Posted: 12/4/2010 7:25:33 PM EDT
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So I pull into my apartment tonight coming home from delicious Buffalo Wild Wings and on the corner of the street on the landing of stairs between the second and third level of the apartment building on the corner I see 3 males with a ladder, one on top of it and it looks like he is attempting to jump from the top of the ladder to his balcony on the third story, I did a double take, a face palm, and a wtf. There is about 4 feet of empty space between the stairs and the balcony and at least 65 feet maybe more I cant really tell to the ground, but needless to say if the guy missed he would have died. So I yell up to them "Hey are you locked out?" and they all yes so I say "Well don't fucking kill yourself I'm coming up there" and they say ok, so I grab my lock pick set out of my car and head up there and let them in and the guy asks me if I want a beer for repayment so I say sure. I walk inside his apartment and his living room is totally empty except for a full size tent that is erected with a mattress inside of it. He hands me a Busch and I point at the tent and say " So did you just move in?" he told me they had been living there for awhile, I hope he didn't mean all 3 of them because these are 1 bedroom apartments. And he didn't really get the hint that I was asking about the tent. The apartment smelled funny so I left after that. I'm still facepalming. |
Did you pick up your trash at the resturant, or leave it in a pile?  Just kidding!  What kind of lockpick set do you have? I was going to open a thread about that in Team, but thought it a little strange for a topic. And yeah, thats a little crazy about the tent inside. Did they have kids maybe? I know when I was growing up my dad would set the tent up in the living room for my sister and I to sleep in and "camp out" for fun. |
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Quoted: Did you pick up your trash at the resturant, or leave it in a pile? Just kidding! What kind of lockpick set do you have? I was going to open a thread about that in Team, but thought it a little strange for a topic. And yeah, thats a little crazy about the tent inside. Did they have kids maybe? I know when I was growing up my dad would set the tent up in the living room for my sister and I to sleep in and "camp out" for fun. Well it wasn't weird that they had a tent inside it was weird that the only thing they had inside was a tent, to tables, no couches, no tvs, no paintings on the wall. And I have a really nice 40 dollar set I got as a gift, but the only pick I use is this 30 cent half moon pick and a another 30 cent tension wrench. Yeah a basic set that will pick 90% of peoples front doors is under 3 dollars in price. |
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I lived on the third floor of an apartment once. I learned I was able to climb up the fence in the first floor, pull myself to the second floor, stand on the railing and then pull myself up to my balcony. I discovered this in a drunken bet with my roommates, but it did come in handy later when I locked myself out.
I also used this skill 5 years later, a few months into dating the girl that is now my wife. We went to her apartment after a night at a few bars, only to find she didn't have her key. I scaled the balcony and unlocked the door for her. Impressed her pants off...  
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Quoted: I lived on the third floor of an apartment once. I learned I was able to climb up the fence in the first floor, pull myself to the second floor, stand on the railing and then pull myself up to my balcony. I discovered this in a drunken bet with my roommates, but it did come in handy later when I locked myself out. I also used this skill 5 years later, a few months into dating the girl that is now my wife. We went to her apartment after a night at a few bars, only to find she didn't have her key. I scaled the balcony and unlocked the door for her. Impressed her pants off... These ones are stuccoed there is no hand holds at all. And a lot of space in between each floor. |
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Quoted: Probably squatters, you just helped them with a B & E. Nicely done.... Haha I thought about that before I helped them. I asked if it was there apartment and they said yes, and the guy knew where the beer was. I warned him that I have a photographic memory and I could sketch like a motherfucker haha. Even if they were squatters, fuck this apartment complex they have been horrible to us since I moved in. |
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Quoted: Yeah having a tent only is pretty strange. Maybe they're homeless and pooled their money together for a winter home since our temps got lower sooner than usual? maybe he got a ladder out of his truck so I was guessing maybe like roofing guys or something idk. And if you want to know anything about lock picking just PM or ask me in this thread I'll let you know whatever you need to know. And if you are just starting out you should pick door locks not padlocks, padlocks are ridiculously hard to pick even for someone who had been doing it for awhile. Padlocks have security pins in them and most door locks do not. |
Well now you've got me curious as to who else is a closet picker. I'm still a noob to it, but getting there; only been picking for about eight months or so. Dead bolts are no problem, and I "broke in" to our rental last week when dumb me let the front door blow shut with the keys inside. Luckily having re-keyed the lock I had a general idea of how the pins should have set. Raked it a couple times, and then got to work with a half diamond and a home made tension wrench and got her open in about two minutes. Also just tore open a couple American 5100 series locks to get the spools, and serrated pin stacks out to practice a little more.
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Quoted: Quoted: Yeah having a tent only is pretty strange. Maybe they're homeless and pooled their money together for a winter home since our temps got lower sooner than usual? maybe he got a ladder out of his truck so I was guessing maybe like roofing guys or something idk. And if you want to know anything about lock picking just PM or ask me in this thread I'll let you know whatever you need to know. And if you are just starting out you should pick door locks not padlocks, padlocks are ridiculously hard to pick even for someone who had been doing it for awhile. Padlocks have security pins in them and most door locks do not. I will keep you in mind the next time some jackass asks me if I have a lockpick or a jimmy bar. I usually am like... Wha?  |
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Quoted: Well now you've got me curious as to who else is a closet picker. I'm still a noob to it, but getting there; only been picking for about eight months or so. Dead bolts are no problem, and I "broke in" to our rental last week when dumb me let the front door blow shut with the keys inside. Luckily having re-keyed the lock I had a general idea of how the pins should have set. Raked it a couple times, and then got to work with a half diamond and a home made tension wrench and got her open in about two minutes. Also just tore open a couple American 5100 series locks to get the spools, and serrated pin stacks out to practice a little more. I've been doing it for a long time but I wouldn't say I'm good at it, a door lock takes me about 35 seconds but I don't even try padlocks, that's what bolt cutters are for. I bought a couple padlocks about 6 months ago to give padlocks one more try and it took me about 12 minutes to pick the first one. And the next one I just raked at during the whole episode of Dexter I was watching and I got it near the end, it seems like when I try to focus on the pins in a padlock I actually do worse so I just rake the shit out of them until they pop. But I don't even have a good time with padlocks the inside of my hand is all sore from the backside of the pick by the time I'm done and 12 minutes of work for 1 second of satisfactions isn't worth it. I know there is security pins in padlocks and I try to put the lightest amount of tension on them as possible when picking but I just can't fucking do it man. I had this one pick out of the 40 dollar set that would pick a padlock in about 3 minutes it was super long and skinny with 5 or 6 different shaped teeth on the end I would rake a padlock 2 or 3 times with it and then use the half diamond and manually go pin by pin after that and it would pop right away but I broke that pick from over usage. |
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Quoted: I've always wanted to get into this as it would be a great skill to have. How would I go about getting started, supplies I would need...ect...ect...? The only thing you need is 1 tension wrench and 1 pick, some websites sell them as cheap as 50 cents a piece. The first pick you will want to buy is the half diamond pick. |
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I just did a quick google search and came up with this Pick http://www.lockpicks.com/smalldiamondpickplus.aspx And tention wrench http://www.lockpicks.com/twistwrench.aspx Thats around 5 bucks and that was just the first site I found I'm sure you could go way cheaper. |
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If you go to lockpicking101.com, in their "Lockpicks-manual" forum there are a ton of templates you can print out on a 1:1 scale and make your own for free! Some of the best picks I have were hand made out of windshield wiper blades. Infact when ever we have a good rain storm here in the valley I spend the next day hitting up the local auto parts stores to get the used ones.
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Quoted: You do realize that if that hadn't been their apartment you could have been in deep shit had you been caught? I'm facepalming at the idea you'd just break into an apartment based on someone you don't even know saying it's theirs. I just figured thief's don't normally try to jump from the tops of ladders onto balcony's in broad daylight. Even if they were thiefs what were they going to steal? the tent? There was nothing in there except a tent. They were pretty dead set on attempting the jump and I really didn't want them to do that. That is one of the reasons I accepted the beer too I wanted to go in and look at the pictures on the wall... but there was none. People don't rob 3rd story apartments what would be the point, why have to carry loot down 3 flights of stairs when you can just rob a 1st story apartment. |
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I stumbled upon some old american locks the other day and yanked the cores out of them. I'm hoping to make some practice locks out of them (with the slits on the chambers to see the pins) but havn't got a chance to do it yet. And I broke my homemade bogota rake last week.  Poor little fella didn't stand a chance in my pack when I stepped on it by accident.
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Quoted: I'm new to it and pretty terrible. Give me enough time and I'll get through a 5 pin door lock. I got some wood and made a stand to hold three dead bolts since they were giving me problems there for a while. I got the scrap wood from home depot for $.51 plus taxes and already had the locks. I still pull it out once in a while and will see how fast I can get the three of them open, but since then I've upgraded them to security pins which slows me back down. |