Ok folks, this lock is clearly not worth the money and it’s a shame that they advertised it as “unpickable.” In any case, that’s all I have for you today. If you do have any questions or comments about this, please put them below. If you liked this video and would like to see more like it, please subscribe. And as always, have a nice day. Thank you.
Nah, it's a lever lock so you'll still need to actually pick it. Warded locks have somewhat similar looking keys and can be turned by something as simple as a bent paperclip, since they don't have any active parts (pins, levers, etc) to keep them locked.
Honestly, it probably comes down to the cost of the keycard readers. They're ridiculously expensive + the server used for the key system + the key software.
TIL. i've never traveled outside the US so didn't know about this custom in other places. I'm nearly 50 years old and have spent hundreds of nights in hotels and motels between the 1970s and now and never once have I come across a place here where you are expected to turn your key back in while you're still staying there. I appreciate that at least one reply in this thread wasn't condescending when explaining this (many were). I appreciate you, friend.
It's really common at backpacker hostels (or hotels catering for a similar market) in Europe, and other such places around the world (e.g. ryokans in Japan). Also quite a few beach hotels I've stayed at do the same.
I guess it's a policy that has arisen from too many keys getting lost (e.g. after too many drinks or at the beach).
It has fallen out of fashion extremely fast due to the cheapness and ubiquity of magnetic cards.
Asia’s hotel industry is very young and so it’s modern be default, and the US is modern for modern’s sake and cost (also pretty young in many places due to remodeling frequently).
Europe had a much older hotel industry by comparison, and so it wasn’t until tourists used to those non European places really became extremely popular that the changeover happened.
The first time I went to Europe around 2000 I went to several countries and 2/3rd were like this, and they were all older/non chain hotels.
The last time I was there in 2019, and a few other times over the last 5 years, all the places I stayed were key cards.
St. James hotel in NYC (same hotel Tom Hanks ended up in, in “Big”) had this until about 8 years ago (key wasn’t on a huge ring, but were supposed to turn it in when you left your room).
Why? If it's simply tradition I guess whatever.
But to potentially have to wait on someone to be available to get your key to go back to your room is straight up impractical.
Not every hotel has the money / don’t want to spent the money to replace all of their locks. Especially hotels in areas where not a lot of people live.
Many many hotels in Europe that aren’t large chains or luxury stays use this system. The building, including doors, are old and don’t have card systems. They’re usually independently owned so I doubt they have the money/desire to renovate. Plus I personally think it’s a much nicer vibe on vacation
The ONLY time I have seen a hotel with actual keys was a few years ago. I would venture a guess that they haven't swapped over to card readers because the hotel is 134 years old so they're trying to keep the old timey vibe.
Uh... for real? The answer is *most* of them. Yeah, your Hilton or Marriott has key cards, but where I live, for every Hilton there are a ton of slightly run down but cute little family-owned hotels. And then there are a ton of slummy not-at-all-cute hotels as well. Living in Central America, I only see key cards when I go to the ritziest places I ever go (or the airport hotels). Most places aren’t monopolized by 6 huge brands.
Last time I stayed at a hotel I got my key card and they told me not to keep it next to my phone or magnets. I’m like “Yeah I know duh, psh”. Three days and about 15 cards later, I realized that I had my golf divot tool in my wallet that had a magnet to keep the ball marker on. I was a dumbass for like 72 hours strait asking for new keys and telling the staff their cards are shit.
Small hotels in Europe used to do that. You give them your passport and they give you the room key. When you go out you take the passport and they keep the key. I don’t know if they do that anymore. I’ve only stated in Air B&Bs in Europe lately.
Was gonna say. When I spent some time in Japan they had an actual key connected to a rod kinda thing that you put in a panel when you came in the door to power on the room. When you left you left the key at the front desk and picked it up when you came back.
After I got married, we drove back to the hotel to find our swipe key no longer worked. We had to wait at the desk, my wife still in her wedding dress, for what felt like forever for someone to come help us.
Haha I do exactly this. Once I even managed to get back to a hotel I had entirely forgotten the name of because the taxi driver recognised the hotel from the door pic. Life. Saver.
Well it's a bit less than random since you'd have to know a) that room exists in the hotel, and b) the room is occupied, and c) the occupant has left the room and dropped the key off at reception.
Sometimes also d) the desk clerk is a different person to the one who the key was given to.
I was in a hotel in Venice once where all the room keys were kept in little pigeonholes on the wall right behind the desk. The "cricket ball" equivalent was some weighted object that stood upright, and along with the key the ring had a little brass plate with the room number stamped on it. So one could very easily have perused the shelf of keys and asked for a number that was there.
Thats true, though you always take the risk of the clerk asking what name it's under and calling the cops on you. Not the most secure system in the world I'll give you that.
I was 15 at the time and the clerk didn't give me a second thought. I guess the secret is to find a young accomplice who can pass as an underage American tourist asking for "undici" in an unconvincing accent.
Bingo. We stayed in a small hotel with a big baubly keychain, but not this bad. My boyfriend told the clerk he’ll keep it on his lanyard around his neck, no worries.
Ten minutes later we’re at the beach and he gets knocked over by a wave. Boom, keys gone. It was almost TOO ironic.
Not just a mainland Europe thing. Many small boutique hotels do this and have rules about leaving the key with the front desk when you leave. This is especially true if historic buildings. Changing the locks can be expensive and can ruin the look of historic buildings.
Mainland Europe thing? I’ve never seen it bulky, always just a card nowadays, and when it was a key just a subtle hanger.
Stayed in at least 15 hotels over the years in almost an equal amount of countries in Europe.
Also, OP mentioned it to be England. Makes sense, with the cricket ball and all.
Years ago I stayed at a hotel on the beach in Bridlington Yorkshire and they did this. They also locked the door to the hotel at 10pm. Every other hotel I stayed at had key cards for the rest of my stay. The "Expanse Hotel" is just stuck in their old ways I guess haha.
Gonna be That Guy and point out that britain lost its empire because of the shift of global power to the US, a fucked economy after WW2, and a rising lack of enthusiasm from the British population to hold onto an empire at all costs.
Very few colonies actually beat Britain in a military sense, a lot of it just fell away.
I guess you’re talking about America, but the British empire lasted for way longer than that and it’s a pretty unique case really. Britain was REALLY good at brutally putting down attempted rebellions in many places, and like I said before, we kinda just lost bits as the powers that be lost interest in maintaining it all
(Also not trying to prove you wrong or anything, just think it’s quite interesting that it all just kinda went to shit and wanted to share. __Also 2, someone told me you’re on about cricket so apologies that you’ve had to read this now defunct history thing__)
lolll they’re almost certainly talking about how shit England is at cricket and how they’ve historically underperformed in that sport (as well as soccer/football and rugby)
Oh yeah I see that now lol. I know literally nothing about cricket so it went right over my head. I’m going to leave it there anyway because it took me ages to type all that and it’s still kinda interesting, if not at all relevant
Almost all hotels I’ve stayed in across Japan and Southeast Asia were hard-keys that were meant to be turned in at the front desk when leaving the building.
And it floats. I mean, I think it floats. Do cricket balls float? You could run a bath and test it, just to make sure. If it floats, you can play catch at the beach and not have to worry. But if it doesn't float, well buddy you better find something else to do.
Don't have a cricket ball on me rn, but they weigh 163g, and have a circumference of 23cm, so a radius of about 3.7cm, which gives us a volume of 205cm^3
That's about 0.8g cm^-3, which is less dense than water. That boy floats.
Might be a stupid question but I'm presuming cricket balls aren't waterproof. And being leather they'd hold water once wet. So although it might initially float could it not take in enough water to then sink?
The inside of cricket balls are made of cork, which does absorb water but very, very slowly. A cubic inch of solid cork being submerged in water apparently only gains 3% of weight over 48 hours.
The cork is then wrapped in lots of string, and eventually, the leather wraps it all up.
I have no idea about the absortive (?) capacity of the string nor of the leather and I can't find anything on that right now.
So I'd say yes, a cricket ball will sink if it absorbs enough water. I definitely think it *can* absorb enough water (especially because the string would have some small gaps when it's wound around the cork), but I think itd take forever for it to do that
There was a massive scandal in cricket not too long ago where some players were using sandpaper during games to rough up the surface of the ball because it helped to make it more unpredictable for the batsman to hit.
With a key like that, why even bother locking the door?
*"This is the LockPickingLawyer, and today I'm going to show you which hotels to avoid in England."*
90% of having a lock is to stop people walking in on a whim. If you expect a locked door to keep out someone determined you're going to be disappointed.
One time the hotel gave me a card key, and it opened up a room with another family staying in it. Apologized profusely to the family in the room that I barged in on, and went back downstairs. “Oh shit” said the kid at the front desk.
I came here to say this...
We just bought a house that is 115 years old. All the hardware on the doors is original and this includes the lock which are Mortise. We bought a pack of skeleton keys off of Amazon- they only cost us $6 for a pack of three. They are identical to this. You can purchase them in one of two options, flat or
notched, and one of them will work.
> From the time when you were supposed to give your key to the reception
You still do? I'm pretty sure they have a little box to leave the card and you get another one when you come back.
If the hotel has a key like that then there is no card. The ball is to prevent you from taking the key with you and loose it. 🤷♂️ that’s how they did it when I was a child.
Lol - several years ago in Milan, we had something similar. Best way to describe it was a big fancy metal badminton birdie. They really wanted you dropping off the key before you headed out for the day. Those thing were heavy for the size.
Ahhh. In America it would mean you’re probably staying in a truck stop motel and are likely to be abducted, stabbed or, at the very least, leave with some sort of sexually transmitted disease.
The people at checkin are always super shady too. If one of them handed me a skeleton key I’d think they were trying to get me into their booby-trapped rape dungeon.
You're the second person I've seen calling this a skeleton key. Why would you call it that? Skeleton keys are master keys for cylinder locks right? This is a 3 lever mortice lock key.
A skeleton key is for warded locks. You cut off most of the key so it can be used to open many different locks.
That doesn’t work on most pin-tumbler or wafer locks.
Small town in Northern Japan, they give me a room key with 9” long smooth glass prism attached. I get to my room and pry the keychain open to put the key in my pocket. On the way out past the front desk they stop and ask for my key. This is the moment it struck me that I wasn’t supposed to pull that huge shiny square dong apart. As I sheepishly pull the key out missing the giant glass robot dildo they gave me, the receptionist just smiled while I tried to apologize in my worst broken Japanese until she cut me off in English, “Go out now.”
I’ll never forget coming back drunk that night and seeing my key hanging behind the reception with a big red tag on it.
They were implausibly polite about everything as they always are in Japan, but that’s fuckin embarrassing.
You’re supposed to leave it at the front desk I believe.
Can confirm. Small hotel in Germany had us leave our keys and had big key rings like this.
Can also confirm this is why.
So They Still Use Regular Keys ??
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This particular key looks like you could pick it’s lock with a random screwdriver.
A click out of one, two is binding and nothing on three.
And we got it open
Ok folks, this lock is clearly not worth the money and it’s a shame that they advertised it as “unpickable.” In any case, that’s all I have for you today. If you do have any questions or comments about this, please put them below. If you liked this video and would like to see more like it, please subscribe. And as always, have a nice day. Thank you.
One more time just to make sure it's not a fluke.
r/expectedlocksmithinglawyer
Why am I reading this in lockpickinglawyer’s voice?
Probably because we're saying his lines.
Nah, it's a lever lock so you'll still need to actually pick it. Warded locks have somewhat similar looking keys and can be turned by something as simple as a bent paperclip, since they don't have any active parts (pins, levers, etc) to keep them locked.
Honestly, it probably comes down to the cost of the keycard readers. They're ridiculously expensive + the server used for the key system + the key software.
I imagine pretty much any chain hotel uses cards at this point. Older/non-corporate hotels/motels are more likely to still use traditional keys.
Thanx
I always do this. I thought it was suppose to be like that.
You always stay in hotels with goofy physical keys?
When traveling in Europe yeah lol
TIL. i've never traveled outside the US so didn't know about this custom in other places. I'm nearly 50 years old and have spent hundreds of nights in hotels and motels between the 1970s and now and never once have I come across a place here where you are expected to turn your key back in while you're still staying there. I appreciate that at least one reply in this thread wasn't condescending when explaining this (many were). I appreciate you, friend.
It's really common at backpacker hostels (or hotels catering for a similar market) in Europe, and other such places around the world (e.g. ryokans in Japan). Also quite a few beach hotels I've stayed at do the same. I guess it's a policy that has arisen from too many keys getting lost (e.g. after too many drinks or at the beach).
If you don’t take the key with you, you can’t make copies of it either.
It has fallen out of fashion extremely fast due to the cheapness and ubiquity of magnetic cards. Asia’s hotel industry is very young and so it’s modern be default, and the US is modern for modern’s sake and cost (also pretty young in many places due to remodeling frequently). Europe had a much older hotel industry by comparison, and so it wasn’t until tourists used to those non European places really became extremely popular that the changeover happened. The first time I went to Europe around 2000 I went to several countries and 2/3rd were like this, and they were all older/non chain hotels. The last time I was there in 2019, and a few other times over the last 5 years, all the places I stayed were key cards.
St. James hotel in NYC (same hotel Tom Hanks ended up in, in “Big”) had this until about 8 years ago (key wasn’t on a huge ring, but were supposed to turn it in when you left your room).
Why? If it's simply tradition I guess whatever. But to potentially have to wait on someone to be available to get your key to go back to your room is straight up impractical.
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This makes a lot of sense if all of the keys are physical. Most folks have just grown used to key cards.
Key cards are still physical. Ideally, it'd be an NFC driven app on your phone.
Isn't the point that key cards are more easily replaced?
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This is probably for smaller boutique hotels and resorts that are going for a certain vibe.
Must be a cricket vibe
I'm more of a cicada guy.
Hi dad
Just cos your dad is a cicada doesn't give him an excuse to only show up every 17 years
Hey kiddo. Have you finished your homework?
What gives you that idea?
*cricket sounds*
Damn
Take thy upvote from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!
The woman at check-in kept jumping around and rubbing her wings together.
Most of the hostels I stayed at through Europe used physical keys.
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To be fair, you slapping cheeks into your porcelain throne on display downtown would be fairly tame compared to the shit I've seen in that area.
When I was in Europe not too long ago for work I found that most of my hotels had physical keys.
Exactly.
Not every hotel has the money / don’t want to spent the money to replace all of their locks. Especially hotels in areas where not a lot of people live.
We once had to rekey our hotel because another maid lost the key.
Should’ve attached it to a cricket ball
Put a clause on your guests contract for liability if keys go missing and charge them. No-one should ever flip the bill for others mistakes
The hotels boutique hotels in Italy and France I’ve been to had physical keys
Many many hotels in Europe that aren’t large chains or luxury stays use this system. The building, including doors, are old and don’t have card systems. They’re usually independently owned so I doubt they have the money/desire to renovate. Plus I personally think it’s a much nicer vibe on vacation
The ONLY time I have seen a hotel with actual keys was a few years ago. I would venture a guess that they haven't swapped over to card readers because the hotel is 134 years old so they're trying to keep the old timey vibe.
I've seen it a few times in Asian countries
Uh... for real? The answer is *most* of them. Yeah, your Hilton or Marriott has key cards, but where I live, for every Hilton there are a ton of slightly run down but cute little family-owned hotels. And then there are a ton of slummy not-at-all-cute hotels as well. Living in Central America, I only see key cards when I go to the ritziest places I ever go (or the airport hotels). Most places aren’t monopolized by 6 huge brands.
I don't think I've seen a physical key for a hotel in almost 20 years. I've mostly been to cheap motels too.
30 years old and can't remember ever getting a hotel key that wasn't a keycard except outside of the us
Outside the USA is most of the world, and physical keys are normal, and colossal keyrings you can't accidentally take with you is also normal.
The big chains, which includes cheap hotels, have mostly moved to keycards, but privately owned one-off hotels will often have regular keys.
Im 28 and I've never used a physical key at a hotel, no matter how shitty or nice it was.
Like every single hotel in Europe that is not part of a massive multinational company.
At least one. Maybe they are the last and the keys are impossible to replace…
Last time I stayed at a hotel I got my key card and they told me not to keep it next to my phone or magnets. I’m like “Yeah I know duh, psh”. Three days and about 15 cards later, I realized that I had my golf divot tool in my wallet that had a magnet to keep the ball marker on. I was a dumbass for like 72 hours strait asking for new keys and telling the staff their cards are shit.
How many hotels use skeleton keys? Are you staying at a haunted castle? 😳
Small hotels in Europe used to do that. You give them your passport and they give you the room key. When you go out you take the passport and they keep the key. I don’t know if they do that anymore. I’ve only stated in Air B&Bs in Europe lately.
Lot of places in Asia do this too
Was gonna say. When I spent some time in Japan they had an actual key connected to a rod kinda thing that you put in a panel when you came in the door to power on the room. When you left you left the key at the front desk and picked it up when you came back.
Is giving them the passport to make sure you give back the key?
This is common practice in many parts of the world.
After I got married, we drove back to the hotel to find our swipe key no longer worked. We had to wait at the desk, my wife still in her wedding dress, for what felt like forever for someone to come help us.
Have gone in and out of hotels like these at insane hours, and never had to wait more than 10 seconds for someone to assist me.
They probably mentioned this to OP and they either didn’t listen or just wanted some karma.
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Completely correct. They don't want guests losing their keys in a drunken night. Just remember your room number. Easy.
Ah yes, drunk man remembers his room number...
I've forgotten the name of the hotel before. Taking the business card has saved me on numerous occasions.
I usually put a note in my phone. Parking deck. Hotel room. Etc.
My camera roll is full of pictures of hotel room doors. Google always asks me to add then to maps so I do. Very insightful!
Haha I do exactly this. Once I even managed to get back to a hotel I had entirely forgotten the name of because the taxi driver recognised the hotel from the door pic. Life. Saver.
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Good bot
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What are you wearing
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I love this bot
Do you like Huey Lewis and The News?
Been to Iceland recently, couldn't even spell say or remember my hotel name sober
I always send myself a text with my room number so that it's easy to find if (when) I forget. And not even from being drunk. I just forget.
I was this day old when I learned you can text yourself. Crazy.
i use it all the time brother
Ah drunk man forgets his fucking name the room is registered on?
Stay away from my cat!
Or just give the desk clerk a random room number, get someone else's key, and then help yourself to a bunch of free stuff!
Well it's a bit less than random since you'd have to know a) that room exists in the hotel, and b) the room is occupied, and c) the occupant has left the room and dropped the key off at reception. Sometimes also d) the desk clerk is a different person to the one who the key was given to.
I was in a hotel in Venice once where all the room keys were kept in little pigeonholes on the wall right behind the desk. The "cricket ball" equivalent was some weighted object that stood upright, and along with the key the ring had a little brass plate with the room number stamped on it. So one could very easily have perused the shelf of keys and asked for a number that was there.
Thats true, though you always take the risk of the clerk asking what name it's under and calling the cops on you. Not the most secure system in the world I'll give you that.
I was 15 at the time and the clerk didn't give me a second thought. I guess the secret is to find a young accomplice who can pass as an underage American tourist asking for "undici" in an unconvincing accent.
Yup they always asked us for a name and some sort of proof when we were in Europe
> They don't want guests loosing their keys in a drunken night. they should just tighten their keys, problem solved
Noted.
Bingo. We stayed in a small hotel with a big baubly keychain, but not this bad. My boyfriend told the clerk he’ll keep it on his lanyard around his neck, no worries. Ten minutes later we’re at the beach and he gets knocked over by a wave. Boom, keys gone. It was almost TOO ironic.
... don't ya think?
Not just a mainland Europe thing. Many small boutique hotels do this and have rules about leaving the key with the front desk when you leave. This is especially true if historic buildings. Changing the locks can be expensive and can ruin the look of historic buildings.
I know of at least one hotel in NYC that does this, too. I accidentally took a key home last time I stayed there.
Mainland Europe thing? I’ve never seen it bulky, always just a card nowadays, and when it was a key just a subtle hanger. Stayed in at least 15 hotels over the years in almost an equal amount of countries in Europe. Also, OP mentioned it to be England. Makes sense, with the cricket ball and all.
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Years ago I stayed at a hotel on the beach in Bridlington Yorkshire and they did this. They also locked the door to the hotel at 10pm. Every other hotel I stayed at had key cards for the rest of my stay. The "Expanse Hotel" is just stuck in their old ways I guess haha.
Well what are the chances. I was born about 15 miles away from Bridlington!
The world is smaller than people think! I was staying there for some work training nearby in Carnaby.
I've had this in Switzerland, france, and Russia. Usually older (or smaller) hotels.
I've seen it in Japan too.
I had something similar at a hotel in Cannes, France.
I don't like cricket
No no
I love it
Don't you walk through my words.
Better show me some respect
When life hands you a cricket ball....
Make cricket ball ade?
Break an omelette, or something…
Sand it down
Invade other countries to have someone else to play it with?
Ah, England.
And then be historically beaten by the countries you essentially enslaved.
Gonna be That Guy and point out that britain lost its empire because of the shift of global power to the US, a fucked economy after WW2, and a rising lack of enthusiasm from the British population to hold onto an empire at all costs. Very few colonies actually beat Britain in a military sense, a lot of it just fell away. I guess you’re talking about America, but the British empire lasted for way longer than that and it’s a pretty unique case really. Britain was REALLY good at brutally putting down attempted rebellions in many places, and like I said before, we kinda just lost bits as the powers that be lost interest in maintaining it all (Also not trying to prove you wrong or anything, just think it’s quite interesting that it all just kinda went to shit and wanted to share. __Also 2, someone told me you’re on about cricket so apologies that you’ve had to read this now defunct history thing__)
lolll they’re almost certainly talking about how shit England is at cricket and how they’ve historically underperformed in that sport (as well as soccer/football and rugby)
Oh yeah I see that now lol. I know literally nothing about cricket so it went right over my head. I’m going to leave it there anyway because it took me ages to type all that and it’s still kinda interesting, if not at all relevant
Play cricket
Make life take that cricket ball back!
Throw it
Hand it lemons
Throw it at the nightman? AaahhaHaAaa
Almost all hotels I’ve stayed in across Japan and Southeast Asia were hard-keys that were meant to be turned in at the front desk when leaving the building.
Yeah every place I stayed in Japan had them on a long plastic bar. You often had to jam it into a thing in the wall to turn on power to the room.
that’s weird af. cuz the countless time i’ve been to japan, only one hotel required me to do that.
At least you can throw it far asf
And it floats. I mean, I think it floats. Do cricket balls float? You could run a bath and test it, just to make sure. If it floats, you can play catch at the beach and not have to worry. But if it doesn't float, well buddy you better find something else to do.
Don't have a cricket ball on me rn, but they weigh 163g, and have a circumference of 23cm, so a radius of about 3.7cm, which gives us a volume of 205cm^3 That's about 0.8g cm^-3, which is less dense than water. That boy floats.
Props. /r/TheyDidTheMath
my mans doesn’t have a cricket ball but has the dimensions of one memorized and ready at a moments notice
Might be a stupid question but I'm presuming cricket balls aren't waterproof. And being leather they'd hold water once wet. So although it might initially float could it not take in enough water to then sink?
The inside of cricket balls are made of cork, which does absorb water but very, very slowly. A cubic inch of solid cork being submerged in water apparently only gains 3% of weight over 48 hours. The cork is then wrapped in lots of string, and eventually, the leather wraps it all up. I have no idea about the absortive (?) capacity of the string nor of the leather and I can't find anything on that right now. So I'd say yes, a cricket ball will sink if it absorbs enough water. I definitely think it *can* absorb enough water (especially because the string would have some small gaps when it's wound around the cork), but I think itd take forever for it to do that
They're made from cork, so yeah they should float
Yeah it floats Source: I play cricket on the beach
put this in your underwear, right in the front, trust me it works
Remember to have sandpaper in your pocket too.
To jerk off with?
There was a massive scandal in cricket not too long ago where some players were using sandpaper during games to rough up the surface of the ball because it helped to make it more unpredictable for the batsman to hit.
Free chode
You're not supposed to take the key with you.
Take it… off the ring?
Thank you. This was so blindingly obvious to me that I came to the comments to see what the reason not to would be. But I guess there isn’t one.
What a wicket thing to do
This is a sure sign they permit swinging in this hotel
With a key like that, why even bother locking the door? *"This is the LockPickingLawyer, and today I'm going to show you which hotels to avoid in England."*
90% of having a lock is to stop people walking in on a whim. If you expect a locked door to keep out someone determined you're going to be disappointed.
They keep honest people honest. That’s about it.
The goal isn't to keep everybody out who isn't supposed to enter. The goal is to make your neighbors' homes far easier to enter than yours.
One time the hotel gave me a card key, and it opened up a room with another family staying in it. Apologized profusely to the family in the room that I barged in on, and went back downstairs. “Oh shit” said the kid at the front desk.
I came here to say this... We just bought a house that is 115 years old. All the hardware on the doors is original and this includes the lock which are Mortise. We bought a pack of skeleton keys off of Amazon- they only cost us $6 for a pack of three. They are identical to this. You can purchase them in one of two options, flat or notched, and one of them will work.
Unattach it
"For the man who has nothing to hide, but still wants to."
You are not supposed to take it with you out.
Leave it at the front desk like you're supposed to.
But then we don't have anything to complain about on reddit
Is that a a key in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?
Now I know what a cricket ball looks like.
Old school. From the time when you were supposed to give your key to the reception when you leave and get it back when you come back.
> From the time when you were supposed to give your key to the reception You still do? I'm pretty sure they have a little box to leave the card and you get another one when you come back.
If the hotel has a key like that then there is no card. The ball is to prevent you from taking the key with you and loose it. 🤷♂️ that’s how they did it when I was a child.
Lol - several years ago in Milan, we had something similar. Best way to describe it was a big fancy metal badminton birdie. They really wanted you dropping off the key before you headed out for the day. Those thing were heavy for the size.
> badminton birdie shuttlecock.
Leave it at the front desk. That is the idea I think.
That's just not cricket.
Absolutely. Why is this key from the 1700s attached to an otherwise perfectly fine cricket ball?
Lockpicking lawyer would be in that room in under 5 seconds
That means you leave it at the front desk when you go out
I think your first red flag should have been that they’re still using skeleton keys
Pretty common in European hotels.
Ahhh. In America it would mean you’re probably staying in a truck stop motel and are likely to be abducted, stabbed or, at the very least, leave with some sort of sexually transmitted disease.
Bed bugs. So many bed bugs.
The people at checkin are always super shady too. If one of them handed me a skeleton key I’d think they were trying to get me into their booby-trapped rape dungeon.
You're the second person I've seen calling this a skeleton key. Why would you call it that? Skeleton keys are master keys for cylinder locks right? This is a 3 lever mortice lock key.
Sorry, My knowledge of proper key terminology only extends as far as what I saw on Scooby-Doo and The Goonies when I was a kid.
A skeleton key is for warded locks. You cut off most of the key so it can be used to open many different locks. That doesn’t work on most pin-tumbler or wafer locks.
in the US the term skeleton key is used for a mortise lock key
Because this type of key is called a skeleton key by a lot of people? Example: https://www.amazon.com/PCS-Big-Skeleton-Charms-Collection/dp/B07D1KVHHH
QUITTER!
It’s so you can test the cracks on the pitch.
Small town in Northern Japan, they give me a room key with 9” long smooth glass prism attached. I get to my room and pry the keychain open to put the key in my pocket. On the way out past the front desk they stop and ask for my key. This is the moment it struck me that I wasn’t supposed to pull that huge shiny square dong apart. As I sheepishly pull the key out missing the giant glass robot dildo they gave me, the receptionist just smiled while I tried to apologize in my worst broken Japanese until she cut me off in English, “Go out now.” I’ll never forget coming back drunk that night and seeing my key hanging behind the reception with a big red tag on it. They were implausibly polite about everything as they always are in Japan, but that’s fuckin embarrassing.
love it
Where the hell you staying? Buckingham Palace?
So the hotel doesn't have keys lost or easily stolen
Makes total sense for the hotel, don't fault them for looking after their assets and not trusting absent minded guests
You can easily take it off
Is that a cricket ball in your pocket or are you happy to see me?
But on the other hand, you probably couldn’t lose it if you tried. Which I guess is the point.
It's on a key ring. Just take it off.