What can you do if the interior door slams and you can’t open it using the handle?

At first glance, a comical situation - the lock inside the apartment latches and does not open - can turn out to be a serious problem if there is a small child left in the room or access to the bathroom is blocked. There are several ways to open an interior door if it slams shut.

Indoor doors are not subject to such strict requirements as entrance doors. However, they are also equipped with locks and latches. First of all, this is the door to the toilet and bathroom. Often, locks are installed at the entrance to the bedroom, office, kitchen and balcony, especially if there are small children or animals in the house. And although such locks are not as complex as those at the entrance to an apartment, opening them without a key can be difficult. But before you knock down the door, you should try to unlock the lock.

Latch lock

Recently, for use inside an apartment, door locks have become very popular, in which a key locking mechanism is built into the handle on one side, and a latch, which also secures the lock, on the other. Such handles have an attractive appearance, and there is no need to install an additional lock. But they have one drawback. If you accidentally turn the latch on an open door and then slam it, it will be locked. This can happen in any home, especially where there are small children. It is quite possible to cope with such a problem.

• Typically, an interior door is installed so that it opens into the corridor. In this case, the problem can be dealt with using a thin flat object - a ruler, a knife blade, a flat screwdriver or a plastic card. The improvised “key” must be inserted into the gap between the door leaf and the frame, at an angle, as if hooking the tongue from the inside, since its inclined side is on the side of the room. By moving this object along the crack, at the same time shaking the door leaf, we try to hook and press the lock tongue.
• If the door opens into the room or it was not possible to move the tongue, then you should check whether there is access to the bolts securing the handle to the door leaf (often there are fastenings only on one side). After unscrewing the screws, you should remove the handle along with the locking mechanism, and then, by inserting a standard square or flat-head screwdriver into the lock, open it.
• If the first two methods are unsuccessful, you can drill out the lock cylinder with a fairly thick drill, then open the entrance by turning the handle.
• You can try to remember where the invisible mounting bolts are located (usually on the sides of the handle), drill them out, remove the handle and open the lock with a flat-head screwdriver.
• Twist the outer handle with an adjustable wrench, remove the debris and unlock the lock as in the previous case.

How to open a door with other types of locks

Handles with automatic latches in the form of a key are installed on the door to the toilet or to the balcony. They can work if the door slams suddenly (for example, due to a draft). To unlock such locks, the designers provided a small hole below the handle. If you insert a knitting needle, nail or awl into it and press, the latch will open.

In old houses, locks with a lever mechanism have been preserved. If for some reason the door is closed and the key is inserted into the hole on the other side, then it can be obtained using the method described in old detective stories. You need to slip a sheet of paper under the door, carefully push out the key and remove it by pulling the paper out.

If a modern plastic door to the balcony slams and cannot be opened with the handle, then you need to turn the decorative strip 90°, unscrew the fastening bolts and remove the handle. Then open the lock by acting directly on the locking mechanism.

Drastic measures for unlocking interior doors

If the wooden door to the toilet, bathroom or balcony cannot be opened, then you will have to resort to more serious methods, and try to damage the door leaf as little as possible.

• Inspect the hinges. If possible, carefully remove or knock out the inner rod. Then the door can be opened “in the opposite direction,” that is, from the side of the awnings.
• Remove the casing and cut out a small part of the box where the metal plate for the bolt (tongue) of the lock is located.
• Insert an ax or nail puller into the gap between the frame and the door leaf and press the door so that the lock disengages from the frame.

It is clear that after using such methods, the door will most likely have to be repaired.

Prevention measures

We must take care in advance to avoid ending up in such a situation. For this:

• Provide spare keys for all doors with tags indicating which door they open, put them in a box or bag and put them in some secluded place that cannot be locked with a key (mezzanine in the hallway, top shelf in the closet, closet in the hallway).
• Install locks in the apartment that provide the possibility of emergency opening from the outside (usually with a pin or plate).
• If locking on the doors is needed only from pets or against drafts, then it is advisable to limit yourself to installing conventional latch handles. On installed handle locks, the twist latch can be disabled. To do this, you need to unscrew the handle with the lock and shorten or remove the plate connecting the lock to the latch.