Doorknob mistake

Bigger Pockets is a great resource for people to ask questions and learn what to do in real estate. It's also a great resource for learning from people's mistakes. It's hard to admit you made a mistake, because then it makes you look not perfect. But everyone's not perfect!

I realized I made a mistake regarding a doorknob on one of my rentals. Back in January/February I rehabbed it like crazy and got a tenant in March. Everything was going fine until I get a call earlier this month that the tenant locked herself out of the master bedroom.

The doorknob on that room had been left as one of the lockable ones, but with a key on the outside instead of a hole you could put a paperclip in. I remember thinking that I needed to replace that doorknob to a standard bedroom type lockable doorknob, but apparently I forgot and it never posed an issue until now.

I've always evaluated doorknobs because I don't know if I'm going to potentially get a Section 8 tenant (never have so far) and one of the requirements for Section 8 is that all bedrooms have lockable doors.

But I missed that one doorknob!

In the end, the tenant got inside the room without breaking anything, but it's a lesson learned for me -- double check even the small things.