Tenant called me late Sunday night about a locked bedroom door she couldn't enter. (child probably locked it). I told her to call a locksmith. Thursday I receive email saying if she calls a locksmith she will take it out of my rent. Also, that the locked bedroom door was a fire hazard and that she should have keys to all interior doors. The house has never had keys to the interior doors. In my opinion it's not a fire hazard. If someone was inside the room they could get out.

Agree with Barb. If you have a key lock, they need the key. And if it's a passage lock, why call a locksmith?

3 years ago, I had a tenant call and said their 2 year old child had locked himself inside a bedroom. The husband panicked and kicked the door open and of course busted the door knob and jamb. The wife called me the next day to explain what happened and told me they would have the door repaired and pay for all damages. 6 months later, they moved out and I still had a busted door and door jamb.

I don't have any locking interior door knobs. However, tenants place hook & eyes ... I just remove at turn over and charge them for filling the holes & touch up paint.

Those type of locks (I'm assuming you're talking about a standard privacy doorknob) tends to come with small tool to unlock this easily. The problem is that it's a tiny tool and easy to get lost (I always thought it would be smart to develop it so it would hang on a small nail outside the door for easy access in an emergency).

Just change the knob to a passage knob which has no lock.

//www.lowes.com/pd/Kwikset-Polo-Satin-Nickel-Round-Passage-Door-Knob/4718519

I agree with the others. Sorry, but the tenant is right and this is on you.

Interior doors like bedroom and bathroom doors that lock should be just "Privacy" lockets. This means that they have a lock on one side and some sort of emergency unlocking mechanism on the other (such as a hole that you stick a small "pin" into to unlock it). They should not have KEYED locks where a key is required to open them -- especially when it sounds like you didn't even provide the keys!

So, if you have the right "privacy" locks, then there is no need to call a locksmith because you just pop them open with a pin. If you have KEYED locks, then they are likely against code and could get you into real trouble if there was ever a real emergency.

Change the locks to "privacy" locks (or, if you don't want interior locks at all, then "passage" locks) ASAP.

- John...

Another vote for passage knobs only inside. At most, we have the kind that have the little unlock tool, as Gail K mentioned, and there's a tool on top of the trim over each doorway. Only for bathrooms.

Since you failed to provide tenants for keys, there's no way you can charge a tenant getting locked out of a room. Locks are for one purpose...locking doors. This is on you, not the tenant.

Robert: I don't think the tenant changed the locks here.

The original poster isn't exactly clear, but I get the impression they meant that they doors DID have locks that they were never given keys for, not that the tenant ADDED the locks.

Therefore, I think your response is incorrect. (If the tenant DID change the locks, then I agree with you, but I just don't think that is what happened here.)

- John...

You can find it as "very common" as you like. It still doesn't sound like what happened HERE.

- John...

I've recently changed my bath and bedroom knobs to a brand that can be opened from outside using a quarter or a fingernail in a slot. I've had tenant issues with the others. When my kids were little, our own house had the ones where I could poke an artist's paintbrush or a toothpick in the hole to pop it, bUT tenacts don't alays have either. When we remodelled our own home, we put nice lever handle sets, that came with a little tool that has to go in the hole, then I have to get it in the right slot. As I went to the basement to get that little tool to unlock my grandson, I thought, 'If I have to use a specific tool, that's called a KEY.'

If you have the hole-style ones, you just by some cheap allen wrenches at the Dollar Store and put one above each door on the sill. (Or, as someone mentioned above, in a closet on a little hook or hole.)

Sorry, but sticking a piece of ANYTHING in the hole does not count as a "key". ;)

That being said, yes, those newer ones where you just twist it are fine too. In my experience, people don't like them because it is too easy for little Johnny to open up a locked door to a potentially embarrassing situation (either in the bathroom or, too often, to Mommy and Daddy's bedroom)... So, we still do the little-hole ones.

- John...

Typo: I meant BUY some allen wrenches, of course... :)

- John...

I have a sfh with a small coat closet at the bottom of the stairs to the second floor. The tenant told me that the lockless doorknob catch was not working properly.

A young child piped up that so-and-so had broken that when they were playing a game involving running up and down the stairs and slamming the closet door. At that point, the latch was not springing out and catching, so the door just closed, but did not "click".

I decided to save the repair for when they moved out in 2 months - I knew that Mom would not stop the Closet Door Game, even though she scolded the kids for doing it.

A few weeks later, I get a call. Sure enough, they were at it again, and a child got stuck in the closet (the latch suddenly sprang into place, but the knob would not move to retract it). It would have been easy enough to slip in a credit card to get the door open. This lady decided to take the hinge pins out and swing the door at the latch. You got it, the door and the latch were then damaged.

Hi, I am a tenant in a similar situation. Less than a month after move in, the AC in my townhouse broke (I live in Las Vegas, so this was a real problem). I started opening all the windows and turning off the AC. Because of the air flow, the master bedroom door slammed shut, and to my surprise, I found out the door had a keyed lock! (Something I hadn't realize as I had just recently moved in). The door, upon slamming, had become locked and the landlord charged me to have a locksmith come out and open it. I was STILL not given a key for this door, and the locksmiths essentially just pushed the door in (something I could have done for free!).