Things To Do While Locked In My Own Basement

Yesterday afternoon I was doing laundry in the basement of my house when I suddenly found myself locked INSIDE the laundry room. How did this happen?!? I’ll explain after my list, compiled in my head during the 2.5 hours when I had to figure out how I was going to get myself out of there while a) the main floor tenant is away for a WEEK, b) the middle floor tenant is often out in the evenings and on a level too far away to hear anything, nor does she use the laundry room in our house, and c) the main floor tenant’s dog-walker takes all of five seconds to drop off the dog and likely would not investigate noises coming from the basement…

The situation wasn’t looking good, people. It didn’t help that it was nearly 30 degrees outside, and the laundry room was already loud and humid from a washer AND dryer running. What’s a girl to do? Make a mental list, because there sure ain’t any pens ’round here.

The Mental Laundry (ha!) List

1. There are too many *#$%@ keys for this house!
2. I have a huge bunch of keys in my hand, and the two keys I need to get out of here are not on them!
3. It’s a good thing I don’t need to pee.
4. Hmmm, if (when?) I really need to pee, there’s always the big industrial sink.
5. How do I pee in an industrial sink?
6. I always carry my mobile phone. Why am I not carrying my mobile phone right now?
7. Where’s a skilled lock-picking Albanian drywaller when I need one? And my phone to call him?
8. If I’m still here at nightfall, maybe I can flick the light switch on and off to make an SOS signal.
9. I can’t remember how to make an SOS signal. (Hello, Pathfinders was more than 20 years ago!)
10. Why are there no tools in this laundry room to pull a MacGyver?
11. If I pull this ancient-looking fire alarm, will it actually go off?
12. If I pull this ancient-looking fire alarm and it goes off and is hooked up to the fire station, will they break down the door to get me out?
13. How much would it cost to replace a door?
14. Would it be cheaper to try and break down the door at the top of the stairs, the bottom of the stairs, or the door to the side of the house?
15. Am I strong enough to break down a door?
16. I can’t live down the embarrassment of possibly summoning firefighters to this not-exactly-an-emergency. I’m not wearing a bra!
17. Note to self: don’t procrastinate on laundry to the point where I’m bra-less while doing laundry. You never know…

This list really grew while I tried to weigh my options. I think I might’ve even drifted off to sleep sitting on the stairs. When the washer and dryer stopped and it was silent, I pressed my ear to the upper door separating the basement from the main floor to listen for the dogwalker. Then I heard a hissing noise — it was one of the main floor tenant’s cats! Low growls, followed by hissing. Oh great, I thought, now even the cat’s even forgotten who I am.

I peered through the window (which doesn’t open!) of the door to the side of the house and hoped the neighbour’s kitchen window was open. It WAS! I could see one of the neighbour kids at the kitchen table through the window and banged like crazy against the glass with the bunch of (USELESS!) keys in my hand. It was so frustrating because she didn’t even look over once!

I was beginning to despair that she would EVER hear me, and took a break from my banging. I contemplated breaking the window when I heard noises through the door from the main floor and beat on on the door — it was my next door neighbour and her younger daughter, who’d heard the banging and brought her mother to investigate because she was too scared to come by herself. What a relief!

So how did this ridiculous situation happen in the first place? How does a person get locked INTO a basement laundry room?

My main floor neighbour’s front door and the door between the laundry room and the basement used to share the same key. Since then, she had her front door lock changed because it was too fiddly. When she left she gave me a set of keys so I could check in on her pets, but it turns out none of the keys she gave me was the one to the basement door. I brought my laundry downstairs via her suite, and didn’t think to bring the key to the door I usually use, the one that opens the door to the side of the house to the laundry room. After I loaded up the machines, I decided to go out the side door and locked the basement-to-laundry door (that I thought I had a key for) behind me. Then I walked up the steps to the outside door and discovered — TOO LATE! — that it was one of those locks that requires a key ON BOTH SIDES. Why did I not know this? Because I always open the door from the outside with a key, and I never had to try locking it from the inside… if I did, I’d copy that key and put it on every keychain I have!

Times locked outside of my house: 2
Times locked inside of my house: 1

I don’t even want to know if there’s another variation to this.

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