'Latchkey kid' with no key.

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Goldie1976@reddit

We had a window that was never latched. I also think there was a key hidden somewhere but it was funer to crawl through the window.

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rangerm2@reddit

I carried house keys starting in 5th grade

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Redsmoker37@reddit

Shit, I think I had one by about Kinder. 1st grade for sure I did.

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I had a key but sometimes I would forget it. My parents refused to hide one and even though nearly no one locked their doors in our tiny, rural town, my parents were religious about locking the door. When I was 15ish, I got locked out 3 times in 24 hours. I don't remember what happened the first 2 times, but the 3rd one SUCKED! I babysat overnight and when I got home, my dad was gone (he drove all over delivering ag chemicals and was often gone 12 hours) and my mom was on an ambulance run to Denver. My sister was away at camp, so there was no one around who could help me. I remember sitting on the front porch (concrete with no shade) feeling really pissed. I don't remember how long I was locked out or what I did. I'm guessing I hopped on my bike and rode to a friend's house.

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depressedinthedesert@reddit

lol, me too! But at least they put a spare in the cupboard and in a tin of metal polish, crap that shit smelled awful.

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Hiker615@reddit

I got tired of my kids losing their keys, and then not telling me when they grabbed the hidden backup key kept outside. I put a keypad lock on our front door, and no more kids losing keys! One of the best cheap fixes I've ever done.

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Reader47b@reddit

My parnets never locked the doors, so no need for a key. Then we got robbed when I was about 13, and after that they started locking the doors and gave me a key.

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spikewilliams2@reddit

My evil stepmother used to do that to me. Then the harridan complained about me using ladders to get in through a bedroom window. Told not to do that because a burglar might see and get ideas. Fucking tard. Got a key cut in secret and told the bitch I used the ladder.

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CyndiIsOnReddit@reddit

This sub is a constant reminder of how lucky I was. My grands were half a block from my school. I walked there. They worked but they always ALWAYS left the back door unlocked. We had several neighbors I could have safely gone to for help, and my best friend's school bus dropped her about an hour after I got home and she lived next door to my grands so I was usually there anyway soon enough, or she came to our place. I was so lucky. I wish I realized that back then.

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_ism_@reddit

There was one year my mother thought it would be a bad idea for me to carry a key, because her fears were about me being abducted on the way home and the abductors deciding to use the key to rob our apartment after finding it on me. It was so specific. She wanted to have the neighbors keep the key and have me bother them every day for it. She realized that wouldn't work when the neighbors turned out to be the dangerous people.

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DeaddyRuxpin@reddit

Thanks to ADHD I’d often take my key out of my backpack, unlock the door, and instead of putting my key back into my backpack, I’d put it down somewhere else. As a result I was often locked out. I got quite good at breaking into my own house.

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Sonoran_Dog70@reddit

That’s familiar. I wasn’t allowed to have a key. I just had to sit in the front yard and wait about 3hrs. It was that way until I got kicked out at 17. Step moms suck.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

When I was in 7th grade, my mom forgot to pick me up at school after a volleyball game. It gets dark early in the winter and all the other kids' parents were coming for them. Some even asked me if I needed a lift, but I declined, saying my mom was on her way. Eventually, I'm the last kid there; it's pitch black and snowing, the school is locked and everyone's gone, no cell phone, etc. I'm just sitting and waiting for what felt like hours. I gave up and started walking in the dark (no cell phone flashlights) about a mile to the main road, where I waited in a city bus shelter. I don't remember if I had any money. So I'm just sitting there, waiting for the bus, when my mom comes \*hauling ass\* up to the stop. She was the most frantic I'd ever seen, apologizing over and over that she 'forgot' me. I'd also have to hitch-hike to school if I missed the bus, so that was fun. I was 11-13 years old.

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Sonoran_Dog70@reddit

Ugh. Yeah I have a lot of shit stories of what my mom and step mom did to me. Dad was useless. I haven’t spoken to my real mom in 25yrs and my dad/step mom in 5yrs.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

Going on 20 years for me with no-contact with my mom (rip dad). It's for the best.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

My mom sucked, too. It's a really lonely feeling, being locked out.

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RetroactiveRecursion@reddit

Got locked out twice. Once when I lost the key. The other time my mom had to drive my dad to the airport unexpectedly for work, thought she'd make it back in plenty of time, but I-95 out of NYC was a parking lot. Late 70s/Early 80s. No cell phones, and even if she could get to a pay phone at a rest stop she didn't have anyone's number handy and certainly couldn't call me. I was more upset at myself than anything because I thought I had forgotten something like I was suppose to o somewhere else after school or something.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

Remember when payphone was 10¢?

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lie2mee@reddit

Also in Colorado mountains. I loved it. We never locked the doors. I would get home and go hiking or building stuff in the garage or whatever. Then one day at the end of 6th grade, I got home at 3:30 or so and somehow the doors were all locked...and mom and dad were not usually home until 6 or so. We were a few miles away from anyone. So I thought about it a while, went to the jeep, got under the dash, shorted the ignition wire to ground, and then touched the starter solenoid wire to start the engine. I ended up teaching myself to drive for about 2 hours: 1st gear, steering, brakes, clutch, etc., then getting the courage to try 2nd gear, which was way too fast for my nerves at the time, and I stopped and went back into 1st for a while. Pretty exciting, considering we lived up on a steep hill. I ended up getting back home before my parents got back, and swept the skid marks in the gravel in the driveway where I had spun out a bit learning to clutch. Mom and dad had no clue. I was gone for the summer for work with my oldest brother, and when I got back, My dad informed me that the clutch seemed to be going bad and we would have to replace it in the garage (we could never afford to have someone fix it for us), and that I would be helping him all weekend to do it instead of something more fun. I was upset, and he and mom cornered me and said if I was going to be wearing out the clutch, I might as well at least help with fixing it.

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gtmc5@reddit

I did not have a house key either, but it was because we never locked the back door. At least not until my older sister got scared in high school when she learned about some serial killer who had previously been active in our college town: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald\_Gene\_Miller. Then she started freaking out and making sure all the doors were locked, but we still had a hidden key, so I never actually carried a house key till I went off to college.

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Individual_Set_4697@reddit

Same. 3rd through 5th grade. Spent many days outside in Utah waiting until 6 pm when parent got home.

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Tempus__Fuggit@reddit

My siblings had keys, I didn't. Cold winters in Canada, waiting in the concrete garage for someone to get home.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

I hated hiking up through the dark, cold pine forest in the waning afternoon light, lugging my huge backpack. It spooked tf out of me. I must've looked like a turtle lol

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Tempus__Fuggit@reddit

Horror movies really drew on our childhood environments, huh. Glad you made it out shell intact.

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tdawg-1551@reddit

I always left my bedroom window unlocked. The bottom was just low enough I could jump up and push it open then pull myself up and in. Was like doing a full pull up except for gripping an uncomfortable window frame.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

Is it weird that I can hear the sound you made scrabbling up? lol

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wicked_pissah_1980@reddit

We just didn’t lock the door. Until some crazy dude started burning down old barns. Then they caught him and we stopped locking the door. We did have a 100lb chocolate lab though. He’d sit at the kitchen table in a chair like a person and stare out the window.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

I love your lab sitting like a person!

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Grobbekee@reddit

And the dog kept you warm and entertained?

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

He was long-gone; I was the dog lol

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Unlikely_Answer662@reddit

This might be the most GenX story of borderline child abuse I’ve ever read. I was a latchkey kid myself, but at least I had a key.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

Yeah, it wasn't fun. But I do have a life-long affinity for cozy, safe places :)

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_WillCAD_@reddit

I guess I'm lucky. I was mature and responsible enough to have my own keys to the house when I was about nine or ten. Lost them once in all that time - I'm pretty sure they're still floating around in that house somewhere, or maybe buried in the back yard. Forgot to take them to school with me once and had to figure out how to unlock my bedroom window and shimmy in without breaking anything.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

I was a good (obedient) kid, so I'm not sure my mom's reasoning for not giving me a key. I suspect she just couldn't be bothered to make a copy.

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Thick-Pineapple-3120@reddit

Same, latch key kid not allowed a key! Used to be l9cked outside on acreage in the middle of summer in bushfire season, no phone, etc. Altho in the 80s and 90s we were also locked outside even when parents WERE home. Bedroom or outside, forever not seen and not heard. 🙄 Some boomers were terrible parents.

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hippiechick725@reddit

We weren’t allowed to play inside unless it was pouring rain.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

Yup. We had to be outside every weekend, all weekend, blizzard or not. I'd try to hang at a friend's house whose mom was cooler because fuck that noise.

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hippiechick725@reddit

The blizzards were cool though!

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brianwhite12@reddit

When I was young, I wore the key around my neck on a string under shirt like a necklace . I also had an extendable metal pointer I carried that I used to push the elevator button because I was too short.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

The extendo-stick!

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apple_pi_chart@reddit

I climbed a tree, jumped on to the porch roof and climbed in a bedroom window.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

I did that at my dad's house! It was a huge pine tree. I'd climb to the second balcony, shimmy out on a branch and hop over the railing. Usually the slider would be unlocked.

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handsomeape95@reddit

I used our grill to get onto the porch roof then into my bedroom window. It never really worked right so that was my excuse for leaving it open.

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Dulcinut@reddit

Our house was hung on a nail in our walk in cellar.

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Odditeee@reddit

We had a sliding door that I got really good at jimmying. Even with the stick jammed behind it.

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bluesquishmallow@reddit

That's impressive.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

That's definitely a ninja-move!

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Upbeat-Sandwich3891@reddit

That triggered a memory. I had a key to the front door but it was an old lock that only worked 1/2 the time. Dad was too cheap to replace it and would just squirt WD-40 in it every time I got locked out.

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MedsNotIncluded@reddit

I fit through the window gap where the dryer hose stuck out. I was pretty agile and slim. Or I’d climb up the antenna pole on the side of the hose and get in through the weird latch/door thing on the roof.. but I’d have to crawl through the glasswork stuff in the attic and yeah.. I went through the dryer window exclusively but was aware of the secondary path (I liked to sit on the roof sometimes..)

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KermitMadMan@reddit

that’s why i would go in through a window. i either left them open or just locked enough that i could jimmy the lock with a card - probably block buster or another thin one. I got better at it

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anythingaustin@reddit

We had a key in the BBQ pit. When we forgot to put the key back (happened a LOT) we would have to go to the neighbors house and get their spare key they kept for our house.

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Formal_Plum_2285@reddit

6 years old. Walked to school with my best friend. We both had a key in a string around our necks and we both lost them several times. After school I could either play with my friend, go home or find a bus that would take me to the inner city where my parents had a comic book store. It was quite awesome ngl.

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tlonreddit@reddit

My mother never worked and my father worked his ass off in the 70s and 80s running a timber business so he was always home messing with his land.

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glennis_pnkrck@reddit

I would forget to put the key back a lot, my go to was the kitchen windows because you could break in from the comfort of the screen porch.

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Dangerous_Abalone528@reddit

This was me too. Never forgot my key but my brothers were assholes. The deadbolt couldn’t be unlocked with the key and they loved making my life harder. Climbing in the kitchen window in my prom dress was interesting (our parents were out of town that weekend).

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Uncle_Brewster@reddit

I guess I was latchkey, but my mom got home from work like 15 minutes after I'd get home from school. We got out of school at 3:15, and my mom was done with work at 3:30. She went to work at 7:00 am, so that she could get home soon after school was let out. My dad would often not get home until 6:00 pm, or later. He was self employed, and worked crazy hours. He was usually available early in the morning, if we needed a parent for something.

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Impossible-Taco-769@reddit

Thankfully, my parents would leave their bathroom window open just enough to avoid that. I would run up into the corner and push myselfand grab the sill. Hanging there and using the wall for leverage, I’d undo the screen and pull myself through the window. Then I’d just unlock the door and let my sister in. Oh, yeah, that was after we walked, by ourselves, 6 fucking miles (I just googled it and I’m fucking pissed my parents were so nonchalant about that) as an 11yo with my 8yo sister, thru 2 shitty neighborhoods in private school uniforms.

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mrmonkeyman1520@reddit

I learned how to break in each apartment we moved to from 8yo - 12yo. I didn’t have to do it that often as Most nights I would walk to the restaurant my mom served at and sat in her section for dinner and do my homework then she’d give me the key.

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HedgehogNo8361@reddit (OP)

I could sometimes break in, but she was good at locking up. Luckily I usually had a snack left over from the lunch I'd packed for myself that morning. Walking 6 miles is \*insane\* and with heavy backpacks it is worse. I'm sorry.

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Vegaprime@reddit

I would meal prep the previous day and stash in the shed.

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Impossible-Taco-769@reddit

Silent generation. My dad, Vietnam vet, he never said shit to me. I mean other than to yell, mostly. Oh and the real real distance was 2 miles. Fucking goggle AI. I was doing the mental math and I’m like, yeah that’s my hometown, i know the distance. There’s no way kids could do that speed.

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LetheSystem@reddit

We saved a bent coat hanger outside. We'd stick it into the little drain holes at the bottom of the window and pull the window latch. We also did this to break into their room so we could watch TV.

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jimheim@reddit

We didn't lock the house. Kids never had keys, but the house was unlocked when we got home from school. Only time we ever locked up is when we were leaving for a whole week for vacation.

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Johoski@reddit

We weren't allowed to have a key. A spare key was hidden, literally hanging on a nearby rosebush. If ever the key wasn't there, I usually climbed in the master bathroom window. My mother traveled a couple of years ago. Car was parked in the garage at home. She used the car's garage door clicker to leave the house before her flight, and put the clicker in her purse. Lost the clicker, or so she thought, on her ride back home from the airport. So I called a guy who came out with two new clickers and programmed them to match the garage door opener. Then mom found the lost clicker and threw it away thinking that it didn't work anymore. Then she left one of the new clickers in her boyfriend's borrowed truck. It took a month to retrieve it because the truck had been returned to its owner. Mom kept laughing about it. In week three I lost my shit at her and told her to get her shit together, that it wasn't funny or cute and that if my brother or I had been this cavalier about something like this in our teens that our stepdad would have given us holy hell and she would have let it happen. She did eventually bring it back. I asked her why she didn't just leave through the front door at the beginning of the trip and leave the clicker in the car where it belonged. Because she thought leaving the clicker in the car in the garage was somehow a security risk.

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haz_waste@reddit

My parents hid a key in the back yard. My brother and I had to climb over a fence to get the key smd go in through the back yard.

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Turdulator@reddit

This was abuse, it would have been so easy to get another key made and kept it permanently hidden

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WilliePullout@reddit

I don’t think we even had a key to our house. It was never locked

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Tralfaz1138@reddit

Apparently the Millenial solution to no key was to kick in the back door. Fixing that after my step-daughter did it was a fun weekend project.

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ONROSREPUS@reddit

I always had a parent at home. Mom worked nights Dad worked days. I feel pretty lucky for that.

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AnicetusMax@reddit

Always had a house key on one of Dad's old Army dog tag chains. Added a spare car key when I got old enough to drive. It become such an ingrained habit that I still do it.

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Fixed-seesaw@reddit

I became an expert in climbing in a window on the second storey.

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mongotongo@reddit

Mine one was the attic window. I always made sure that one was unlocked.

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Physical_Ad5135@reddit

We had window with a broken lock and I could boost my brother into the window. We also had a camper and I did hang out in the camper in a pinch.

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Bug_Calm@reddit

I wore the classic "key on yarn" around my neck.

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CashComprehensive423@reddit

We could break in through the milk box. A small wooden box built into the brick. One could reach through and unlock the door.

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NoRestForTheWitty@reddit

My parents both worked and sometimes they just forgot. Once I went to a neighbor’s house who I didn’t know. A nice lady played with me and showed me how to use her sewing machine. When my mother got home, she told me not to tell other people that I got left alone.

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Bright_Broccoli1844@reddit

Do you sew now?

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OldBanjoFrog@reddit

Wore the key around my neck

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MusicalMerlin1973@reddit

Latchkey, but only a bit. Mom drove the bus. My bus. One I was in middle school I had maybe an hour at home alone. I.5 max. Because she didn’t do field trips. Iirc the only time I was locked out was if I had forgotten my key. Luckily my step grandmother lived in the apartment built on the side of the house.

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Imaginary_Penalty_33@reddit

This is very familiar to me. My parents frequently forgot to hide the spare key, locking me out. I became very good at breaking and entering. Fortunately I never used that skill on other peoples houses.

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Affectionate-Map2583@reddit

One time at dinner, my father said that he needed to get a piece of wood to put in the track of the basement sliding glass door, because "anyone could just lift it off the latch with a screwdriver". A little while later, I came home to an empty, locked house, found a screwdriver in the shop, then did exactly what he said "anyone" could do.

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wraithsonic@reddit

The fuck, man

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Grand-Organization32@reddit

7th grade football. Two-a-days. 8 miles from home. My dad would drop me off 2 hours before when he had to go to work at 5am. We’d do the first work out and then I’d hang out on the porch at my aunts house a block away until the second practice. I drank water from her hose. Then we’d have the second practice. After 3 my mom would pick me up… sometimes… or I’d walk 8 miles home… in WV… up and down many many hills… in July/August… I fucking hate my mother most of the time.

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PRC_Spy@reddit

We had the same problem. But fortunately it was easy to jemmy open one of the kitchen windows with a hand hoe from the garden shed, then post a little sister inside to open the front door from the inside. After we'd done that a few times, we got house keys.

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Grobbekee@reddit

We had a string to the lock behind the letterbox. I could slide my little hand in and pull it. Later, from age 11 or so I had a key to the front door and my bike key on a key ring.

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AKA-Pseudonym@reddit

I had a key attached to my backpack with a plastic cord. It was the ultimate in elementary school cool at the time.

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BoldBoimlerIsMyHero@reddit

I was allowed to have a key to the padlock on the garage door. Sometimes the door from the garage into the house would be locked though so I learned how to break into the house. Sometimes I’d just sit in the boat.

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