Solve This Mystery For Me (Why Do I Keep Getting Locked Inside My House?)

Locked Inside My House: Yesterday morning, I got up, got ready, and headed out the door to have breakfast with my mom. Or, I should say, I tried to head out the door. But I couldn’t get the front deadbolt unlocked. No matter how much I tried, or how much I tried to turn that key, or how much I jiggled the handle, or how much I tried to press down/raise up on the door, I couldn’t get the dead bolt on the front door open.

Years ago, I bought all new indoor and exterior doorknobs and handlesets for all of our doors. I wanted them all to match, and I wanted them to be black. So I went with Schlage because (1) I loved the styles they offered, and (2) they had the perfect matte black color that I wanted. I still love the look of this front door handleset.

Locked Inside My House

But this front door deadbolt has given us nothing but problems. And then thing is that it’s not just one single defective deadbolt. We’re on our third one. At the time I bought the doorknobs, handleset, and deadbolts for all of our existing doors, I also bought matching ones for our future doors that we would have after our addition was built.

Well, I now have no more extra deadbolts for those future exterior doors, because I’ve gone through all of them on this front door. And now this, the third one, is doing the exact same thing that the other two did.

The thing won’t turn at all. I even tried spraying some WD-40 into the keyhole, but that did nothing. Originally, I thought that it was because I house is built on a pier and beam foundation, so sit’s always moving and shifting. At times throughout the year, our doors themselves become harder to open and close. So I thought that the moving and shifting was causing the bolt to bind against the strike plate in the door jamb.

But I can literally stick my little finger in there and move the bolt. I can’t move it enough to open it, obviously. But I can move it enough to tell that there’s no tension at all on the strike plate.

With the first deadbolt, this happened several times, and the only way to get the door open was to just take the deadbolt off completely, and then reinstall it. But then it happened on a Wednesday night when our church group was about to start. People were waiting on our front porch as I was inside, trying my hardest to get the door open. They eventually had to walk around the house and come in the back studio door. I took the deadbolt off and reinstalled so that they could at least leave through the front door. But a day or two later, it happened again. And that time, when I removed the deadbolt, little metal pieces came tumbling out of the deadbolt into my hand. So I threw it in the garbage and installed a new one — one that was still in the box, and had never been used, because it was reserved for our addition.

But then it happened again, and the second one did this same thing. So after a few times of uninstalling and reinstalling the deadbolt, I finally threw it away and got the last unused deadbolt that had been reserved for our addition. And now, it’s doing the same thing.

What in the world is causing this? And why is it only happening on this door? I have the same Schlage deadbolt on the studio door, but this has never happened there.

But this is beyond just a minor annoyance. What if there was an emergency, and we couldn’t get out the front door? What if Matt had a medical emergency, and the EMTs couldn’t get in the front door? This is really causing me stress. I literally lost sleep over it last night. Is it the brand? Is Schlage not a reliable brand? I mean, that’s where my mind immediately goes since this is the third time, and the third Schlage deadbolt, that is doing this. But if it’s the brand, then why have we not had this problem on the studio door or the bathroom door? Both of those have Schlage deadbolts on them, and I’ve never had any problem with them.

So I just don’t know. Have any of you ever had issues with Schlage deadbolts? Do you think it’s the brand? Or is there something specific about our front door that’s causing this to happen on this door, over and over again, that I’m not thinking of? I need to solve this mystery, because this is dangerous, and it’s stressing me out.

Addicted 2 Decorating is where I share my DIY and decorating journey as I remodel and decorate the 1948 fixer upper that my husband, Matt, and I bought in 2013. Matt has M.S. and is unable to do physical work, so I do the majority of the work on the house by myself. You can learn more about me here.