The Story Behind No-Lock Anti-Lock Plate

One day, while I was at work, I received a frantic phone call from my wife explaining that my 18-month-old daughter had locked herself in her bedroom while my wife went to another bedroom to get our daughter’s favorite toy.  Upon returning less than a minute later, she realized that the door was shut and shocked that it was locked as well.  My wife tried everything from a credit card to a paperclip to unlock the door but with no success.  The potential dangers came to mind especially since my daughter’s bedroom had an attached bathroom.  I immediately rushed home and tried to find a tool or device that was small enough to unlock the door. 

With no success, I called my father and he brought over some unique tools that were small enough to finally unlock the door.  Forty minutes had elapsed from the time my daughter locked herself in her bedroom to the time the door was unlocked!!  Fortunately, within this time frame there was no life threatening disaster.  After this experience, I tried placing tape over the turn switch to prevent it from turning to the lock position, but eventually my daughter would just remove the tape.  I shared this story with family, friends, and work colleagues and they all had similar stories regarding their own children.          

One holiday morning while eating breakfast, I glanced at the open pantry doorknob mechanism and it came to me….something to block the latch bolt of the doorknob mechanism from extending into the strike plate on the doorframe.  This would prevent any door from being locked with a push button, turn switch, or toggle switch if moved in the direction to lock the door. 

I immediately did some research by extensively looking on-line and visiting the most popular hardware stores.  To my surprise, there was nothing out there to handle this problem.  I then decided to develop and sell this product to help parents prevent potential disasters.