Instead of that get some tooth picks and elmers wood glue. Fill up the worn
out holes and let it harden overnight. Then put in the old screws exactly
where they were in the fixed holes.


wrote in message
oups.com...

wrote:

Not much of a carpenter, but I can follow directions. The front door of
my mom's house has always worked perfectly. But my last two visits, the
darn door will not latch when I pull it shut.

OP again. Turns out the little box "thing" (strike plate? LOL) was
extremely loose. One screw wasn't holding at all....stripped out and
the second screw was loose. So, I tried tightening it down, but no
real luck.

I took it off completely and it now and latches fine in the "open hole
in the frame." But it is really loose and moves back and forth quite a
bit. So, the new plan is to go back tommorrow with longer screws and
my electric drill and a grinder bit and grind a bit of steel off the
strike plate thing and then try to tighten down well with the longer
screws....sound reasonable?