Don't forget to put away the ladder.

[PistolPackin'Papa]

Situation: Locked myself out of our upstairs bedroom.

My wife and I came home the other night, went upstairs to bed, and found out that I had locked the bedroom door, (seperate keys due to defense items inside, and expensive door.) Left the dumb key inside, :banghead: Now what?? Turned on all of the lights outside and noticed that the master bathroom window was open slightly. Opened it due to a steamy shower. Normally don't worry since you would have to be 14 feet tall to climb in there. Looking around I saw that I had left our 20 foot ladder on the side of the garage. I guess you know the rest of the story. What bothered me, besides my stupidity, was the fact that this old fat man could slowly climb up this ladder, unscrew the screws on the Pella windows, and climb through the bathroom window, (elapsed time about 7 or 8 minutes,) all within plain view of at least 4 neighbors, and nobody called the cops. We had just had some cat burglaries in the area too. If I can do it in 7 or 8 minutes, some young kid can do it in 2 minutes.

 

[shermacman]

Lets review:
Fat, old man enters house, plain view, no one reports anything: on December 25....

Hmmmm...

!

 

[PistolPackin'Papa]

BUT I WASN'T WEARING RED!!!!!!

 

[Nitrogen]

Don't forget anything that can be USED as a ladder, either!

Not just ladders.

Some people have these large storage cabinets, some are plastic, some are wood. A bad guy can empty one out and move it close enough to the roof so he can get up to a 2nd floor.

 

[Rezin]

Well, perhaps your neighbors were aware it was you.

I know what my neighbors look like, and have in fact seen one breaking into his own house before... I asked if he needed a hand. I KNEW he lived there, so there was no reason to fret.....

 

[Kamicosmos]

When I first moved into my house a couple years ago, I locked myself out. (Actually, the dog locked me out, but it's a long story, and beyond the scope of this thread.)

Anyway, no spare key at all, and the only tool I had available was in the shed. A Big Honking Axe. So, imagine this scene:

Man with A Big Honking Axe walks up to garage door, busts out glass, opens garage door, goes into house.

I almost called the police myself to tell them to ignore any frantic 911 calls from neighbors. Then I thought it would be interesting to see if the police did show up.

They didn't. Oh well.


Anyway again, you bring up an excellent point. In fact, this is the very reason my shed is locked. In the shed is a ladder, along with various tools that could be used to gain entry to my home and even become potential weapons in the wrong hands. I don't think a lot of people look at their unsecured tool sheds and see the potential tools in there for a thief.

 

[Crosshair]

Lets review:
Fat, old man enters house, plain view, no one reports anything: on December 25....

Hmmmm...

!

You owe me a new keyboard.

 

[sturmruger]

Next time you get locked out call a locksmith!!

 

[Fly320s]

Or hide a spare key in another part of the house.

 

[TallPine]

Well, I guess I am kind of the opposite on this ....

My extension ladder leans against the house right below our 2nd story bedroom window, for the purpose of a fire escape (I have to store the ladder somewhere).

But I can't see any reason to break in a 2nd story window when you can break in one of many ground floor windows instead

 

[armoredman]

Get an interior rope escape ladder instead - many safety supply houses carry them, mounting hardware, etc. Get the "easy way in" and put it away. In fact, put one in evey heavily used upper story room.

 

[Pocomoke]

PistolPckin'Papa,
Know exactly how you feel about the neighbors. Similar thing happened to me. Locked myself out of my parlor floor brownstone apartment on a work day. Arrived home from work and had my Homer moment...no key. Jumped up on the stone balusters, edged my way out on the decorative ledge, 15 ft above the depressed areaway and tugged on a 120 year old warped double hung window for ten minutes until it finally budged. You can imagine the words coming out of my mouth. People were passing by left and right. All the time I'm worrying as to how to explain to the cops when they arrive. Never happened.

Of course this was the Upper West Side of Manhattan, so maybe that's not really a surprise. (except to me at the time).

I follwed up with a trip to the hardware store(now that was the real challenge) for another key and lag screws.

 

[sherpa]

keys

always have a spare key to the HOUSE in your wallet.