Take Your Keys

Adventures and Misadventures

Since moving to Portugal one question has nagged at the back of my brain. Why do the Portuguese install Fort Knox-type locks on their doors while living in one of the safest countries in the world? This leads me to a funny story…

Heed these words of advice.

Recent Travels

Last week we headed up to the Silver Coast. A pickleball group in Vau was celebrating their fifth birthday and had invited other Portuguese clubs to join them. We have friends that have an apartment in Foz de Arelho, so we accepted their kind invitation to stay with them. After a few days, we decided to travel further north to Paços de Ferreira to look for furniture. (You can read more about this on Friday.) Our friends decided to join us on this trip.

It was Monday morning at about 10:00. The car was packed and Onix was tethered in the back seat. As all four of us got into the car, Richard said to his wife Juliana, “You got the keys right?”

“No, I thought you grabbed them.”

These are six words you never want to hear in Portugal!

Four bolts!

Actual Door

The photos in this post are the actual front door of the couple in question. They are pretty typical Portuguese apartment/condo doors. There is a knob, on the outside, that does not turn. There is a place to insert the key on both sides of the door. If you insert the key and turn it a bolt will extend from the door into the frame. You will note four bolts in the door above. (The actual number varies, we had five in our apartment in Cascais. And to get to our apartment door you had to have a key to the security door on the ground floor and between 22:00 and 06:00 open an exterior door to the building. Did I mention Portugal is safe?) Anyway, with each turn another bolt will extend. Our housekeeper, Adelaide, in Cascais was always certain to turn the key five times. It took us forever to open the door after she left.

Since the knob on the outside of the door does not turn, if you leave you keys inside you are hosed. This is despite the fact that you never turned the tumbler to secure the bolts!

Over the next two days phone calls were made. Perhaps there was a condo association office with a key. Nope! Perhaps the woman that cleaned their home had a key. Nope! Did we have "xray paper"? (This question was actually asked and totally confounded us. If you want to understand why this was asked, you must read the footnote below.¹) Finally, the housekeeper offered two options:

• Option 1: Call a locksmith. However, if you call a locksmith you must also call the police and they must standby while the locksmith works his magic. This is to insure you actually own the home and to insure that the locksmith doesn’t bang you over the head and steal what is inside.

• Option 2: Break a window. Fortunately, they live on the ground floor.

Wednesday is a Holiday

When we returned on Wednesday afternoon we went with option #2. In part because it was Wednesday, and this particular Wednesday was a National Holiday.² (Of course, this came as a complete surprise to us and we all grabbed our phones to Google which holiday it was.) It turned out the housekeeper's husband was a handyman of sorts and he would break the window. His wife stood by so she could clean up the mess. We were somewhat surprised that the glass was not tempered. But in just a few minutes, Richard emerged from the apartment with key firmly in hand.

What Have We Learned?

So what have we learned?

1. You must ALWAYS TAKE YOUR KEYS when leaving a Portuguese residence. The door will lock when closed, even if you don’t turn the tumblers.

2. That Portuguese holidays will sneak up on you and tend to happen at the least opportune times.

3. That not all window glass is tempered.

4. That you should either hide a key somewhere or carry xray film with you.

5. I still don’t know why the Portuguese have these crazy locks. I am assuming it reflects memories of the Salazar era…Portuguese readers, please let us all know.

6. Most important…make a lot of phone calls before you break a window. Later that day Richard ran into a property manager, he had previously retained, on the street. He was relaying the story to her when she responded, “Why didn’t you call me? I have a key.”

Oh well…

1. In doing research for this post I learned that the thinnest but stiffness of xray film can be used in certain situation to open a door. It seems that other poor souls had been asked the same question.

2. Portugal’s Republic Day is celebrated on October 5 every year and is also known as ‘Implantation of the Republic’ in Portugal. This day marks the bloodless overthrow of the monarchy in 1910.