Everything a person could want to know about hotel door locks

 

 

This explanation from our grandkid Taylor in England:

 

Having worked at a hotel, yes, we did have a doodad to open those top locks. Well, us lowly desk agents didn’t have access to it, only the top manager had one. If they were on site and there was an emergency, they could flip open the locks. If the fire department beat the general manager to the hotel, they’d kick down the door, but the hotel doesn’t want to pay to replace doors and door jambs every time. There’s a surprising number of medical emergencies at hotels. And because different hotel brands have different configurations for those top/chain locks, the fire department isn’t going to keep copies of all the different tools they might need for all the hotels in the area. 

 

Oh, and yeah, the duty managers and maintenance did also have key cards that could override the deadbolt. Those cards were programmed with the name of the person permitted to carry them. The general manager had a scanner that could communicate with the door lock and print a report of all the keys used to open the door. I think it saved the last 20 uses? So if there was a dispute over who went in a room (also happened more often than one might expect) the general manager could print a report and show which keys had been used recently. Cool stuff. 

 

So, the locking door handle, the deadbolt, and the extra lock that only works from the inside are only protection from people willing to play by the rules.  If someone with bad intent wants to google the solution for how to get past all these security features, they can.  Aren’t we glad we asked!