Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

To get pissed off that DH leaves the keys in the door?

54 replies

whatishistory · 29/10/2016 13:28

When I'm not in the house and DH is, he locks the front door (ie from the inside) and leaves the keys in the lock. This means that when I get home I can't unlock the door and have to ring the door bell for him to come unlock it for me. Some times I have to wait a while as he's having a snooze and doesn't hear the bell. I know it's a small thing but it drives me mad! How hard it is to pull the keys out of the lock so I can get in? No matter how many times I complain, he still does it.

OP posts:

Tarla · 29/10/2016 20:34

When we go to bed we take the keys up with us and put them on the post at the top of the stairs (it's flat so they just sit on top), that way if we needed them we can grab them on our way down.

What was that BBC programme ages ago where the three presenters scammed people? They went around a street at night, with the police in tow, and used a stick/hook to get people's keys via the letterbox. They let themselves in to various houses and took Polaroids of themselves holding the owners' handbags/laptops/wallets, etc. The police then had a chat with them all about security.

Our local PCSO advises against leaving keys in sight or reach of the letterbox as apparently thieves will try grab them if they can reach. Not sure how true it is though.

tinyterrors · 29/10/2016 21:52

That would piss me off too. Dh has done it once by accident when I'd gone to the shop and I was soaked and pissed off when he finally heard his phone.

We leave the keys in the back door overnight (solid door, no glass or letterbox) and the front door keys (also a solid door with no glass) are always in the same place near the door but out of sight/reach of the letter box. The last thing I'd want to do in an emergency is have to waste time searching for keys. If someone wants to break in they will regardless of if they can reach the keys or not.

TroysMammy · 29/10/2016 21:57

My exh left the key in the front door but left the house by the back door. I came home from work and couldn't get in as I didn't have the back door key on me. I was sitting on the back doorstep when an elderly neighbour saw me and invited me into her house.

My exh was out for another 2 hours. I was not impressed but the next day got another back door key cut.

SeamstressfromTreacleMineRoad · 29/10/2016 22:23

My DS left his keys on top of the radiator cover in the hall one night a couple of years back - the next morning, his briefcase (which had been in the hall) and his car had gone...!!!
The police said that the use of a small fishing rod with a strong magnet attached made getting the keys easy if they were in sight - but it was the fact that the thieves had entered the house to take his briefcase while they were all asleep that freaked him (and DIL) out...!
They were lucky, as it was opportunist, and nothing else was taken - but they now have restrictors on front and back doors so that they can't be opened from outside (you just flick them off from the inside in an emergency).

TheProblemOfSusan · 29/10/2016 22:40

My parents' house was robbed when I was a kid - glass back door with letterbox, keys on your kitchen counter. They made a long stick hook thing with supplies from the garage (bamboo, wire and duct tape) and let themselves in. Sounds ridiculous but the police found the stick thing chucked in next doors' garden.

People can be extremely inventive - quiet garden up a long drive so they had plenty of time.

Garage is now locked and keys out of sight.

feebeecat · 29/10/2016 22:46

DH does this too. Only I can still sometimes open it from the outside, it's only when I try and pull my key out that I realise - they both get stuck and it does something to the barrel. I can never get them out, he has to come and sort it out. And then the huffing and moaning starts. I used to get cross at him getting cross at me when it was his bloody fault in first place. I just wander off and leave him to it now. One day, I assume, he'll learn or probably not

Permanentlyexhausted · 29/10/2016 22:56

We leave the keys in the lock all the time but pull them out slightly so the door can still be unlocked from outside. It means they are where they can be found if we needed to leave the house quickly, especially the children who would manage less well if they had to find them and put them in the lock to get out.

Re burglars, I guess you work out what you feel the bigger risk is. For me, I'm more concerned about not being able to get out than about people getting in, especially as we have a dog and a burglar alarm.

sherridan · 29/10/2016 22:56

We were burgled last night. They got in through the kitchen window, took sets of keys out of the back door and from a hook by the front door and used them to steal my car :-( Please keep keys in a less obvious place preferably upstairs if you have stairs (recently bought house from living in a flat )

SexLubeAndAFishSlice · 29/10/2016 22:56

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

HedgehogHedgehog · 29/10/2016 22:57

i do this all the time! Im not trying to hide anything i just forget. And its me it ends up hurting because me DH has to ring the landline when he gets in from work to get in the house.... and he gets in from work at 5am :-(

RepentAtLeisure · 29/10/2016 23:13

My ex DP actually confessed that he'd leave the keys in the front door so I couldn't walk in and surprise him while he was watching porn. He'd always take a while to answer and look disheveled and confused like he'd just woken up. Just saying!

But I agree that you should leave locks a fair distance from the door. I was locked out once as a teenager and my db's friend actually got me back into the house by breaking a large twig off our tree and hooking the spare keys through the letterbox. (Later he used the same method to steal from us while we were on holiday...)

PikachuSayBoo · 29/10/2016 23:21

It's possible to leave your key in the door but the door still be unlocked from outside. Just get in the habit of leaving the key in the vertical position and then when the next person comes home and puts their key in it pushes the first keys back a bit and you can unlock. Or the first person can leave them in the vertical position and pull them half out. Which is what me and Dh do and it works fine.

Dog would start barking at any burglar so no worries there.

TataEs · 29/10/2016 23:29

oh used to do this to me all the time... so i started doing it to him... make him wait on the doorstep for a bit... oddly enough he's been much better recently

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 29/10/2016 23:36

Ds3 got into the house once, when he'd forgotten his keys, by borrowing a pair of long-handled pliers, reaching in through the cat flap to get the back door keys out of the door lock and let himself in.

He is no criminal mastermind, so if he can do it that easily, I am sure a burglar would have no problems.

On the OP's issue - her dh is being a bit of a knob, to continually lock her out of the house like that. I do it sometimes, by accident, but I leap up to let in dh, and apologise.

LockedOutOfMN · 29/10/2016 23:40

I used to do this when we were all inside of a night as I thought that in a fire we'd just need to turn the key to open the door and get out, but I read something that said the heat from the fire can actually cause the key to melt inside the lock and therefore by leaving the key in the lock you could cause yourselves to be locked inside the house. So now we leave them on a hook close to the door. We don't have a letter box or any windows near the door.

Topseyt · 30/10/2016 00:04

We don't have any letterboxes. We have a postbox on the outside wall of the house.

Our keys are kept on a rack at the far end of a fairly long hallway, out of sight and reach of any doors and windows.

One of my regular war cries is about locking the door and not leaving keys in the back of it.

DH is the most chaotic one with keys in this house and has done it occasionally. Drives me nuts and I rip into him if I haven't been able to get in until I can extract him from whatever he is ensconced in.

thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter · 30/10/2016 00:28

The superglue mortice lock burglar trick apparently would be done by putting superglue on a sturdy but thin enough 'stick', slide it into the lock with the key in it (so it sits on the top length of the key) wait til the glue sets and then when you turn the stick it should turn the key in the lock and hey presto!*

*theoretically. I am NOT a burglar!

Original poster

whatishistory · 30/10/2016 08:10

I'm sure DH has no malice doing this. He does it regardless of whether he's alone in the house or we're all in. I think I need to escalate my protests as me just complaining when I come in isn't enoug.

I think our lock is possibly different to those described. It's on a new build house, where you have to push the handle alll the way up to lock it.

OP posts:

anastasiakrupnik · 30/10/2016 08:52

I don't know about the OPs lock but couldn't some of you get one where you turn a knob on the inside to lock it (thumbturn lock?). Seems like madness to need keys to get out of your own house, or to leave them in the lock.

Alwayschanging1 · 30/10/2016 09:31

My first thought was porn too.

Original poster

whatishistory · 30/10/2016 09:36

He knows I don't mind him watching porn at all. We're free and easy I think I should start leaving the keys in the door when he goes out.

OP posts:

JellyBelli · 30/10/2016 10:03

ImperialBlether
How on earth would a stick and superglue help if keys are left in a mortice lock? Are you counting on the fact there'd be enough space under the door to slide a key through it, a la Enid Blyton books?

If you leave the keys in the inside of a mortice, a burglar can see the head of the key from the outside. They superglue a stick to that, then turn the key from the outside.

Alwayschanging1 · 30/10/2016 10:25

Maybe he is secretly doing embroidery and ashamed you might see him.

LeopardPrintSocks1 · 30/10/2016 10:28

He's wanking

Celticlassie · 30/10/2016 10:48

Surely the stick and superglue is reliant on the people in the house being far enough away from the door that they can't hear the letterbox or the keys rattling, and also reliant on no one walking past the door while the glue is drying and noticing a big stick stuck through the letterbox. 🤔

Flip

1 2 3

Swipe left for the next trending thread