The US has long given up serious usage of skeleton keys except in places like the old farmhouse where we lived for several years while I was a child. In that house, finding an old key in a drawer and then going through the house testing it on all the interior doors was fun and exciting.
Skeleton keys are still very popular in the UK and there are 4 of them associated with my apartment. One of them the landlord refused to give me as my neighbor doesn't have a copy of it, and he wanted to be sure no one (me) would lock anyone else (neighbor) out. Another is for a storage closet outside my apartment door. The last two, together with a normal key, actually give me access to my apartment.
One benefit of skeleton keys, of course, is that you are never at risk of hearing the front door click behind you as you suddenly visualize your keys lying on the kitchen table.
A second benefit is that once a door is locked, it can't be unlocked without the key or a good lock pick.
Let's suppose for a moment, that one habitually leaves ones keys in the door so that one can easily unlock it to let oneself out in the morning. Let us further suppose that this morning one rises to find the keys missing from the door, because one's intermittent roommate has left early to catch a flight to Scotland and has locked the door behind her. Usually this roommate will leave one's keys lying on the entryway floor so as to be easily visible. So now, let us finally suppose that one's keys are not in sight. Nor is it immediately obvious to one that both sets of keys have not absentmindedly been taken by the early-rising airport bound roommate. What would one do?
Perhaps one would contemplate the impossibility of opening the door to a DHL overnight delivery person. Or one might consider how long it would take one to eat one's way through a package of pitas and the few remaining olives.
But eventually one would do the practical thing and look in one's purse, and upon finding the keys in their unhabitual location, one would dress and go to work.
Skeleton keys are still very popular in the UK and there are 4 of them associated with my apartment. One of them the landlord refused to give me as my neighbor doesn't have a copy of it, and he wanted to be sure no one (me) would lock anyone else (neighbor) out. Another is for a storage closet outside my apartment door. The last two, together with a normal key, actually give me access to my apartment.
One benefit of skeleton keys, of course, is that you are never at risk of hearing the front door click behind you as you suddenly visualize your keys lying on the kitchen table.
A second benefit is that once a door is locked, it can't be unlocked without the key or a good lock pick.
Let's suppose for a moment, that one habitually leaves ones keys in the door so that one can easily unlock it to let oneself out in the morning. Let us further suppose that this morning one rises to find the keys missing from the door, because one's intermittent roommate has left early to catch a flight to Scotland and has locked the door behind her. Usually this roommate will leave one's keys lying on the entryway floor so as to be easily visible. So now, let us finally suppose that one's keys are not in sight. Nor is it immediately obvious to one that both sets of keys have not absentmindedly been taken by the early-rising airport bound roommate. What would one do?
Perhaps one would contemplate the impossibility of opening the door to a DHL overnight delivery person. Or one might consider how long it would take one to eat one's way through a package of pitas and the few remaining olives.
But eventually one would do the practical thing and look in one's purse, and upon finding the keys in their unhabitual location, one would dress and go to work.
Yikes! I arrived back to my flat in Prague one night to find a note on the floor in front of the locked front door. It read, "Please be sure to REMOVE the keys from the lock before you enter the flat. Otherwise, you too will be stuck inside waiting for someone to help. Love, your 3 flatmates"
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