Last night, our property manager sent me an email to say that “the blacksmiths” would be here today to install our new security gates. They showed up right on time and after about an hour of welding, grinding, a big electrical flash complete with the sound of a power surge, the smell of hot metal, and a lot of general clanging, they started cleaning up their tools and asked for a broom. That was easy!
When they closed the interior doors and the new security gates, I could tell from their body language that there was a problem. The new doors were the wrong “hand” meaning that the swing was incorrect. The locks were on the opposite door leaves, so the lock on the gate was on the right, and the lock on the interior door was on the left. Because one of each set of doors is “inactive” meaning that it is fixed at the top and bottom with surface bolts, the lock needs to be on the same leaf of each pair so we can use the doors on that side without opening the other leaf every time. I’m pretty sure I heard the Spanish word for F*CK a few times. I did NOT try to explain to them that I have some experience with doors – they were on their own.
One of the blacksmiths had already figured out that Norah was my Spanish interpreter, so he told her that he had to go get something and would be back. He took both of the new gates and came back several hours later after somehow switching them around so the hardware was on the correct side. The gates require a key to enter or exit, so I reinforced my instructions with the kids that in the unlikely event of a fire, we will be heading up to the roof deck and escaping to our neighbor’s roof.
I’m not sure whether I feel more secure, or more worried that I have one more key to keep track of! There are now 7 house keys on each ring!
