Lock out

When I arrived home last night thankfully the rain had stopped. I grabbed my stuff out of the car and got to the front door to find the key wouldn’t turn. Blast! The lock had been sticking a bit the last few days and I had made a mental note to take a good look at it over the weekend… not soon enough obviously! This had happened a few years back and I’d ended up replacing the lock. I cursed myself for not having the back door key with me.
I went down to the garage to find a hammer or crow bar so I could bust open one of the side windows… popping the catch on that would be easier to sort out than a broken window…. Looking around I realised Tom would have most of the tools with him on the Barrier and the rest of the “house tools” were… well… in the house.
I rang Warren who was on his way home for the evening and told him what had happened. He arrived within 10 minutes with his tool box…

“Waddya need?”

“Got a hammer?”

He handed one to me and scurried after me as I went around the side of the house…

“You gonna smash it!!??”

“Nah mate”

I jammed the claw under the edge of the window and levered it…. Pop! Inside the handle flew off and I opened the window.

“Chur… can tell you’re from Dargaville” Warren grinned, “Didn’t know you were so good at break-ins!”

I climbed through the window and got the door open after a bit of jiggling the key and the catch. The door was unlocking with the key from the inside but not from outside. We fiddled about with it for a while, gave it a spray of CRC and I decided that’d do on the lock for the evening… I can sort it out properly on the weekend, in the mean time I’ll lock it from the inside and use the back door.
That just left the window to secure. The catch was busted and I’d need a new one. After a bit of digging about in my tool box Warren found a bolt that would hold it all together. It doesn’t look pretty but at least it’s secure.
Warren packed up his tools as I thanked him for helping me out.

“Cheers mate, you’re a love!! I owe ya a beer!”

“Or 5 or 6”, Warren laughed as he headed off home!

Good on ya!