What to Do When You Get Locked Out of Your House

Getting locked out of your home is pretty embarrassing. You are left to your own devices and there’s no way to get inside. Waiting for someone else to arrive might take a while and breaking a window in your own home would leave a huge mess. Luckily, there’s no reason to worry. You have lots of options at your disposal before you have to decide to call help or break in yourself.

1. Don’t Panic

There’s nothing more frustrating than coming back from a long day at work and finding yourself separated from your relaxing refuge. If you find that there’s no alternative way to get in, it might become rather distressing. What do you do in this type of situation?

For starters, there’s no reason to panic. This happens to the best of us and it’s only going to end up being a minor inconvenience at worst. Panicking won’t get you anywhere, and it might actually inhibit you from thinking of a reasonable solution to the problem at hand. Keep a clear head and proceed further.

2. Call Your Designated Contact

For situations like these, it helps to have someone that has a spare key to your home. Getting locked out could be solved as easily as simply calling your spouse or other family members and politely asking them to drop by earlier in order to help you get inside.

Some people entrust their neighbours with a spare key in emergencies like these, which can be helpful. If they are at home and you have given them a key, ring the doorbell and hope that you aren’t interrupting anything important.

3. Try an Alternate Entrance

Your entrance options aren’t just limited to the front door. Windows and backdoors could be your ticket inside your home. Even if you’re the type of person that thoroughly locks everything before they leave the house, it’s still possible that you slipped up and that you can find your way inside.

If you somehow do stumble upon a window that is unlocked, take care when climbing through it. You don’t normally look at it from this perspective, so it’s easy to knock down plants and decorations on your way in.

4. Use a Credit Card

When you run out of legitimate options to do on your own, it’s time to get crafty. Most front doors shouldn’t be easy to break into, considering the fact that you don’t want other people to do the breaking in. Backdoors and other backyard entrances are often easier targets for some simple hacks.

Breaking into your own home shouldn’t as easy as pulling out your wallet, but sometimes all you need is a credit card. It’s an old trick that wouldn’t work on a modern front door, but swiping a backdoor or large window might do the trick. Alternatively, you could simply swipe open doors to your shed and use a ladder to climb onto a higher window, as people rarely lock those. This is a much more dangerous option, which is why it’s not recommended.

5. Call a Professional

Sometimes, you’re not going to be able to get in your home in any reasonable amount of time. Spending hours in your front yard waiting for family members to get home isn’t an option, which means you might need to call someone that can quickly remedy the situation.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter whether you locked yourself out at five AM or ten PM, professionals can get you inside your home at all times of the day. Keep the number of a local 24/7 locksmith service written down in your phone, so that you can always contact them in case of such an emergency. If you don’t have a number on you, make use of your home’s WIFI while you’re in the front yard and find the much-needed contact number.

6. Remove the Doorknob

If push comes to shove, you can always take the doorknob straight off of the door. Doing this in an unnecessarily violent way will only leave your door looking like a mess, so it’s best if you stick to using tools. If you aren’t able to reach your toolbox, you should consider ringing up the neighbour and asking to borrow a couple of them.

For most doorknobs, all you really need is a good screwdriver. First, you’re going to need to find the shank of the doorknob. The screwdriver will help you reach and unscrew the screws holding the plate, giving you further access into the doorknob. The rest of the job depends on how advanced the doorknob is, but you should be able to remove it with a proper toolbox.

Conclusion

Getting locked out of your home isn’t the end of the world. There are tons of ways to get out of this predicament, many of them don’t even require professional help. As long as you remember to keep a cool head and look at all the options, you should be able to get inside of your home faster than you would have expected. Consider all of these tips when you find yourself in such a situation and you should be set.

Author Bio:

Patrick Adams is a freelance writer for Media Gurus. When he is not writing about home improvement, he loves to play chess, watch basketball, and play his guitar. More than anything, he loves to spend his time in his garage, repairing appliances and creating stuff from wood.