Friday, September 21, 2007

Keys

Wow. So last night mom and I were having a blast, ghost hunting and everything and finally headed back to my apartment. When we got there my key wouldn't go into my lock to unlock the door (which happened before about 8 months ago and I had my land lord replace my lock back then). I decided to try and force it in (it has been 'crunchy' for about a week or so, so I thought it was just getting tougher and I had to force it in a little harder than normal). I couldn't get the key in, so I decided to put my foot up to the door and try to push it in with my foot (I don't know, I guess I figured it would be more force than the palm of my hand). I pushed with my foot and then SNAP. After the 'snap' the rest of my keys fell and hit the ground. After inspecting what happened, the key had broke off into the lock (it looks like the key was bending and I didn't realize it so with the more force it just bent and broke it off). This was at about 9pm. The first thing we did was GASP! Then we knocked on the on site apartment manager's apartment... She wasn't home. Then I called the landlord, no answer, so I left a voicemail. Then we decided we would try and see if somewhere could make a key out of the two pieces. We went down to Sears, but it was closed. Then we went to Lowe's. They gave me a little hope, saying that "Ed" could work magic and if anyone could help it would be him... No luck. Apparently the machine that they use sucks in the key and the piece would have just gotten stuck in their machine. We went to the customer service desk to call a 24 hour locksmith (all the while I am getting more and more upset). As we were calling the first place my landlord called back. I told him what had happened and he went on about "Well, don't you have a spare key (which even if I did, wouldn't have helped because the key would NOT go in the lock)" and when I told him I only had what he gave me he went into a spiel about how he wasn't sure if this was a landlord or tenant issue. Grrrrr. So he decided to drive out and bring a spare he had. We left Lowe's to meet him back at my apartment. In the meantime the on site manager had come back home so when we got back we knocked again and asked if she had a spare. She went through all of her keys and none of them worked... Either because the locks had been replaced or because THE LOCK IS A PIECE OF CRAP AND EVEN IF SHE HAD THE RIGHT KEY IT WOULDN'T GO IN ANYWAY! So as she is trying all of the keys she had, the landlord came. My mom made a snippy remark to him as he was walking up the stairs about 'putting in a working lock' and that started the sass. He then asked how long this was being difficult and I told him that it was about a week or so, and he commented about how he wasn't sure why, since it had been working for over a year without any problems. I reminded him about him replacing the lock once already since I had been there and then my mom said something. He commented about how he didn't like the sass she gave him and she told him she didn't appreciate the way he spoke to me on the phone as if his craptastic lock was my fault (she didn't use craptastic, but come on, it was a terrible lock). He got out all of his keys and guess what THEY WOULDN'T GO IN. Imagine that! Anyway, he finally forced one in (after probably 5 minutes of trying different keys and whatnot) and got the apartment unlocked. He kept fidgeting with the lock and saw that YES it was NOT working properly. He said he would replace the locks and give me a new key, which he did after about 30 minutes of playing with the door. So, at lunch today I will go to Home Depot and get a spare key made (which I am sure will be worthless since I am assuming this lock is also going to break and I will get a new key again). Here is a picture of the key... Snapped right in two.


Well anyway, the drama is over (at least I hope) and my key works, so Praise God! Thanks Mom for trying to keep me calm during the debacle.

1 comment:

Web Designer said...

Wow. That's quite a story. Sounds like your landlord is just a load of fun!
I hope your next lock works properly!
Good luck!