My own emergency lockout kit

[Engineer]

So I know this is funny...

I do have an annoying habit of forgetting to check I have my keys with me before I leave the house. It is a terraced house (row house) that has no front garden and faces out directly onto the street. I had been toying with the idea of some sort of secure method of holding a spare set of keys outside. Any of the normal key "safes" would just attract a large amount of attention and be vandalised at best.

Today it suddenly dawned on me the way to do it. Obvious once you have thought of it...

Here there are always lots of street sweeper bristles hanging around. So I made a simple hook and tension wrench out of a couple I picked up today. Nothing fancy, no handles, no polishing, nothing other than basic grinding to shape. I wrapped them in a small piece of that plastic film that clings to itself. This will stop them rusting and then I hid them between the bricks. Nice and deep with a little mud to disguise them and hold them in place. To get them out, you would need to know where they are and use something like a street sweeper bristle to get them out.

My reasoning is that if any child finds them, they will not know what they are. If someone finds them and knows what they are, they will already know how to use them and probably own better ones already. My house is no more vulnerable, as the door will not be easy to pick with them. I can do it, but I have a lot of practise and even so, it would take me some time.

So I think that is the best solution? I have access to a limited emergency pick, that is no loss if it is found and that I can use to get back into my own house, but that probably no-one else could use. I don't have to carry it around and it it won't get locked in my van or inside the house with my other keys and yet should be safe enough to leave even on the front of a house like mine and yet not attract attention?

I just thought I would post my solution, as it might well help some members of the group? Unless you are licenced, carrying picks around with you might not be a good idea, or you might forget them like your keys and like me, you might not have anywhere to hide some picks that is easily to conceal.

[poor paperclip picker]

Thats not a bad idea in my opinion. I might do the same, I live in a house, split into 3 different apartments, and I might make a set to stash on my porch somewhere in case I get locked out. I would make a copy of a key, but if some one does find it, there's only 3 doors to check, and around here I don't think people would know what some bent/shaped pieces of rusty metal are.

[5thcorps]

its okay to hide an emergency set of picks but better to hide an emergency key. At my previous house I had a large 3 dimensional house number hanging on a hook next to the door. I took a spare key trimmed the head and riveted in to a small hinge than tack welded the hinge to the back of the house number. Only had to use it once but take down the number flip out the key and youre in

[WDPaladin]

Love the "Macguyver-esqueness" part of this, but I agree with 5th on this one. Just hide a copy of your key somewhere good (like 5th), or somewhere that does not just point to your door. I had one hidden just under the sod near a bush on the property line last year that I ended up actually using once.

[Legion303]

Hide your key under your neighbor's mat.

-steve

[Engineer]

I've wished for years I could hide a key somewhere at the front, but the front door is right on the street. Ther is no set-back at all for any of the front of the house. It is like the houses in this picture:

http://www.jamd.com/image/g/57238828

I also have an added problem of a large school right at the top of the street, so twice a day several hundred incredibly sharp-eyed and remarkably nosey children are funneled down the street. The risk of the key being found might be small (I'd have to grind off most of the head), but the kids round there would not have any moral problems with trying it in the door

Picks might not be recognised, or easy to use though, so I feel more comfortable with them than an actual key hidden. Legion's wonderful lateral thinking might be an alternative... Although we don't have doorsteps for mats, you could hide a key in a neighbour's wall... Now that's "Social Engineering"

[Olson Burry]

Roughly a year ago whilst feeling more than a little tiddly, I thought it would be a good idea to bury a spare set of keys on the beach down the bottom of my road "just in case".

I have no idea where they are

Locks all changed now anyway but I thought at least the keys would be in range, but far enough away that if found, no one could find my house with them.

[Engineer]

Olson I have a metal detector and found a set in Blackpool, they didn't drift did they?

Roughly a year ago whilst feeling more than a little tiddly, I thought it would be a good idea to bury a spare set of keys on the beach down the bottom of my road "just in case".

I have no idea where they are

Locks all changed now anyway but I thought at least the keys would be in range, but far enough away that if found, no one could find my house with them.

[Olson Burry]

Olson I have a metal detector and found a set in Blackpool, they didn't drift did they?

Ha! Maybe.. I burried them at the top by the wall beside one of the groynes in a corner though and there are folks that go out with detectors to find loose change and who knows what quite a bit, especially in summer so, to be fair, I didn't really think it through.

On a side note, I love it when people go "oh I need a pickset because i forget my keys all the time" .. quite how they expect to remember a set and not the easier option is beyond me.

I wouldn't leave one of my prized picks outside but you could do worse than leave some random looking bits of bristle hidden, not a bad thought bud.

[Engineer]

Thanks for that Olson!

Actually, I must tell you - I momentarily had this wonderfully stupid thought... If I made a cheap pick & wrench, I could carry them with me whenever I go out; incase I forget my keys. I could do with fastening them to my keys, so I won't forget them.

Regretably, that thought really did cross my mind for a fraction of a second...

[ridinplugspinnaz]

Thanks for that Olson!

Actually, I must tell you - I momentarily had this wonderfully stupid thought... If I made a cheap pick & wrench, I could carry them with me whenever I go out; incase I forget my keys. I could do with fastening them to my keys, so I won't forget them.

Regretably, that thought really did cross my mind for a fraction of a second...

The solution I found to making sure that my personal-carry pickset isn't with my keys is to use the half-size pocket in my jeans to store the picks. The pickset is one of the jackknife-style ones, and is small enough to fit in that little pocket, but still more than useful enough to serve in a pinch.

[savs2k]

that's a pretty good idea. I keep a set in my car since alot of friends tend to lock themselves out of the house and cars. Cars more then house but it does happen. The closest i'd leave a set outside like that would probably be the side of the house. I'm more cautious about leaving things close by. I wonder if it'll still rust being outside.

[TheSkyer]

Wonderful, very ingenious! I always cary my backpack around and I got a small assortment of picks stuffed away in a case for sunglasses in there (together with my Opinel Knife, a 9 LED flashlight, some ductap, some rope and a first aid kit) Actualy locked myself out yesterday XD Was very pleased I had my backpack with me .

But of course you are right that I could just as well leave that at home by mistake.... I have been thinking about hiding a little set outdoors somewhere but I don't really know where....

[Engineer]

That was EXACTLY what was bugging me for a couple of years - Where can I hide a key that is secure enough on a house like mine that backs out directly onto the street.

I got lucky with two breakthroughs, one was realising that "disposable" basic home-made picks would probably never be recognised and the second I only found out after my last post. I found out
was finding that street sweeper bristles can be bent cold. They do not need to be heated to be bent, so I put the tension wrench in as a straight piece of bristle. If I ever need them, I can easily bend it for use it and it makes them even less recognisable if found. The biggest bit was that it made them even easier to hide in the cracks in the brickwork.

If you can make them out of something like street sweeper bristle that could be bent only when it is needed, then perhaps that might make it a bit easier to conceal them? Good luck...

[raimundo]

Picks that are just basic grinding can make picking very difficult, and I think you would not want to get stuck in the rain and have a long picking session on your street in front of the neighbors windows, particularly as they might watch where you replace the bits,

I once had a spare key on some wooden steps without risers, it was on a nail under one of the lowest steps, the nail head was cut so that the key which had a hole in the bow that was not round, had to be rotated to remove it from the nail,
I could just sit on that step and it would appear to the neighbors that I was reaching back for my wallet or scratching my butt

I thought about your situation with the front of the house on the street, and I considered a key with the bottom edge cut away so that on some loose locks it won't work until held up against the pins,

Then I thought about a key cut into two parts separately hidden,

but using those ideas, I came up with the idea that you should cut the profile of your key onto the piece of bristle. making it a very lock specific pick that can be counted on to do the job with little muss or fuss. It would still need a tensor, but you can put that in a somewhat separate place.

you could drill a hole somewhere in wood around the door and put it in, then cover it with a small nail, or even make the thing out of a nail. and then put it where a nail would go, painted to match.