Have you ever been out of the house and you have lost your keys? Well, everyone has faced the situation in their life at least once. Although it might sound very easy and simple to think about an alternative, it is actually a very scary situation if you have your entire family with you and you are locked out of the house. Most people think of how to unlock a door with a credit card in these situations. Imagine the case when you have tired kids and just want to go home and rest and then find out that you can’t get them inside. As adults, we can think about finding solutions and adjusting ourselves in these kinds of situations, but children don’t, and in fact, they would create a lot of fuss. But today, everyone has a simple and useful plastic, a credit card. Let us see how to unlock a door with a credit card.
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The quick solutions that people think of are:
- To find someone who can open the lock with a different set of keys.
- To go to someone else’s house and spend time immediately. Or,
- To break the lock
But these things cannot happen due to practical challenges. Let us say you are out of the home locked at wee hours, and then it isn’t easy to find people to help you open the door with a new set of keys then how to unlock a door with a credit card? At the same time, it is not very easy to knock on someone’s door and barge into someone else’s home suddenly.
The easiest trick people try to use to open the locksets is using a credit card.
Let us see how a lock works.
For a standard lock on the door, the latch is tight, and it needs a tough yet flexible plastic material to push the latch inside. As you jiggle the doorknob, it should open up the door. The plastic must be thin and bendable because if it is rigid, it will break. The key is to create space between the barrel and the hollow part of the door. Sometimes the doorpost is mounted on the outside of the gate. It gets difficult to force the credit card to push the barrel inside in such a case.
How to unlock a door with a credit card?
- Firstly, you must choose a card that doesn’t work. If you have a damaged card, for example, it is of no use to you if the card doesn’t read or the strip is damaged.
- Of course, make sure that the card is not too tough as you need to slide it through the bends of the door.
- Bend the card a little at least half or one inch and push it into the thin gap between the door and the doorpost.
- Now, slide it downwards slowly but firmly.
- Once you reach the barrel of the door, apply pressure on it to push back the barrel of the lock. Once you are in the right spot, as you move the barrel, jiggle the knob. Keep doing it with proper pressure.
- Once the barrel is pushed back, you shudder at the exact time the barrel goes back before, and the door opens.
Can you unlock all the locks with a credit card?
Most people think about how to unlock a door with a credit card, mainly the one with deadbolt.Well, the answer is no. You can’t open all the doors with a credit card. If there is a deadbolt on the lockset, opening the door with a credit card is impossible. Deadbolts are spring-based locks that ensure a secondary and tough latch. These deadbolt locks are only opened with a key. These are more secure than the regular ones. These are excellent for perfect home security, but if you are locked out of the home accidentally, they can be a real problem because there is no way to break into the house. Similarly, the credit card trick can’t break open the door with electronic locksets as they are opened only with a key or password.
Can you use other cards?
The DIY technique of how to unlock a door with a credit card is helpful. However, you can use other alternatives like gift cards, membership cards, etc., that are strong and flexible. The point is that you should not spoil or damage a card in use. If you are someone who has multiple cards in the wallet, make sure you check the expiry date of the card before you get into the heroic act.
To wrap up
As we must be prepared for any unusual circumstances and accidents, it is important to have an idea of DIY techniques. These simple tricks to break the lock will help in difficult situations. So don’t worry about how to unlock a door with a credit card. However, it is firstly required to know the type of lockset used for the door. If the door has a slanting latch that is not easily accessible or an electronic lock, then it is difficult to break into the house. Although this credit card trick will help in desperate situations, alternatives must be considered. You can always seek help from neighbors, relatives until you get the locksmith to open the door.