Problem with upvc front door lock...

[Atwaroverscrabble]

we have a pretty standard upvc front door with a normal lock but it currently has a problem and i was wondering if anyone out there had any advice?

Basically someone left the key in the inside of the lock when someone else wanted to unlock it and come in, so they pushed their key in hard, unlocked it and came in.... But now you can only take your key out of the lock when it is locked!

So you put your key in, unlock and then open the door, then you lock it with the door open, take out key and put in the other side, unlock it, close the door, lock it and take out the key! Its driving us nuts!!

How can we sort this? Any advice?

We have the same problem except you can only take the key out when the door is unlocked which means we can't use the door as our exit door. It's not a huge problem as we always use our back door anyway but would be useful to solve it without a locksmith! Wishful thinking!

I will watch this thread with interest!