Broken door lock

shamrock2004

hi all

Ive been renting a few weeks and locked the bathroom door while inside the bathroom. Unfortunately the key would not unlock the door at all (its a basta lock) and was completely jammed. Luckily i was able to get a mate to come around (thankfully i had my phone in the bathroom with me) and take a slip of wood off the door frame and try to hacksaw through the barrel (minimum damage approach) but he couldnt hacksaw through it unfortunately. So we had to break the door open. Is this up to the landlord to repair? The key was in the lock when i moved in but it didnt work after i locked the door from the inside. Im disappointed about having to break the door open but there was nothing else we could do. There was no window for me to climb out either.

quietsailor

shamrock2004 wrote: »

hi all

Ive been renting a few weeks and locked the bathroom door while inside the bathroom. Unfortunately the key would not unlock the door at all (its a basta lock) and was completely jammed. Luckily i was able to get a mate to come around (thank god i had my phone in the bathroom with me) and take a slip of wood off the door frame and try to hacksaw through the barrel (minimum damage approach) but he couldnt hacksaw through it unfortunately. So we had to break the door open. Is this up to the landlord to repair? The key was in the lock when i moved in but it didnt work after i locked the door from the inside. Im disappointed about having to break the door open but there was nothing else we could do. There was no window for me to climb out either.

you had to break it to open, there was no other way to get out but you'll also have to fix it. Unless the door was constantly jamming before and you reported it to the LL before they couldn't have fixed it to prevent the problem occuring this time.

I'd tell the LL though as if they inspect the house and see damage you haven't reported it makes you look very bad and they will be slow to believe you in future if there are other problems.

Tell them you'll be getting it fixed yourself if you have a friend who is a carpenter or very tasty at DIY - it'll have to look the same as it did before and you will need to paint the wooden trim around the door after the new wood goes in to fix the damaged wood - could you neatly re-attach the sliver of wood ye took off and fill any cracks.

shamrock2004

Hi thanks for the info.

The funny thing is that there were two screws already missing from the lock so someone had tampered with it before. surely the landlord is required to get this fixed though? they had viewed the house themselves before i moved in. I will defo be telling the letting agent about it wither way. thanks

Borderfox

You broke it, you fix it. Simple

Doop

shamrock2004 wrote: »

Hi thanks for the info.

the lock was dodgy since i moved in and i never locked it, but today i dropped my guard. but i hadn't reported it before. the funny thing is that there were two screws already missing from the lock so someone had tampered with it before. surely the landlord is required to get this fixed though? they had viewed the house themselves before i moved in. I will defo be telling the letting agent about it wither way. thanks

To be fair now the landlord hardly went into the bathroom and locked themselves in just to 'test' the lock :rolleyes:

Cost of a lock from woodies 10e, run of architrave less than 5e.
as above u broke it, you should fix it, regardless of breaking it out of necessity

shamrock2004

Im going to ask anyway. But im surprised as the lock was dodgy and to be fair, i hardly locked myself inside 'to test it' either. a new door is required, not just a new lock.

The_Morrigan

The landlord didn't know it was dodgy though from what you've said, he can't be held responsible for you breaking something dodgy if he was unaware of it.

djimi

If this was the first day that you lived in the place and the first time that you used the lock then I would have said that you are not liable. However you knew that the lock was dodgy, had opportunity to either replace it yourself or inform the landlord so that they could have rectified it, but chose not to, so Im afraid this one is on you.

D3PO

For me this is for you to fix. You broke the door open without contacting the LL.

You never gave them any option to remedy the situation you just went and damaged it, I cant see how any LL would deem this acceptable. Now if you had actually tried contacting them and got no reply or response in a reasonable timeframe (30 mins an hour perhaps) then I think it would change the whole complexion here.

shamrock2004

The problem is that I only have the letting agents details and on a Sunday I would not have been able to get a hold of them so there was nothing I could have done.

Either way, I've notified the landlord and will take it from there.

D3PO

let us know how you get on.

Re not being able to contact the letting agent on a Sunday. This should not be the case, they should be contactable 24/7 to deal with emergency situations, furthermore legaly your lease should have contact details for the LL even if you dont normally deal with him / her.

Be worth getting them and adding them into your phone you never know when you might need them

Ray Palmer

Well luckily in legislation there is no requirement for 24/7 availability. It is a completely unrealistic expectation IMHO.

Anyway from my experience wd40 and using the key on the other side of the door would have worked. Cutting the door seems extreme to me. Given you were trapped I would consider this the LL cost. He can't expect you to use the best way to get out of the room if you are trapped.

You luckily could get outside help but if you had to kick the door open it would have been the only option. I would struggle to believe it but ultimately what can you do.

D3PO

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Well luckily in legislation there is no requirement for 24/7 availability. It is a completely unrealistic expectation IMHO.
.

Why is it unrealistic ? How can one expect to deal with an emergency situation as a tenant if they cannot contact a LL / Letting agent 24/7 ?

If a LL doesnt want to be available 24/7 thats not unreasonable but they have to then realise that a certain level of autonomy has to be bestowed on the tenant to make the situation workable.

If you dont want to be available then you cant complain about costs incured as a result, emergency plumbers or locksmiths etc etc. Once a LL is prepared to accept that then fair enough.

shamrock2004

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Well luckily in legislation there is no requirement for 24/7 availability. It is a completely unrealistic expectation IMHO.

Anyway from my experience wd40 and using the key on the other side of the door would have worked. Cutting the door seems extreme to me. Given you were trapped I would consider this the LL cost. He can't expect you to use the best way to get out of the room if you are trapped.

You luckily could get outside help but if you had to kick the door open it would have been the only option. I would struggle to believe it but ultimately what can you do.

The door wasn't actually cut. My mate first removed the architrave and took a hacksaw blade to try and cut the barrel. But that didn't work, the gap was too narrow to successfully saw through. The only other option was to use a hammer and chisel to chisel out the lock. This sort of thing happened me before in my folks house and using another basta key worked, but in yesterday's case nothing seemed to work. I'll let you know how I get on. I'm a reasonable person and accept I broke the door. If the Landlord insists I pay for a new door, installation as well as paint the door, I will do that. However, I may have to miss out on a stag as a result :S

Ray Palmer

D3PO wrote: »

Why is it unrealistic ? How can one expect to deal with an emergency situation as a tenant if they cannot contact a LL / Letting agent 24/7 ?

There are very few services that operate 24/7 to expect LL to provide such a service is unrealistic. My opinion. How many people experience emergencies with a property that needs 24/7 on call would be incredibly small.

There are very few events that actually require such cover. Common sense on the action of the tenant is required.

The fact it isn't in legislation or even proposed legalisation is a fair indication that nobody else believes it a realistic option. Never heard anybody expecting 24/7 on call response from a LL to me it is no brainer that this will never happen.

D3PO

Ray Palmer wrote: »

There are very few services that operate 24/7 to expect LL to provide such a service is unrealistic. My opinion. How many people experience emergencies with a property that needs 24/7 on call would be incredibly small.

There are very few events that actually require such cover. Common sense on the action of the tenant is required.

The fact it isn't in legislation or even proposed legalisation is a fair indication that nobody else believes it a realistic option. Never heard anybody expecting 24/7 on call response from a LL to me it is no brainer that this will never happen.

Im not saying its a likely event, most LL's would never ever need to be contacted at a strange hour on a Saturday night for example but equally it has to be conceded that the likelyhood is somewhere in the country with all the tennancies that exist emergency situations will sporadically occur.

Now of course there is no talk of legistlation, it would be remiss of politicions to discuss legistlation for something that would impact so few people, there are thousands of more pressing matters at political level that doesnt mean its unrealistic.

Like I said I nobody is demanding LL's be available 24/7 and like you said common sense needs to be implemented.

Which means that whilst tenants must be realistic on how situations are handled at unreasonable hours, LL's must equally acknowledge that where the rare possibility of an emergency scenario occuring, they need to be prepared to accept tenants pulling the trigger in autonomous decision making scenarios to resolve an emergency problem.

A situation like this would probably never occur to most LL's but it can and does occur.

Lets take this case for example. Lets assume the OP gets locked into the bathroom at 11pm on a Sunday night and the LL cannot be contacted, the LL has to defer to the tenant doing whatever they need to do to rectify the situation.

Weather that be call out an emergency locksmith or kick the door in etc. A LL cant jsut expecvt not to be contactable 24/7 and equally quibble over the action taken by the tenant to rectify the situaiton once its reasonable behaviour.

You talk about WD40 and key from the other side of the door etc but if this was your tenant and your werent available I know your not genuinely trying to tell me that you would try and argue the tenant is at fault here ?

miss no stars

To be fair, D3PO, he did say

Anyway from my experience wd40 and using the key on the other side of the door would have worked. Cutting the door seems extreme to me. Given you were trapped I would consider this the LL cost. He can't expect you to use the best way to get out of the room if you are trapped.

D3PO

miss no stars wrote: »

To be fair, D3PO, he did say

I must have missed that part. Fair enough so think we are all on the same wavelength then.

TheDoc

I think this is one of those things you need to ask yourself if it's something worth nagging your landlord about. I fully appreciate there are instances where a landlord is responsible for certain elements to the property, and some are not. But there is always a good case for maybe sorting some stuff out for yourself.

I've mentioned multiple times on this forum that I'm one of those "aw I won't hassle him over it"(him being my landlord). It's not out of shyness or avoiding confrontation, but because it's a small and menial task that I know I can resolve myself. And it's something that can benefit the relationship.

Our living room door had a similar issue. The inside handle had lost connection via the bolt to the outside of the door. So you couldn't open it from the inside. Spent a few weeks using a knife as our way to get out of the room But in the end went down to Woodies and bought a replacement kit. Cost me about €15, and took about 5 minutes to install. It's a simple process to remove a door handle mech and replace. You need one screwdriver.

I don't know, but the back and forth between the thread as it progress', over who is liable for a door lock. Come on people, maybe this is why I see so many threads of "landlord raising my rent" and stuff like that. Bit of give and take?

TheDoc

Not sure why it double posted there, but wont let me delete one, sorry

Anyway OP

http://www.woodiesdiy.com/Product/75cm-3-Basta-2-Lever-Mortice-Door-Lock-Brass-Plate/3836/6.2.0#.UwtyNnnisy8

€10 for a new lock from Woodies. Check the bolt from the handles is still intact, if not, a replacement bolt will cost you a euro.

That's €11 to just do this yourself. Don't see why you would even contemplate contacting the landlord, although again might just be me and how I look on things.

miss no stars

TheDoc wrote: »

I think this is one of those things you need to ask yourself if it's something worth nagging your landlord about. I fully appreciate there are instances where a landlord is responsible for certain elements to the property, and some are not. But there is always a good case for maybe sorting some stuff out for yourself.

I've mentioned multiple times on this forum that I'm one of those "aw I won't hassle him over it"(him being my landlord). It's not out of shyness or avoiding confrontation, but because it's a small and menial task that I know I can resolve myself. And it's something that can benefit the relationship.

Our living room door had a similar issue. The inside handle had lost connection via the bolt to the outside of the door. So you couldn't open it from the inside. Spent a few weeks using a knife as our way to get out of the room But in the end went down to Woodies and bought a replacement kit. Cost me about €15, and took about 5 minutes to install. It's a simple process to remove a door handle mech and replace. You need one screwdriver.

I don't know, but the back and forth between the thread as it progress', over who is liable for a door lock. Come on people, maybe this is why I see so many threads of "landlord raising my rent" and stuff like that. Bit of give and take?

Didn't the OP say the whole door is broken? That's not a €15 DIY job, that's a significant replacement. If I was a landlord I'd want to know about that. Tenant might go looking for a similar door and crap out on quality, or needlessly spend more than required. Plus, I would like to find out if there's anything else broken that they haven't been bothering me with that I'd rather have fixed!

shamrock2004

TheDoc wrote: »

Not sure why it double posted there, but wont let me delete one, sorry

Anyway OP

http://www.woodiesdiy.com/Product/75cm-3-Basta-2-Lever-Mortice-Door-Lock-Brass-Plate/3836/6.2.0#.UwtyNnnisy8

€10 for a new lock from Woodies. Check the bolt from the handles is still intact, if not, a replacement bolt will cost you a euro.

That's €11 to just do this yourself. Don't see why you would even contemplate contacting the landlord, although again might just be me and how I look on things.

I already mentioned that the door is now broken. The lock had to be chiseled out (while the door was locked shut with me on the inside) as it was impossible to unlock it with the key. Unlike what happened to you, the handle was fine, it was the actual lock which had completely jammed and could not be opened. Repairing a handle is a doddle. When your faced with a door which has been locked and the lock is completely busted, that's another story unfortunately.

miss no stars

No I'm not a landlord, I'm just trying to think of what I'd do if in the position of your landlord and the best guess I can arrive at is that I'd be concerned to see you were okay, annoyed at the damage but accepting that these things happen and it's hardly the person's fault if they get trapped by a dodgy lock. Either way, it'd be my house and I'd still have the door at the end of it so would see it as my duty to put right. I'd probably also be checking that everything else in the place was in good working order so preventable stuff like this doesn't happen again.

TheDoc

shamrock2004 wrote: »

I already mentioned that the door is now broken. The lock had to be chiseled out (while the door was locked shut with me on the inside) as it was impossible to unlock it with the key. Unlike what happened to you, the handle was fine, it was the actual lock which had completely jammed and could not be opened. Repairing a handle is a doddle. When your faced with a door which has been locked and the lock is completely busted, that's another story unfortunately.

**** sorry man, didn't realise you had to properly bust the door :O

Apologies, I had a re-read and get what happened now, I think my initial reaction was matching it to something similar in my place and being like " come on man, sort it yourself"

How much damage is done to the woordwork and the likes? The thing I linked is a full lock set, it's the normal angled break for the door normally opening and closing, but it's also the locking mechanism.

Is there extensive door/woodwork damage?

The_Morrigan

TheDoc wrote: »

Not sure why it double posted there, but wont let me delete one, sorry

I've fixed that for you there

shamrock2004

Landlord phoned and said they will repair the door. I offered to pay but they refused. Anyway it will be sorted thankfully.