Bathroom door locks

AnderK

Hi, had a kind of scary thing happen on Thursday. Tim was in the master bath with the door closed. Nothing unusual so far. Except that he managed to push the button and locked the door. Not on purpose. So I went and got the wire thing that builders set on top of the door trim to unlock the door. Rather than upset him, I tried to unlock three similar locks in my house with that and failed. Got a little screw driver and tried. No luck. Watched YouTube videos, and was unable to replicate unlocking the darn door. Found one YouTube video that suggested putting washers in the lock so you don't ruin the lock, and it can be returned to its lockable state. I plan to ask our guy about that this week when I have him come over to do some other things.

Don't mean to add worry, but you may want to take that spare moment (what is that, anyway) to see if you can unlock your bathroom doors from the outside in case of an emergency.

Kathy

jfkoc

I would be in a panic...have a passage set installed and until that is done remove the hardware.

Now wondering why a locking door on a bathroom. Surely if the door is shut that would be enough.

AnderK

I think they are called privacy locks, I dunno! Will report back if I can get them disabled.

ButterflyWings

I had to remove interior door locks in Stage 4. Especially the bathroom.

ghphotog

So true! I've had that happen a couple of times, probably several years ago when I was caring for both my mom and my wife, twice one or the other, or both locked the doors from the inside. For whatever reason I never realized the bathroom doors didn't have a key hole or another way to unlock the doors from the outside. I ashamed to say it but all I could do was grab a hammer and bust off the door knobs. Quien Sabe?

They do "CRAZY!" things no logic could never understand.

tetwoman

Kathy - thanks so much for your post! I am going to check the bathroom doors right now!

Susan

gampiano

I too removed the lock set, and replaced the hardware. No reason to lock the bathroom door anyway.

AnderK

https://youtu.be/FR4SQQwamFU?si=gdSZB5yEYk0xFxhJ

I plan to go to the hardware store first thing Tuesday to ask their opinion of this and will report back.

AnderK

Fyi, didn't work on my handle lever style. Think it's time to call in "my worker guy" to see if he has a solution . Any tops would be great. Thanks all.

upstateAnn

No bathroom locks in our house anymore.

upstateAnn

AnderK

Eureka!!!! I did get this to work!!! Yay.

brs

My DH can almost no longer turn a door knob. I've used shipping tape to secure the open position at latch and can be accessed by a light tab.

White Crane

That is very good advice to remove the door locks on bathroom doors. My DH never locked himself in but it could easily have happened.

Belle

Thank you for this thread. I'm heading out today to buy handles that don't lock for the bathrooms and handles that do lock for a few rooms I'd like to keep off limits to DH in the future. If he asks or notices the new handles with locks I plan to tell him it's to keep our valuables safe when we have other people working in the house.