The apartment that I just moved out of was unique in that my contract with the landlord was called an Equity Lease rather than just a lease. In a sense I owned the apartment, I wasn’t renting. I was responsible if the refrigerator, or anything in my apartment or garage broke. Three days before I was to move out, my garage was struck by lightning (or at least very near by).
My garage door opener was fried, and I had to replace it, quick. If I did not, they would void my lease opt out document for unpaid services rendered on the property and I would have to pay for another year at the place. Simple enough, call St. Cloud Overhead Door and have them do their thing. Well, I don’t have a emergency access key, nor do I have a key for the handle that locks and apparently Overhead Doors thing isn’t breaking into garages. I had to take yesterday afternoon off to break into my own damn garage.
It’s a standard apartment garage, a single stall garage linked to many other single stall garages, the only way in is through the man garage door – which I can’t open.
Option 1: Spaz out and crash my car through the door – which is very tempting at this point.
Option 2: Have the unit next to me open her door and I break through the wall. Then repair the wall. Great, except her garage door opener is fucked too, and her husband is away on business, with the emergency key.
Option 3: Pick (see: Drill) the lock for the manual door latch (that was supposed to be disabled anyway). Then cut out the emergency garage door release lock on the door and replace it and cover the hole with a metal plate.
Option 3 is the way I went. Apparently it takes about 15 seconds to break into most garages (without garage door openers) because that’s all it took to drill out the first lock. Now the tough one. I borrowed a Roto-Zip to cut the lock out – making sure to catch the lock before it fell into the garage, and spent much of the afternoon fabricating a plate to prepare the garage door and installing the new emergency lock ($20). Overhead door is repairing the fried garage door opener this morning. It will probably cost about $150 bucks.
All this for an apartment I’ve moved out of, and a garage I will never use.
