07/22/2026
I feel like enough time has passed that I can finally share this story. š
I was showing a foreclosed condo to a client Iād never met before. The showing went great, so I walked them out, then went back to turn off the lights and grab my bag.
Exceptā¦ the door wouldnāt open.
Since it was a foreclosure, there wasnāt an owner nearby with a spare key. And of course, all of my belongings were locked inside the unit.
Iāll skip over the long process of getting someone out there, but eventually help arrived. The lock would turnā¦ but the door still wouldnāt open.
āNo problem,ā we thought. Drill the lock, get inside, and call it a day.
Nope.
The deadbolt literally BROKE. The gentleman said heād never seen anything like it. It came apart inside the door and actually prevented us from getting in. After a full-on battle, he finally got the broken deadbolt out.
We tried the door againā¦
Still locked!! š¤Æ
The handle was turning but not opening the door, so I had a feeling that if we could fish something through and open it from the insideā¦ we might get in. We brainstormed what we could possibly use and settled on the cord from the drill charger. With the kind of laser focus usually reserved for defusing a bomb or opening a stubborn jar of pickles, I managed to fish it through the hole in the door, hook the inside handle, and somehow pull it just enough to open the door!
As it turns out, somehow during the showing, the inside privacy handle had been engaged. Being a foreclosure, we didnāt have the code to unlock it. When it was back open we tried to disengage it and it also wasnāt working! So double whammy on both locks malfunctioning!
This evening quickly became one of the wildest real estate stories I have to date. One I will be just fine if I never beat lol šš”
