Build a lockpick from common office items?
I’ve been in this situation, and have been forced to think “outside of the box” (so many puns intended) in order to reenter the house. Think of all the points of entry for your home: Are they all locked? On my first house, I used to purposefully leave a specific window unlocked because it was really hard to get to from the street, and I usually had a handy-dandy-4 year old son with me that I could lift into the house and go unlock the front door. Even if the window isn’t unlocked, you could potentially unlock it by using the credit card method and moving the latch out of the lock. That’s completely dependant on how your windows are figured. Other avenues of ingress include: Automatic garage doors (some can be pulled up manually without too much effort, but that depends on the age of the door and the mechanism), back door vs. front door (sometimes you have a less difficult lock on the back door), the Realtor that originally sold you your house (they’re supposed to destroy the extra keys
Remember that in most US localities, carrying lockpicks (even improvised ones) on your person can be considered evidence that you are planning to use them for nefarious purposes, and can get you detained by your local authorities. It looks particularly suspicious if you are trying to get into a locked door and a police car drives by. Your chances of getting caught go up because you will be spending a while doing it. I think your best chances come from trying to push the door latch back instead of picking the lock. Look for materials that are strong but flexible, or plan to pry off the piece of moulding in front of the latch. I’ve had luck with grocery store discount cards, a video store rental card, cut up pieces of plastic milk carton or soda bottle, a butter knife, bits of wire (try to get a loop around the latch and pull it out), and a cut up aluminum soda can. If none of the unlatching methods work, you could try a bump key. You w
This site describes how to make a vibrational lockpick from materials that might be loitering around your workplace, or your workplace’s IT graveyard.
I’ve been experimenting with a couple approaches on the locks in my cube. These locks actually aren’t too simple, they have 7 pins. Approach 1: Cut classic lock picking tools out of an old credit card. This one sounded promising, but I quickly ran into its Achilles Heal. The end of the pick is brittle, and can easily break off in the lock. That’s a pain, so scratch this idea. Approach 2: Bend a common paper-clip into a basic rake (essentially a bump at the end of a straightened paperclip). Using this and a bent metal pen clip as a torque wrench, I was successfully locking and unlocking my cube locks in a few minutes. Here’s hoping my house lock is as straight-forward.
