Bob Eager wrote:
On Wed, 04 Apr 2018 23:49:57 +1000, FMurtz wrote:

Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Neighbour asked for help today. Or rather the sister of that neighbour.
They're French.

Neighbours (husband and wife) are in France. Sister house sitting -
presumably because of the two teenage kids at school here.

The front door has once of those night latches where you can lock the
inside handle - to stop the door being opened by breaking the window
etc.

And that is on. Both the keys they have open the door from the outside,
but neither will work in the lock in the handle. Probably copies which
are OK in the often used outer lock, but not on the seldom used inner
one.

At the moment, one of the kids goes out via the window and opens the
door from the outside...

I offered to remove the lock and see if I could open it in the
workshop. but thought it prudent to talk to the owner first on the
phone. Who didn't want the lock removed. ;-) Tried to explain my lock
is similar, and they come off and go back easily. But although her
English is much better than my French, difficult to get that across.

Obviously, tried some WD 40 type stuff. No success.

Could have just latched it open, but they don't have a key for the
fitted mortise lock.

Often people change the outer cylinder but forget about the inner which
may be still keyed to an old key.

I didn't forget - I just couldn't get a matched pair of cylinders. And
they would probably have cost more than a new lock, anyway.



I do not have any of these problems I just put new pins in to match the
new key on the front lock