Family Home Security
Childproofing an apartment door in New York is a question of height, not of locks. The devices that actually stop a small child are mounted above their reach and release in one adult motion - a high swing bar guard, a high-mounted chain, a door alarm. The devices that fail are the ones a child can reach, and the ones that are dangerous are any that need a key from the inside, because the door you are securing is also the door you escape through.
In a house, a child who opens the front door is in a yard. In a New York apartment building, they are in a public hallway with an unlocked stairwell at one end, an elevator at the other, a compactor chute at child height, and a street door that might be propped open for a delivery. The distance between the apartment door and real danger is short.
That is why the entry door is the one to solve first, before cabinet latches and outlet covers. General childproofing advice assumes a house, an interior door you can disable, and no fire code to answer to.
Parents consistently underestimate this, because the limiting factor is reach, not intent. A thumbturn takes almost no grip strength - a child who can pinch and twist can throw it. A lever handle takes none at all, since a child can hang on it. And a child who can walk can also move furniture: a dining chair dragged to the door quietly raises their reach by a foot and a half. Mount anything you fit above the reach of a child standing on a chair, not a child standing on the floor.
This is the part people get wrong, and it is the part that matters most. The door to your apartment is your exit. In a fire, in a gas leak, in a medical emergency, you need to open it in the dark, possibly while carrying a child, possibly while a smoke alarm is going and you cannot think straight. Anything on that door that needs a key, a tool or a particular trick from the inside is a hazard, not a safety device.
The classic mistake is a deadbolt keyed on both sides. People fit one to stop a child leaving, then keep the key in the lock or on a hook beside the door - which gives up the security and keeps the risk. We cover the reasoning in double-cylinder deadbolts in NYC, and the same principle governs every door that serves as a way out, as set out in fire escape door lock requirements.
The test is simple. Stand inside, shut your eyes and open your own front door. If you cannot do it in seconds without hunting for anything, the door is not safe to live behind, whatever it stops a child from doing.
We fit high swing bar guards, service sticking thumbturns and get self-closing doors latching properly again - on apartment doors across all five boroughs, without damaging a door you do not own.
The entry door is about a child getting out. Interior doors are about a child getting stuck, and in a New York apartment that means bathroom and bedroom privacy locks almost every time. A privacy lock is a push button or small turn on the inside with a slot or pinhole release on the outside, and a two-year-old finds it long before they understand how to undo it.
Learn where your release is, keep the thin tool for it somewhere fixed, and consider having privacy sets removed on rooms a child uses alone. A locked bathroom or bedroom door covers the release methods. If a child is behind the door and in any danger, call 911 before anybody else.
Window locks and window guards are different things, and in New York the distinction is legal rather than optional. The city's window guard rule requires building owners to install approved window guards in any apartment where a child ten years old or younger lives, and to ask every household in writing each year whether that applies. If you have a small child and no guards, that is a request to your landlord, not a hardware store purchase - and it is theirs to install.
A window guard is not a security device and a window lock is not a fall prevention device, so you generally need both - and nothing on a fire escape window may need a key or a tool to open from inside. See window lock security for NYC apartments and window gates and fire escape locks.
Once a child is in the hallway, the question is what else is open. These are building items - a note to your super or managing agent rather than a job for you.
A tenant in New York may generally fit an additional lock or guard on their own entry door, and the landlord is generally entitled to a key to it - whether the tenant or the landlord pays for a locksmith sets out the balance. Building-side doors, a self-closing door that will not latch, and window guards are the owner's responsibility.
The cheapest path is to do the child work in the same visit as anything else the door needs. If your entrance door is also soft, misaligned or fitted with a worn cylinder, improving apartment door security covers the door, frame and strike together, and senior-friendly door locks solves the same reach problem in reverse.
If that turns up something you cannot fix yourself, call us at (718) 412-1332 - most of it is a short visit. If you live in a brownstone rather than an apartment building, the entry is a different shape again: see brownstone vestibule door locks.
Earlier than most parents expect. Reach is the limiting factor rather than understanding, and a child who can drag a chair across the floor has already solved reach. Many children work a lever handle before they are two and a thumbturn not long after, because a thumbturn needs no grip strength. Plan for the door when your child can walk and climb, not when they seem old enough to think about leaving.
No. An apartment entry door has to open from the inside without a key, a tool or any special knowledge, because in a fire or a medical emergency everyone inside needs to get out in the dark and in seconds. A deadbolt keyed on the inside defeats that, and the key is never where you left it when it matters. Fit a high-mounted guard an adult can release in one motion instead.
A standard chain at normal height is not, because it sits within a small child's reach once they can climb. The same device mounted high on the door does work, and a rigid swing bar holds up better because it cannot be worked loose by pulling. The point is height and rigidity, not the device itself.
If the child is in any immediate danger - hot water running, medication or cleaning products within reach, a very young infant, or no response - call 911 first. Otherwise stay at the door and keep them talking while you try the privacy release, the small slot or pinhole on the outside of the handle. If that fails, call us at (718) 412-1332. An interior privacy lock opens quickly and without damage in trained hands.