to be furious with MIL for not heeding our fire safety advice?

[chicaguapa]

MIL and SFIL use their back door for everything and the front door is always locked. We have spoken to them in the past about how their only escape route is through the kitchen and that 90% of fires start in the kitchen blah blah. Their front door keys and window keys are kept in the kitchen, which they wouldn't be able to get to if there was a fire in there. So we have said they need to put the front door keys where they can access them in an emergency. So they agreed to do this, didn't actually do it, so then we insisted that they did it the next time DC went to stay.

Fast forward to today. They are out with DC, DH needs to open the front door, goes to where there are supposed to be front door keys... no keys. So then a very annoyed DH checked the smoke alarm and the battery was dead.

On the one hand I understand that it's up to them if they want to be unsafe etc, but DC regularly come to stay during the holidays without us. I'm actually really upset that all this time they haven't been safe when we thought they had been.

WYYD?

i remember a couple who lived near my grandparents dying in a fire ,they were found slumped against the locked uvpc front door .

BananaPudding, the type of deadbolt they are describing (key to open from inside) is not allowed in most places in the US because it's dangerous in a fire (or any other type of emergency). Unfortunately they are they standard in the UK. When I lived in the UK, I changed the deadbolt to what you have described (handle on inside, key on outside).
Chicaguapa, why don't you change the deadbolt on your pil's house to the kind that has a handle on the inside. You can find them at B&Q or Homebase and they are actually quite easy to change (Google it and you will find dozens of pictorial and video explanations on the internet). And just to reiterate, I completely agree with you that it's very very dangerous. I am fanatical about not only making sure that there are working smoke detectors in every area of my house, but I also insists on a fire extinguisher on every floor and when I drove older vintage cars, I had a fire extinguisher in every car.

My front door has to be locked from the inside with a key, but my back door has a twirly knob which I turn to lock/unlock the door, no key needed from inside, can lock it from outside with key

To be honest I don't know why you are all panicking about the door and windows being locked. You can smash a window to get out. Not ideal for sure but it is still very very unlikely that they will have a fire so I would let this drop.

Where YANBU is with the smoke alarm. If they had a fire at night and this was not working THIS is what would kill them, not the doors / windows being locked. A smoke alarm would go off well before there was a significant fire (ours is a pita and goes off at the drop of a hat!) giving them plenty of chance to get out even if they had to break a window.

So hold out for what is really important -the smoke alarm. Its not working, dcs don't stay - end of. Drop the doors and windows thing which just makes you look unreasonably controlling and won't actually improve safety much as long as the smoke alarm works

Ans sofisames would you relaly go and change your pils lock?! I would be livid if my dil (and bear in mind I am talking a long time in the future as my oldest ds is 4) took it upon herself to do this!!!!

Sorry for typos - have had a couple of glasses of wine...

Alicet - you can't smash a double glazed window because of the vacuum between the two sheets of glass - it's impossible even with a hammer. Our local fire station did a demo proving it because so many people think as you do. Scared the hell out of DP who had always dismissed my concerns about locking the back door and then removing the key.

Much safer to lock a door/window and leave the key in place. If you can't smash your way out then a burgular can't smash in either.

alicet, of course I wouldn't do it without discussing first, but as CinnabarRed has said, you can't just smash a double glazed window. I don't think that chicaguapa is being unreasonable at all. I have seen the house next door to me burn to the ground. And in another incident I have seen children left alone at home, locked into the house where keys were needed to get out. One of the children got badly hurt and they didn't have the keys or know where the keys were and couldn't get out. Somehow they got the attention of a neighbor through the window, but no one could get in to help them and then the police and the fire brigade arrived and they couldn't get in. I don't remember how someone got in to help them eventually, but it was over an hour later. Luckily there was no fire and the hurt child did not have a life threatening injury.

I don't think that it is standard in the UK to have locks that need a key to lock them from the inside. I've certainly never lived anywhere with a front door like that (although this is generally the arrangement for a back door with a chubb type lock).

OP I think that if you are really concerned then persuading/helping your ILs to install new locks seems to me the best way to go, because being reliant on finding your keys and then unlocking a door in a fire situation, especially with young children is I think a much higher risk strategy. Of course I'd also replace the smoke alarm, as that's the things that really makes the difference to the likelihood of being killed in a fire.

i have keys in my doors in case of fire and need to get out. the police weren't to happy about it but when i pointed out that the person who burgled me used the kitchen window the fact my keys were in the door wasn't important!! we were lucky and had keys changed anyway and have moved twice since!

"If I have read it correctly, the keys are on the back of the door (i.e. on a hook on the back of the front door), not on the back door, IYSWIM"

Thanks jillydix, sorry outnumbered not reading properly

Yanbu, generally a mistake to try to control grandparents but not on this subject... Don't let dcs spend the night.

Alicet, how easy is it to smash a window in thick smoke and poor visibility?

I imagine that those of us who have lost someone dear in a fire don't need persuading. Fire service home checks sound like a great idea. Even mils have to listen to firemen.