through the hatch. I think I went feet first.

Kicked over the tv sitting on top of the sound system console, jumped down off said console and got to DH. To this day, I have no idea how I managed.

I’m glad he’s out, I was reading with a sense of horror actually!

I don’t actually properly close any doors here, just in case.

I was just about to say that!!

Im hoping this can turn into a 30 pager of 'take the handle off', 'call a locksmith' and my favourite - 'take the hinges off'.

I often wonder if other people’s doors are different to mine. When my door is shut you can’t see the hinges.

Wind your neck in love

No I wouldnt be able to get the hinges off either. I was bemused by 'pop the hinges' and particularly 'slide the pin out of the hinges'

I cant envision these hinges.

Have you tried a chainsaw?

Nah joking I actually read the updates. Glad hes out!

Ive actually taken all the locks off the doors in my house because my neighbour told me a horror story of how she slipped in the bath and done her back in and the fire brigade ended up having to come out and unlock the door (second floor bathroom and apparently her DH was useless to do much) and they burst in to see her in all her glory laid in a cold bath tub...

oh well done, saves you getting a new one.

I found a video on YouTube that suggested you just push upwards on the door and it lifts off its hinges. It went on to explain that in Australia all bathroom doors must be fitted with lift off hinges.

Sadly ours were not lift off and the pins wouldn’t budge.

Different country - but this is the type of service our firies will do. Obviously they triage calls but the staff are on duty and being paid. They came out last week to help a neighbour in similar circumstances

Chainsaw would’ve been fun but I don’t have one

As if they have nothing else to worry about at the moment 🙄

Glad he's out OP. This subject came up recently with a group of friends and it's surprisingly common.

Several people said they had been stuck in their bathrooms at some point and one of them said he lived alone and no one would come looking for him for at least a few days. He had water and could sleep in the bath but would be very hungry by the time he was found.

Moral of the story is - always take your phone into the bathroom with you!

I dont know how that would work with the door shut, surely the architrave and door frame prevents the door being lifted up?

A man being locked inside a toilet in his own home would give me serious ick. Within 5 minutes he should have just booted it and got out.

.

Hopefully, with the thread being revived again in 3 weeks time as if the DH is still trapped!

This is largely the case in UK now but looking at your door it wouldn’t have been part of building regs at that the time it was installed.

Or, someone coming along looking for advice for another trapped DH which sets the chain off again.

Surely you would kick the door down or break a window and call for help ?

Glad he's out!

When this happened to us I used a piece of that stiff plastic that comes round scissors, chisels etc. to force the latch back. Bendy enough to slide in the gap, not snap and stiff enough to push the catch back. Ours disengaged from the square spindle hole. That was turning but not moving the mechanism that pulled back the latch. Sometimes the spindle wears out too.

I have also been slid a butter knife under the door by the landlord. We just kept one in there for a while.

My first instinct was that he'd done it on purpose - got 'trapped' for 5minutes peace 😆

All this 'kick the door down' !!!!!

Yeah!!! Like in the Sweeney.

With bare feet. Solid pine door

Easy peasy.

Another possibility is either peeling the door apart if it is the sort made with paper concertinas in the middle or cutting round the wood block where the e handle is. Both ruin the door.