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We moved into the house a little over 3 years ago and I never really bothered to give much thought as to why there might be a deadbolt on the outside of one our bedrooms. The house was built in 1927 for some reference. Thanks!
Can anyone shed some light on why there is a lock on the outside of one of our bedroom doors?
Or an adult with dementia who had a tendency to wander off in the middle of the night.
Could also be a pet who could open doorknobs.
My brother had to do this because our cat kept getting into his room during the day. We had those lever style door handles instead of knobs, and smart cats can open them easily. This cat also really liked leaving dead rodents next to people's beds.
That cat was a good provider for your whole household!
Laughing... this brought back a memory of being woken by my cat in the middle of the night... she had brought me a mouse to snack on.
It was a lot more than I was prepared to deal with at 2 am!
You shoulda et the mouse. Kitty knows best.
Ikr KITTY WAS HELPING?!?
Of course. Our feline friends are always looking out for our best interests.
That's funny
Or vomit. 🤮 😡
At least it was next to the bed and not ON the bed
Had to change out the lever handle on one bedroom because our bottomless pit cat would open the door to steal another cat's food. She also likes to jump up and flip light switches on and off. Or did, since she's eaten so much that she can't jump that high anymore.
My cat can open our doors, he doesn't most of the time because he's polite.
Our house had locks on the outside of all the doors, but we're pretty sure it was a grow house.
Gotta lock the weed in?
Locking the kids / people out, I think
It's more than likely it's for a dementia patient. We've started doing this with my grandma.
EXTREMELY respectfully- what’s the idea/plan wrt fire?
I cannot cannot cannot stress I mean this with no shitty intent. I live with my mother and she’s getting Older and I myself need to start thinking and planning.
I'm sorry, I was kind of distracted when I posted that. I didn't mean that we're locking her in her room, I mean that we've put special locks on the exterior doors because she's been known to wander. Also, if she does manage to get them open, there is an alarm letting us know. We don't want to lock her up, we just don't want her getting out and getting hurt. She's basically back to being a toddler now. It's really sad. My granddad recently died and she's been asking where he is.
I just tell her that he stepped out because he had business to handle at the church. He was Deacon. She just says okay and goes back to watching tv. She forgets in about 30 seconds. If she asks me again, I just tell her the same thing. That or I tell her he went to go get milk or something. They say that you should never tell a dementia patient that a loved one is dead. It upsets them and that's all it really does. She forgets anyway so I don't see the harm in lying to her in that context.
My grandma had dementia near the end of her life. I look like exactly like my granddad did when he was my age. She’d often confuse me for him, which I just kinda rolled with. My mom kept correcting her, despite my protests.
She seemed happy having her husband with her again and would forget after a bit. When we chatted, if she talked about something or someone I didn’t know, I’d tell her that I didn’t remember. She would just chuckle, pat my hand, and call me forgetful. It was cute and sad.
Awww. My great grandmother called me Susanne as a child. That's not my name.
So, I asked her and from what I was able to infer is that I looked like an old school friend. She would ask me about the flowers on a neighbor's farm.... Do I remember climbing the fence to go grab them? What boy did I have a crush on? Which book was I reading? What sweets did I get to eat after supper? Did I ever get that blue hat with the ribbon to wear to church?... Truly wholesome stuff!
I sat with her for hours and answered her how I saw best. Sometimes telling her things from my own life.
My grandma, her daughter, said it brought her peace and she was forever grateful to me for sitting in her room with her when I'd come to visit. It really doesn't do any good to correct them and, as long as it's doing no harm it's best just to go along with it. All the adults in my family would ask me questions and be so intrigued. It was like a window into her childhood, bless her heart.
Awwww 🥰
I know right?! 🥺
It really is adorable
My grandma knows I've been through an abusive relationship. She's less coherent now but it comes up. She'll say, you're pretty, you're beautiful. I want you to promise me that you'll never let someone treat you like that again. I promise her and then she goes back to the TV. TV seems to be her favorite thing these days. She loves watching John Wayne. One day, she couldn't quite remember me. Then I think she kind of did. She went and got the teddy bear off her bed and gave it to me for "being such a nice lady". My heart.
Honestly - weigh the odds of fire vs. eloping.
It’s not that fires never happen, but what are the odds of a devastating house fire that incapacitates you (thus, you can’t open the door), that also would burn in a way that allows your mom to escape, and that she would have the wherewithal to do so if her door was not locked, compared to the chance that she wakes and leaves the house in the middle of the night and is potentially gone for several hours before you wake and realize (or worse, is trying to cook and cuts herself or starts a fire herself) ?
And by the way, I understand. I think it's a legitimate question and I would have asked the same thing if I had seen the comment posted by someone else.
Not in The 1920’s. They never had a term for Alzheimers Dementia except maybe hardening of the arteries. I think it was more to keep kids in the bedroom while parents have a little nookie time without the kids coming in. That would be my guess too.
Our old house has a lock on the outside to keep Elisabeth in at night—she developed dementia and would wander the house (and beyond) in search of chocolate.
I second the dementia reason. "I want to go home."
May be for mentally ill family members too but depending on how old the house is that may not even be an option.
That or sleepwalkers. My brother used to sleepwalk when he was younger. He would go straight into the kitchen, open a cabinet or drawer, pee in it, close it, and go back to bed. My mom was beside herself trying to figure out why on earth she kept finding urine in the cabinets.
Once she figured out what was happening she put a lock like this on his door.
My ex-husband was a sleep-pee person too! He thought it was his room mate’s cat pissing in his drawer until I pointed out that it was a HUMAN sized amount of pee. He still didn’t believe me until I woke him up mid-stream one night!
Probably for sleep walking, honestly if we were there when this home was built we’d probably know. If only we could time travel to solve some of our most puzzling historical questions. Maybe the answer is simple… the door was put on backwards but the world may never know just like the reason your brother was pissing in a drawer.
Could also be a sign of sex trafficking but this lock and door setup is probably too light duty
It’s most likely for a child’s room.
Idk why you’re getting downvoted. Sex trafficking is a reality and that’s a plausible theory.
If you look at the lock it is vintage which mean it was installed at the Turn of the century.
Most likely it was use to hide away a mental ill or handicap relative.
Most likely for a child’s room.
I had to add a deadbolt with a removable key to our front door when my kids were younger. My oldest got out one morning while I was making the beds. I thought he was in the living room playing with his toys. He was actually waking down the street in his pj's when a neighbor saw him and brought him home.
He'd never done anything like that before. I was terrified of it happening again. We went to the hardware store that night. The key hung up high right next to the door. Maybe we went to the extreme but it worked and gave us peace of mind.
Mine did the same, we also added extra locks.
I did hotel style locks at the top so you could just flip the thing over.
We did it because my son kept locking himself in the room. Just flipped the door knob and we were good to go.
Totally had to do this too
I was much too lazy to do a proper thumb turn bolt. Mine is just a hook and eye
Ours was a sliding bolt latch. Near the top of the front door of the house. Installed we woke up around 7 am on a Sunday morning to the sound of a horn honking. Our 3 year old had found his way out of his bed, out of his room, out the front door... into the unlocked car in the driveway (what can I say? 1990's were a lot less worrisome) where he was enjoying "driving"...
We found him grinning happily while leaning onto the horn... repeatedly...
I did an apology tour to the neighbors later that morning with home baked goods.
But it's now a funny anecdote... so there's that.
That actually sounds adorable, my heart. There's a story you can tell at his wedding lol.
Same
I found oven cleaner in my youngest son's room and that's how I discovered he was sneaking out of his crib and raiding our cupboards for weird shit. So I installed a lock on the outside. Then he started drawing on his walls when he was bored. 🙄
He sounds like a smart baby though. At least you know you have a smart baby.
Literally bought one today for our three year old. Disappointing as the first one never needed it
Yah— 3 year olds. I panicked when mine locked the door, but she is nice and let me in… I found her drawing renditions of ancient art from my book collection 😂 my daughter is amazing. Bless
My son locked himself in the toilet and put the key in the toilet. Luckily the very small window was open and my neighbours son climbed through, retrieved the key and unlocked the door. After that we no longer locked that door.
Another time he unlocked the front door while I was in the toilet and was going to my mum's house because I said no to cake before dinner. My neighbour found him in the road. Double locks on all outside doors high enough he couldn't reach.
I honestly never would've thought of that
100% we had to do this too! That crib to bed transition is hard. Found our newly 3 year old walking out the front door at 3am one time because she wanted to go to the park! 🥹Next day the lock side of the bedroom handle was swapped around, and a deadbolt put on the porch door. Sounds harsh, but we didn’t want her falling down the stairs or walking out the front door again. You hear horror stories about these types of things. Once she was a little older we flipped it back and didn’t have any roaming problems.
This is definitely a possibility. Did the same in ours except we reversed the handle so the lock side was on the outside of the room.
We did too! So glad you weren’t downvoted. I always felt bad about it but had little choice. X
I was thinking the same but in reverse: keeping the toddlers out of someone else's non-child-proofed bedroom.
Yes. I was a nanny for a family whose kid did that. I would get to work really early, before the mom woke up. I found their kid one morning by herself, outside in the car. She had taken the keys and opened the car, and then got in and was trying to figure out how to start the car. She was three years old. Thankfully, it was a car that needed a key to operate, and she managed to jam the house key in the ignition instead of the car key.
After that, they got locks fitted on top of the front and back doors and on the outside of her room.
Possibly
I agree
Looks very vintage, if not original to building, our 1927 house had latches very similar to these on pantry/linen cupboards. Time period would suggest nursery.
My old house came with a bunch of hook and eye latches on the outside of the doors… we scoffed and took them down, then promptly put them back up once we realized the doors didn’t latch and would open with a push… we have dogs, and when we aren’t home we don’t want them getting in all the bedrooms and bathrooms where they can tear shit up.
same here! i always thought it was just my house lol
The reason we found locks on our inside doors was the same; except the last guy bred dogs that were hard to keep in the same house, we found foot long screws in the backyard with dog chains still attached, and still found blood on the ceiling six months after the fact.
Ugh. Poor dogs!
That’s horrible. Poor doggos.
I don’t know why, but this made me giggle. Probably relatable i can’t think of a particular scenario.
Older family members weren’t shipped off back then either. Being cared for at home some must have been locked in for a time or at night.
Special needs kids as well
Hotel California has theses lock to prevent the guests leaving.
Ah, that explains the lyrics!
Guests are able to check out any time they like, however.
Don’t know the vintage reason. But, when they were still with us, our cats (rip) would break into the bathroom and shred our towels. We put a hook lock on the outside…which always confused guests :-)
I have a few locks on doors that don’t latch on their own due to settling and shifting/changing of seasons. Also childproofing. Also sleepwalkers. 🫣
A friend of mine had to remove the outside locks on her kids bedroom door after she got a visit from CPS. The lock was installed because her sons used to wonder around the house at night but it was a fire hazard to have the lock.
That was my first thought.
Yes. I’m shocked at the number of parents on here that try to justify this fire hazard! 😳
It's not just that. Several state prohibit locks and solid cores for internal doors in residential housing, though those statutes are mostly used for charge stacking by prosecutors.
In addition to the theories already posted:
- Has the door been moved from its original location?
- Did the door originally have a lock on the inside, but the owners didn't want that door to be "lockable" anymore -- so instead of having a hole in the door they switched the hardware?
I was going to suggest something like this. I grew up in a very old house, and I remember the closet doors had those little latches but not doorknobs, maybe it was originally elsewhere in the house.
That was my first thought. At our last apartment, the previous tenant’s dog bore a hole in one of the bedroom doors. It was a really old house and the owner had a few of the house’s original doors in the basement and replaced it with what was likely an old bathroom or storeroom door.
Keep someone inside
Or to keep very short people out--e.g., toddlers.
You don't want to know.
Growing up the way I did, and knowing how much more common it is than so many think… I agree.
Probably a child's room.
I had a stepchild with Prader-Willis. It caused him to eat non-stop. We had a lock on his room and on the fridge.
They locked their kids in at night - it’s considered child abuse today and a fire hazard.
Gotta lock uncle Ernie in sometimes. Usually he’s ok but not always.
See if there are nail clawing marks on the other side of the door :-)
Regardless of why it was put there, the reasons that you should remove or permanently disable it are numerous.
Is or was there a pass through closet into another room? Or could that be a maids/nanny room? Does it open into a hall or another room? A lot may depend on the size, and year of your house. Very interesting♡ edit to add: i just noticed the year on your home!!! Yay!! So excited to see another old home being lived in. Does the house have any history that could help?
Locking a child in their room as a punishment
Given the age I suspect it was for children
To keep somebody inside. i’m a realtor, and it always creeps me out when I see that especially when I see closet doors that lock from the outside. Hate that. I once saw a metal, accordion style cage like door that locked in a doorway to a bedroom.
Disturbing.
I can only think of 1 legitimate reason for such locks and that’s if someone has sleepwalking issues, like full on does dangerous shit while sleepwalking.
Really!?! I'd love to see photos! I'm a sucker for old homes and unique historical bits like that. I grew up in a house from 1856 and remodeled the entire thing myself. Wishing I took before and after photos but it was over a twenty years time span.
They are houses I have seen being a realtor, but I didn’t take photos of them! But yes, I am an old house fan also BTW … last house I listed had like this hole in the basement floor that went into a tunnel… no I didn’t get down there and follow it all the way to see where it went lol. But I kind of wanted to!
Since it’s pretty high up, my guess is to keep kids out when no one is even in the room.
Tenant suite for soldiers fresh home or on leave
But that would only be if there is an exterior exit to that door
We've had two homes with them - 1st was built 1935, current built 1925
Unfortunately the lock kept someone inside. I will hope it's a tiny baby werewolf, playing with toys, with the zoomies. No teefs yet. And super sleepy
No idea… But does anyone know the name of the locking mechanism? I have the same one on my basement door and it’s broken and would like to find parts!!!
Way back when there was no such thing as specialty hospitals or mental health hospitals and people kept their handicapped loved ones at home. Sadly, they were frequently locked away in rooms, out of the eye of the public.
Could have been a kids room. Or crazy old grandma's room. Or, used as an office.
Or reused from an attic or basement. Or they rented it out during the depression and the renter locked it when they were out.
Probably for childproofing like other people said
Someone had really strict parents?
Thats called a gimp latch.
That’s where they kept their crazy grandmother. 😳
To lock the kid(s) in.
That’s for your prisoner. Obviously.
Former prisoners were kept in there
I have hook locks on my doors that no longer latch. We have cats that are annoying and without the locks we’d never sleep
I have a severly autistic cousin who my family temporarily had custody of when I was young, he would wake up in the middle of the night and go into the kitchen and stand on the glass stove door. He somehow was always able to climb over gates that got put up which posed even more risk to his health and safety. Ultimately we had to put a lock on the door to keep him in his room and off the glass stove door, maybe something similar? Or sex dungeon hidden from children and guests lol
Sleepwalker
Lots of older houses had an office attached to them. Does that room have a door that exits to the exterior of the house?
If so, customers might enter from the street, but when the owner leaves the room for the night, maybe they wanted to lock it against pets or children?
We have an old house and I see old lock remnants too. One outside of a closet. Thought maybe it wasn’t always a room — maybe a hall.
I think there was a time where it wasn’t unusual to lock the door to your personal room when leaving? It’s still common to have these locks where I live (outside of the US). Same key locks from inside and outside.
How they treated those with special needs back when the house was built.
We have them on the outside to keep the cats out of our bedrooms during the day because they have figured out how to open doors.
We had a closet like that in our 1890 victorian. It used to be the local parish house for the village church. 😶🫥
Keep “escaping” children in their rooms and also keep people inside who have illnesses like dementia. I would worry about fires or other emergencies, though.
In Maine we call that the old Yankee babysitter.
Obviously to keep somebody in
Maybe its not to keep something in, but to keep it out... Bwahahaahaaa.
1927? There was a girl child that just wouldn't listen, and a physical wooping would devalue her for marriage purposes.
Maybe someone had a problem sleep walking, childproofing.
We had one of these on an upstairs bedroom and had all sorts of theories. We found out years later from a family member of the woman who lived here the longest that she had a legitimate fear of someone getting onto the roof, breaking in, and doing bad things. It is preposterous, but she had that fear and so there was a lock. She died in 2004 of natural causes, after living alone for over a decade in a scary big old house (not here but at a local hospital). Who am I to judge!
It’s to keep the ghosts in.
To keep the demons in.
Someone else already mentioned pubescent teens.
We don’t talk about that lock
For the naughty little ones...
Or maybe it was a boarding house and men weren't allowed to wander at night to creep into the rooms of unsuspecting women.
These were often common in expensive houses in the uk where you would lock each room individually so as if there was a burglary they would only have access to the room in which they entered… also post world wars there were a lot of women living on their own for the first time ever… which left them fearful of intruders etc. ❤️🇬🇧🇺🇸
if there is another bath probably keep some teens inside to venture out at night.
What? Lol
My grandfather had a “ gun room” for his hunting gear. It had a key lock on it.
Possession
Yep, I have had dogs and cats that were able to open doors.
Ours was to keep us in our rooms during nap time so mom could either nap or do house shit.
Or spend time with her boyfriend. 😂😂
To keep the vampire locked in, of course.
I had teenagers who thought they had a right to any thing in my house. So if it ment something to me or was valuable it was locked in my room. This reason makes me sad.
Locked a girl in her room to prevent her from sneaking out to see a boy. Maybe for safety or confinement/sickness.
I would think kids or anything else that wanders.
I have holes for hasps on the inside of my bedrooms. It appears the previous owners would padlock themselves inside of their bedrooms. Padlock.
Modesty lock. It won't keep people out, but let's them know you don't want anyone just walking in
I just read that it was a custom to keep small children out of bedrooms, etc.
Maybe it was removed and reinstalled incorrectly during a previous paint job.
I hate to think someone was being locked in their room….
Big NO NO. Against codes and just not smart from a life safety standpoint.
To contain a pet, child, sleep walker or dementia/mentally disabled family member. Check for pet scratches to rule out other options. From the height it could also have been to keep a toddler from entering a room where dangerous things were stored (anything from cleaning products to firearms comes to mind)
Punishment? My parents installed a lock on the outside of my door to contain me when I was “bad.”
When the lock isn't engaged, does the door ever not stay closed due to the wood swelling? The closet door in my upstairs bathroom of my 100yr old house has an original knob with a key hole lock as well as a lock like your picture on the outside because the wood often swells and doesn't stay closed (and you'd have to keep skeleton keys in the other lock & hope they don't get lost to utilize the door lock). When the house was bought, I thought maybe the door was taken from another room, but when the weather changed and the door no longer stayed close on its own, that the lock kept it close.
Remember that it was common for old homes to not have whole house HVAC and closing bedroom doors was an easy way to keep heating costs down as not to great a room not used during the day, therefore a simple lock on the outside of the door ensured it stayed close.
Another door between our bedroom and our closet also has a lock and also a more modern chain lock as sometime in the beginning of the century, the house floors were divided into 3 apartments and our closet was a small kitchen that still has another door with original locks that leads to another exterior door entrance that leads to a small balcony that once upon a time had an exterior staircase to access the apartment. Locks were never removed even after conversion back to a house, and then a remodel by the previous owner from a kitchen to a closet, because why bother? I think it gives the space and doors character.
It was so common for old houses to go through what we'd today consider wacky remodels as economic times and needs and new buyers needs rapidly changed. Stairs were often moved, removed, & added. Walls & doors were moved, put up, taken down & put up again. Additions were added, removed, & porches were often open, then screened, then framed in adding additional living space. Gables we're often added to 2nd or 3rd stories with steep roofs or even to attics that were converted to living space, which again, often meant the addition of a staircase somewhere. Lumber and construction costs were substantially cheaper and fewer building codes to contend with.
So it's very unlikely your exterior interior door lock is part of some illicit sex or drug or locked-in nefarious act. If walls could talk in our old houses, it'd be interesting but probably not THAT interesting.
I always think crazy stuff when I see things like this. Like locking kids in- it just gives me a bad vibe. Like the episode of Breaking Bad where the that crazy couple locked their little red headed boy in that room. Creeps me out.🤮
Shut up and get in your room!
Keep kids out
Since the lock is on the outside of the door that would mean keeping the kids in.
Very weird
We had a deadbolt outside a door to a bedroom and that’s how we figured out the bedroom was an addition. The deadbolt had been to the old back door.
We have an almost 200-year-old house, where the original floor plan shows rooms along one side of the house and the connecting great room / hallway along the other.
Somewhere along the way the great room and hallway were converted into smaller rooms, and the original smaller rooms were connected into a hallway. Basically, the hallway and rooms switched sides of the house. The support members run the length of the house, so the wall in the middle stayed the same. Doorways in that wall seem to have remained as well.
Perhaps this door, like some of ours, used to open to the hallway rather than an individual room.
We have a spooky hook latch on one of our doors to keep the cats in when we need to, because one of them is insanely strong and can slide the door open (it’s a 9ft tall sliding architectural door).
“You get to leave this room when I say you do”
I’d totally do that for my musical instrument room to keep kids out.
Mother in law quaters...😆 a guess, they closed off rooms, not heating every room in the house.
My mom had to finally do that ! When my brothers were 5. They would get up at dawn and take apart stuff, toaster, clog up the toliet and once they had the iron out and were ironing the rug. PS They turned out okay.
Dementia existed 100yrs ago yes?
Probably to keep short people from entering
A painter at our house accidentally put a knob back on in the wrong direction.
It was probably originally in a different location in the house where it really worked as a lock.
My last house had a walk in closet between two bedrooms and there locks on the insides of the doors. Old houses know no reason.
People would lock away their ‘crazy’ family members. Keep them out of sight so they didn’t embarrassed the family. Usually it was a woman or girl that had nothing wrong with them other than not submitting to social norms. They’d be labeled ‘hysterical’ and locked up.
Toddlers who toddle around the house at night.
Could be a few things, maybe mental illness, dementia related or a child that sleepwalks?
Used to open yo the outside?
Sadists
granny gets wild without her nerve pills.
Teens.
We don't talk about Bruno
Your home was a former insane asylum. Once we get a report from your psychiatrist, we’ll know if it still is. ;~))
Abusive parents? We had them bc my mom Didn’t want us about sometimes. Talk about fire hazard.
Could’ve been a room used for storage .
Keep the kid from sneaking out, keep someone in there, door could have been repurposed from somewhere else and the deadbolt would have been on the inside.
So you can't get out.
Oh you'll find out eventually. I hear these things run on 7 and/or 13 year cycles.
Regan’s room before the priests
I think back in the day it was used for opinionated wives.
My house growing up had these all over
The murder room!!! Hahahahahahaha
Keeps the small kids out
It keeps the evil in.........
It makes it easier to lock up Cinderella so she can't go to the ball.
Kids had it different ages ago. Parents used to lock their kids in a room for isbehaving now kids lock their parents out of their room while misbehaving.
Sleep walkers perhaps. I just listened to a podcast with a doctor talking about children who sleepwalk and having to put locks on doors if there are stairs in the home.
I had a Victorian house that had these. I thought it was ominous.
obvious answer is private room renting. All the original doors at my old house in the hollywood area built in the mid 50s have these same doors.
When I lived in Mississippi I had an outside lock on my babies room. Cps tried to take my kids and cited that lock as a reason.
I don’t know if anyone else has mentioned this, all I can see is theories on locking people in but we have locks on the outside of two doors in our house to keep the children out. One is my craft room and can be full of sharp things if I’m working on a project the other is my husband’s study which also happens to have our pet cockatiel’s cage in there. We didn’t want the kids accidentally letting the bird out so we put high locks on the doors to prevent mishaps.
Safety hazard if there’s a fire, etc.
Sleepwalker
Nursery room door.
Childproofing? We had to put a lock on the outside of my 3yo son’s bedroom to stop him roaming the house all night after he transitioned out of the crib