No Sanctuary
Great moments in building history: The importance of aligning the latch mechanism of a lock with its body can never be underestimated
Our company had just completed a small office building for an order of Catholic nuns in northern Wisconsin. As the superintendent on the project, I remained on site overseeing other work when I got a call that the women’s restroom door was not working properly. I immediately went to fix the problem. As a supervisor with a carpentry background, I can handle tasks like this, which seemed mundane: a sticky lock that needed a minor adjustment.
As I played with the lock, it became apparent that the lock on the women’s room door was simply fussier than the lock on the men’s room door. Because there was only one male staff member in the office, I concluded that the simplest fix was to switch the locks from the men’s restroom to the ladies’ and vice versa. I quickly accomplished this task and left in the glow of thanks from the receptionist.
A short time later, my cell phone rang, and I was informed that the receptionist was now locked in the ladies’ restroom, with the lock handle turning but the latch not retracting. As I hurried back to the office, I realized that when I switched the lock bodies, I failed to align the latch mechanism with the body. The handle and body were functioning correctly, but the latch was not connected.
Embarrassed, I quickly found a thin screwdriver in the office toolbox and slid it under the restroom door to the receptionist, then explained through the door how to remove the interior handle. As she dismantled the lock from the inside, I checked the men’s bathroom door and realized that I had made the same mistake on that door and would have to remove and replace that lockset as well.
By this time, the ladies’ lockset was removed, and I reached into the hole in the door, retracted the latch, and released the flustered receptionist. Feeling humiliated, I began to reassemble the lockset so that I could adjust the lockset on the men’s room door.
The director of the order of nuns took this moment to slip into the men’s restroom. I yelled, “Don’t shut that door!” just as I heard the faulty lock click behind her. Now this prim and proper lady was locked in the men’s restroom. Because this door was so tight to the floor, I was unable to slip even the thin screwdriver in to her.
I ran outside, broke the plastic grip off the screwdriver, and slipped the screwdriver shaft under the door. Unable to get a firm grip on the small metal shaft, the nun was powerless to remove the lockset. I hastily removed ceiling tiles but realized with dismay that the walls extended to the underside of the roof above and did not afford passage into the bathroom.
In desperation, I pulled the vinyl base back from a corner of the women’s restroom wall and grabbed a nearby hammer. I smashed a hole in the drywall just above the floor and pushed a full-size screwdriver through the opposite drywall and into the men’s restroom. The nun was startled, but she was able to pull the screwdriver through the wall and remove the lockset. As she exited, I interpreted her silence as a discomfort equal to my own, and we both rapidly retreated to other tasks.
It was some time later before I was able to get up the nerve to return to repair the drywall and baseboard of both bathrooms. Despite the many subsequent meetings I had with the director regarding other items, the business of the “double lock-in” was never mentioned.
Drawing by: Jackie Rogers
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