If so, did you ever lock yourself out of the apartment without the keys to go back in?

43 comments

  1. It does, fortunately I haven’t. But, if I did, I’d probably go to my gf and ask for the spare one.

  2. No, it doesn’t. I can lock it both with a physical key and my phone. I always try to bring both with me.

  3. Yes,my one does.

    I have never locked myself out, but my partner has… she went to the neighbours house and waited there for me to come home 😉

  4. Yes, and pretty much all German doors do. I’ve locked myself out countless times. I always carry a second house key in my wallet, in addition to my keychain, because it’s just so common. Once, I forgot both and had to call the “key service” (“Schlüsseldienst”), which is an expensive ordeal…

  5. I have a door outside the apartment with a triangular bolt which engages when the door is closed. And the front door held by an electromagnet. Once I went out without keys, and had to pry this door open with a piece of old furniture.

  8. No, and I’ve never seen an appartement door that does in Switzerland. It is becoming more popular for main entrances to buildings though (I can leave my appartement without a key as it doesn’t lock, but I can’t leave the appartement building without a key since the main door does lock).

  10. No, I have to manually lock it with a key. We have a small gate on the way to the flats that locks itself, people hated it so we just leave it open.

  11. No. This design of the lock was really common in Soviet times, but now I almost don’t see it. Sure, it saves some time for locking the door and helps you to be sure that you won’t forger it, but if you’ll forget to take your keys, you’ll have certain problems.

  12. Yes, and I’ve forgotten my keys inside, I think, twice. However, that’s why my boyfriend has a spare key, so I don’t have to calm the door opening service and pay 50€ for them to open the door for me.

  14. Yes, pretty much all apartment building doors lock automatically. Detached home, row house and others’ doors usually have a little switch so you can choose whether it locks automatically or doesn’t.

    During the 20+ years I’ve lived in a flat I’ve only locked myself out once. Had to call the maintenance company to come open it, it costs something like 20€ during the day and 50€ evenings/nights and weekends.

  15. Yes it does and I have never locked myself out. I’m quite anal about stuff like my keys, so I just always make sure I have them on me when I go out the door (even if it’s just to stand outside and breath some fresh air).

  16. If you activate it, then yes. But we haven’t activated it on our door.

    The Christmas before the last, I locked myself out, on little Christmas Eve, December 23rd. The locksmith who came to a) let me into my apartment and b) rob me of all my money in return for the favour told me that the 23rd of December is the busiest night for locksmiths—at least in Aarhus—as people are rushing to get ready for Christmas Eve, and in their hurry, often lock themselves out.

  17. Kind of. It can’t be opened from outside because the handle doesn’t rotate and isn’t actually attached to anything. But that’s a lot less safe than actually rotating the key.

  21. I had one in my childhood and lock myself out a couple of times, nowdays I just install locks with good UX.

  22. Nope. You have to lock it with a key, because it’s old. And when I rented a flat in Warsaw when I was a student, you still had to lock the door because it didn’t lock itself automatically. The only doors that lock themselves automatically is the gate to my neighborhood and the door to the staircase in that block of flats in Warsaw.

  23. Yes. It doesn’t need a key to lock. I haven’t locked myself ever because the house keys are also attached to my bike keys

  25. Mine doesn’t. Those locks are more common on flats/appartments but a lot less common in houses (I live in a house rather than a flat in fairness).

  26. The access door to my block is on a latch and I’ve often locked myself out, i remember running outside with the bins one morning in my robe and slippers with no phone, forgot to fix the lock and I was stranded outside, on a high street, in literally nothing except my robe and slippers… on a Monday morning too so traffic was fairly busy with commuters etc…

    but my actual front door to my flag is just a normal key in the handle.

  28. Yes and….. yes. The key is to have an old Xray film to open the door when it happen, I always have one in my car.

  30. No, but the door to the building does. Growing up, the house I lived in had locks like that, and I locked myself outside several times. One winter, I had to huddle up in the wood shed waiting for my parents to come home. The neighbor usually had a spare key, but I had recently locked myself outside and hadn’t returned the key yet.
    Edit: never locked myself outside the apartment building, but I guess I’d just try ringing a neighbors “door bell”.

  31. Yes, I can only enter with a key. Nevertheless, it is not fully locked, and can be easy to break in, hence I always lock it fully.

    I never locked myself out yet. Also my hubby has a 2nd key anyway.

  32. Every flat I’ve lived in has had a door that locks automatically. I’ve only locked myself out twice. Once my father lived in the same town and had a spare key so I just called him. The other time was more difficult, I managed to lock myself out without a phone or outdoor shoes or a coat and it was winter and maybe -20 outside. It was the middle of the day and there weren’t many people around. The first person pretended that they didn’t see me but fortunately there was a cleaner who called the maintenance company to come open the door. In my current building getting the maintenance company to open doors doesn’t cost anything during the day which is very uncommon.

  33. Yes. The vast majority of UK front doors lock behind you, although with uPVC doors becoming more common some 5-point locks with a euro cylinder do not.

  35. No, because our entry doors don’t have handles but knobs. And not the american twist types. The European type that doesn’t open or move

  36. Yes, i think large part of the apartment doors lock automatically here.

    I locked myself out of the apartment without keys more than once.

  37. Almost all doors in Spain lock themselves after you, yes. It’s pretty common to have armoured doors that are way safer if you also rotate the key. I once had to learn how to open the door using some piece of plastic because I had no money and knew someone who could guide me using the phone. New skill I learnt that day. Now I always rotate the key because I am now aware of how easy it can be force a lock open when left half closed like that.

    Interesting post, btw. I’d never thought of that.

  38. Yes – and no, since I don’t live in an apartment.

    Most apartments do, guess there are some exceptions, like private-rented flats / floors somewhere on the countryside.

    Also, its quite common to use doors with only a knob on the outside – which bothers me the most.

  40. usually yes, and yes. but our building is fucked and our door kinda shifts so the lock mechanism doesn’t work properly so you have to lock the door every time you close it. The two reasons we don’t call a locksmith are a) we’ve done that before and it helped for like half a year and b) it comes with the advantage of never forgetting your key

  41. Yes, and yes. Before closing the door, I always check that I have my phone, keys and wallet with me. Once had a set of keys from work with me instead of my own keys and had to call parents to bring the spare key.

  42. Yes. It’s annoying, but at least the back door has one of those keypad things. I got locked out once and had to pay 20€ for the janitor to open the door. I am still salty.

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