No Front Door Handles

Sorry Martin but in London this is what a front door handle looks like:

We have lived in a flat in Shepherd’s Bush and Clapham and neither had front door handles. This means residents can close the door via two ways. The easiest is to stick your hand through the letterbox and use it as a handle to slam the door closed. Key word here is slam. This usually causes the entire house to register a ten on the Richter scale.*

The other option is to use your key. This is much quieter as you can unlock the lock before closing the door. I take great pleasure in following this process as not to wake up or annoy anyone.

I understand why people do slam the door. It is faster. It is also more satisfying – you have to go to work and it isn’t fair that everyone else gets to sleep in.

I’ve put up a little sign requesting people use their key to close the door to avoid slamming. Maybe it isn’t clear. Maybe no one else cares. Maybe I need to use a bigger font.

* According to Wikipedia a Richter magnitude of 10 has never been recorded by humans. Humans have obviously never been to London share houses.