Have you ever been locked out or locked in ?

I had a key safe fitted next to the front door after one door-slamming event when I had just popped outside to deadhead the pansies in the window box, and had forgotten the back door was open. Should explain that back door is inaccessible because it is accessed by an up and over garage door from the back lane. Had to wait for brother to come 10 miles with spare key. The key safe was £16 and I paid a tenner to have it fitted. It has proved a great success, as visiting young people in the family can let themselves in when I'm out, or if I've gone to bed. Now I don't worry about locking myself out, and have even got a bit blasé!
Late husband had a form of dementia (PCA) which affected vision and co-ordination. He locked himself in many a loo before I finally took over and insisted we use the disabled loos. I got used to going into gents' loos calling for him and explaining as I went. Mostly, I was met with kindness by other loo users, including one young man who climbed over the door and undid the bolt.

I'm paranoid about keys after DH locked his keys in the car & my keys were in the house. Guess where house keys were, yes in the car (same key ring). Phone call to try & find his S, no luck. Sat on front wall, luckily a lovely warm summer evening, a neighbour went to get a bunch of keys, still no luck.

Eventually DH had a bright idea, if he climbed over garden wall he could hook the garage keys off the coffee table by the french windows, hand through cat flat & a garden cane. Keys for garage retrieved DH went for his fishing net as he could reach bottom bolts but not top ones. Guess what it worked

I never again went out without my handbag & door keys.

When I go away I always take my spare car keys, if I lock my car & open the boot separately, the boot locks automatically when you close it. I'm paranoid now. Two of my neighbours have spare keys for my house as they feed the cat when I'm away.

I used a loo in a hotel; the cubicle door swung shut behind me and I realised there was no lock, handle or anything to get the tightly fitting door open again - just holes in the door where they should have been! I called out, to no avail, and then tried ringing my husband who was in the lobby, but needless to say, had his phone on voicemail. I thought of ringing the reception desk but for some reason the hotel's name/number would not come up on Google. Finally I rang my daughter and instructed her not to laugh but to phone the hotel herself and ask them to come and let me out. Their comment, when I was released? 'Oh it's been like this for months'. I ask you!

My DD has excelled herself twice in this way.. The first time she decided to take a bath and entered bathroom with just the towel. She also decided to lock the door even though she lived on her own. You guessed it. Lock jammed and she had to resort to leaning out of the window to get someone’s attention, who then phoned letting agent who organised a locksmith. Second time she had a little lobby just the width of the doors. She slammed the Yale lock shut before realising she had forgotten the keys for the outer door. Fortunately she had her phone so we released her after a 45 minute drive, otherwise she would have had to hope the postman had some letters for her.

Can remember back in the early 90's, I dropped one of my daughters at her new University halls a day earlier than most others were arriving. I drove back home to London. There were two other students in these halls. The first time she popped downstairs, she realised she did not have the key with her to get back into her rooms, one of the other students helped her. Amazingly, later the same night, she did exactly the same thing, locking herself out and had to get the night porter to help her back in.
Like an other contributor I keep a key safe on the wall in my never locked enclosed porch.
My only way into my house. A couple of winters ago I popped out in my nighties and dressing gown to take something to the rubbish bin, cold night so meant to close the porch door behind me to keep in the warmth, but without thinking slammed the front door. Not sure what I would have done without the key safe!

Years ago whilst visiting my husband in Lagos where he was working I'd gone to visit the wife of his work colleague in the block of flats where they lived.
I got into the lift, pressed the button and the lift started to ascend, then suddenly the lights went out and the lift stopped, NEPA cut (Nigerian electricity company) a very frequent occurrence. I waited for a few minutes in case it came back on but then started to get worried. It was pitch black and the temperature was rising, no AC either now. I started banging on the doors and shouting, after about twenty minutes which felt more like twenty hours, an African voice called from somewhere above "where are you?!"
After about an hour of cranking noises and lots of voices I was eventually manually winched to the next floor. Hot, sweaty and quite upset I arrived at the friends door to be told that it happens all the time but the problem for me was that the man in charge of the lift mechanics had gone home to his village for Christmas! They'd had to smash open the control box to get at the winch. Even today I'm wary if lifts and even more so in other countries.

We don’t have a lock on our bathroom door anymore. My daughter has fits and nearly always had them in the bathroom which she had locked! She left home many years ago but still no lock even visitors are use to it.

Why would you need to lock the door when everyone at the meeting knew you were in there and wouldn't come barging in?

In my teens I had a wee run of being locked out of hotels ,in Spain and in the Highlands of Scotland,it just never occured to me they would lock the door.The weather was much warmer in Spain so I sat on the hotel steps until the staff arrived early in the morning...in the highlands it was a skiing trip so it was very cold,I threw stones at a bedroom window without any luck and ended up walking round the town for over 3 hours before staff opened the door . Then there was the time I got locked IN a park and had to climb an 8 foot wall into the chuch grounds to get out.

We sat in a carriage on the Edinburgh - London Express a few years ago; one of the semi circular loos was placed between our section of seats and the rest of the carriage. A tiny Scots lady went in, shut the door, didn't lock it presumably and a man came along and pressed the button to open the door. 'Tiny lady was enthroned, frozen and horrified, and then unfroze and pressed the close button. No sooner had it closed than it opened again. This happened three times; my friend and I were almost weeping with a mixture of hysterical laughter and sympathy for the poor lady, which we managed to stifle as she walked past, scarlet, having finally had the door shut long enough for her to leap up and rearrange herself. A few minutes later a porter came along and put an 'out of order' notice on the door. I will never use one of those loos - I would rather quietly wet myself in preference!

Many years ago, when my two eldest sons were 4 and 2 years old and I was seven months pregnant with No.3, I was cooking dinner and took some particularly smelly food wrappings out to the bin on the front drive. You've guessed it, the front door slammed firmly shut! There were saucepans bubbling on the cooker in an open plan kitchen diner where my sons were playing. I had to get back in the house and quickly. We never left keys with our dubious neighbours. So I walked round to the back of the house where there was an access road behind the garages, found a milk crate and an empty oil drum to climb on to get me on the roof of the garage so I could carefully lower myself down into the garden. I let myself back into our house through the unlocked back door. The kids were fine and I felt pleased with myself for quietly dealing with a potentially disastrous situation - until two policemen knocked on the door just as my husband arrived home! I had been spotted by a neighbour who dialled 999. I had a lot of red-faced explaining to do.

Years ago, when my children were small, I used the loo in the downstairs cloakroom and the handle jammed and broke off. The window was one of those letterbox types, so no way out. I shouted until one of the children noticed, then instructed the eldest, who luckily was old enough to be reading, to ring OH at the office. Apparently it caused great hilarity there. About an hour later, OH and a colleague arrived and took the door off to let me out. Thankfully, the kids were OK, but it was frightening at the time.

We were waving DS off to nursery in the transport and DD 2ish saw a large lorry turning in at the end of our road which she did not like the look of and dashed indoors slamming the front door.

The keys were in the house, I was outside and could not get in. We tried to get DD to push the keys through the letter box but in the end she went back into the living room and started playing.

A neighbour tried but in the end we called the police and borrowed a ladder to get in through a window to get in.
It was probably one of the more pleasant jobs of his day.
They did come very quickly.

We were in a hired car on a remote island off the coast of Gorgia, USA. It was a battered one where you pressed a knob to close the doors. We both jumped out at the same time, locking the doors. Where were the keys? In the ignition of course. Everything was in the car: water, sunhats, money etc. Frantic dash to the nearest hotel about half a mile away, and phone call to car company. Two hours later a cheery man arrived, slid his credit card into the lock and hey presto it opened. Then he said: "The lock was broken, yes?" "Well actually, no, we closed the doors". He repeated "The lock was broken, yes?" Catching on we said "OK", and he drove off. We were never charged.

When I was 17 I worked in an office. The company had just acquired the dilapidated house next door. On Friday afternoon I wanted to use the loo before going home. The loo was occupied so I slipped next door into the old house to use the loo. Big mistake, the lock broke when I turned it and I was locked in. I was in such a panic, knowing that this was the last place anyone would look for me. I clawed at the lock for ages until it gave way. My fingers were cut to bits. To this day I have a fear of being locked in a loo! My great aunt was locked in a toilet on the train from Liverpool to Wales when she was a young woman. She too never got over it.

Does anyone remember the pensioner who was locked in a shop toilet for 4 days? True British grit! She survived on some sweets and drinks of water, kept warm by using the hand-dryer, and knitted while she waited!
www.express.co.uk/news/uk/628489/Granny-locked-council-toilet-knitting-Blitz-Spirit

We were locked out on Sunday.

Going to see friends for a bit of a celebration tea. OH thought his keys were still in is pocket from earlier in the day. So out he went with a bottle of bubbly and I followed with a large cream cake. Got to the car - no keys and I'd closed the door.

Thankfully the bedroom quarter light was open and our lovely neighbours brought their ladder round and OH was able to open main window and climb in.

One bottle of wine to the neighbours and a phone call to our friends and all was good again. But we did feel silly :-(

It has prompted us to get on and changing the front door to a double glazed one that needs a key to lock it :-)

Scariest lock in was moving back to the UK. On a train from London to Bristol, DD1 was about 6 and needed to go, we were about 15 mins out of Swindon, our stop. I could see the door so ok for her to go while I got our things together. After a while I spoke to her, thinking she was messing about washing her hands. No she was locked in. I tried, a couple of other passengers tried and we couldn't get the door open. By then we were pulling into Swindon DD1 was in tears and I was frantic.

One of the passengers fetched the guard, he tried, no joy. He said we'd have to go to Bristol sort it out and get the train back. I was so scared as Ex was waiting for us as Swindon and we had a move (March-in) booked, so I wasn't looking forward to his rant.

However, a railway worker on the platform came, bashed the door and opened it with a screwdriver. It was a close run thing. I was so grateful for all the help we had and some very nice man helped us out of the station with our luggage.

After my first marriage broke down, I spent a short while in a homeless persons unit. I was up in the attic and the nearest bathroom/shower was down on the next floor. At the time I was attending college and had to get up early to be ready to catch a bus. The 'warden' had his own accommodation joined onto the block of flats I was living in and every evening he would speak to you through the front door buzzer to make sure you were home and safe. Little did I know that he then turned on an alarm to go off if anyone tried to get in or out via the said door. This particular morning, I had got up and taken my clothes and toiletries down to the bathroom for my daily shower, but, I realised I had forgotten something important so went back up to my room. Unfortunately the door was fitted with a lock that you could only open with a key, and where was the key??? In my flat! Panic then set in. I was locked out of my flat in my pj's with no key and needed to be at college at x time. What to do? I had no mobile phone back then, so I went downstairs and started knocking on an internal door which I presumed was to do with the wardens flat. Nothing, no reply, nothing. So I thought, I will have to go outside and ring his front doorbell, but the flats were in a busy square in the middle of town. Eventually I plucked up the courage to open the front door as time was moving on, and then all hell broke loose. The alarm went off, flashing lights, the whole bamboozle lol. I was affronted. The warden came racing through to find me in my pj's, very apologetic and asking if he could let me back into my flat. He was very nice about it, but I can tell you, I never got locked out of my flat again. Lol.

To all of you who dread locking yourselves out of your homes: buy a keysafe. This nifty little device can be hung up by your back door, or in a more secluded spot. You open it using a code you programmed yourself (and have to remember).

Anyone remember the "naughty version" of "Oh, dear, what can the matter be" that we sang as schoolgirls?

The original was " Oh, dear, what can the matter be, Oh dear what can the matter be, Oh dear, what can the matter be, Jonny's so long at the fair. He promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons, he promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons, he promised to buy me a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up my bonny brown hair."

The naughty version that we took good care the grown-ups didn't hear us sing, started with "oh dear, what can the matter be? Three old ladies locked in the lavatory..."

and that, infuriatingly, is all I can remember. Any other old ladies out there who remember the rest, whether locked in the lavatory or not?

A couple of years ago we bought holiday home in France. We had been in summer and door was fine. We went over Easter for a long weekend and on Easter Sunday, we left house slamming door to go for a walk. When we got back we unlocked door but it would not open. My dh thought it was just stiff as wood and damp weather, so he tugged and tugged and then the outside door handle fell off. We stood outside for over an hour in light drizzle whilst dh pushed against door. Then neighbour came over and asked what we were doing. I think they thought we were trying to break in. We managed to convince them in poor French we were the new owners he had not seen, because we still had some paperwork in car we showed him. He then went away and came back with the back door key that had been given to him by previous owners. We did not even know anyone else had a key but we were just very grateful. We could not fix door handle until Tuesday as everything closes over Easter as Catholic country.

Grandtanjel, I think it went "they will be there from Monday to Saturday" but i don't recall the end bit.

There’s a spare key under the lavender. No harm in broadcasting its whereabouts as everyone knows and I use it at least once a week.

"They were there from Monday 'til Saturday.
Nobody knew they were there....."

I was once volunteering at the cathedral and came down the stairs at about 7.00 pm to find I was locked in! Fortunately I had access to the loos and a mobile phone, so rang DH to track down someone with a key to come and let me out. Didn't fancy spending the night on a cold stone floor!

i'd been out for the afternoon with DS, his partner and 2 GSs. Returning to their house, DS and partner each thought the other had the front door key. No! They worked out that whoever closed the door had left the key in the lock - inside! What to do? DS 'bravely' climbed through a trap door in the garage roof which led to a small room where they stored everything not in use, and came down to open the door. Who was in the doghouse? I was never quite sure!