Unusual Replacement Lock, Amersham

It’s not uncommon to find on arrival that a job is a little unusual. Yesterday I arrived at the Amersham home of a senior citizen who is a council tenant. I believe she had moved in quite recently but the standard fittings on the front door were making life difficult for her. This lady is particularly petite and the night latch (the main lock on the door) was too high for her to operate. The council contractors had declined to refit it at a lower height reasoning that if she moved, the next tenant would be unhappy with the unusual arrangement.

After some discussion with the customer I suggested fitting a second nightlatch lower down the door and disabling to upper one so that she couldn’t get locked in. Removing the upper lock would leave a large hole through the door. As the photos show the handle on the nightlatch is loose as its hanging down whilst the lower one is operational. From the outside it simply looks like there are two locks – some people choose to have two locks.

In case you’re wondering – The holes between the locks are where I moved the door chain further down the door to suit the customer’s needs

I like this type of unusual job where there is a challenge to overcome. There is a lot of satisfaction in resolving a customer’s specific problem in Amersham. As they say variety is the spice of life!