5 Places to Check if You’ve Lost Your Keys

Can’t find your keys? The first instinct might be to panic thinking you’ve lost them, but more often than not you’ve simply misplaced them. So keep calm and carry on – that’s the key to a positive outcome. 

And it might help to know that you’re not alone. Most of us lose up to 2.5 days each year looking for lost items! But with a clear strategy, you’ll be able to reduce that time considerably.

So take a deep breath and organize your search. Here are the 5 places to check if you’ve lost your keys.

1. Your purse or pockets

These are the usual suspects, especially because you’ve already looked there. But look again. Your purse or backpack is probably full of stuff, so by emptying it and going through it systematically, you can save yourself a lot of time and worry.

According to Chris Seabrook from Asguard Locksmiths “we have clients calling us to unlock doors, replace keys or rekey locks thinking that they’ve lost their keys. But sometimes they call us back just to tell us that they’ve found them in their coat pocket or the lining of their bag.”

Of course, sometimes the keys are simply lost, so if you’ve already spent too much time looking, then the safest option is to call a locksmith. But save yourself some time and money by checking all your bags and pockets beforehand.

2. Nearby

Professor Solomon, author and self-proclaimed “Finder of Lost Objects,” theorizes that most lost objects – and especially keys – are not far away. Actually, they are as close as 45 cm or 18 inches to where they should be.

How does it work? Think about where the keys should be. For example, you know they should be on your desk. If you can’t see them at a glance, then it means they are obstructed. Are there any papers on your desk they could be under? How about the drawers? And have you checked the floor?

3. Cluttered areas

As much as we’d love to have every nook of our home neat and tidy at all times, sometimes it just doesn’t happen.

If you’ve lost your keys, one of the overlooked places to look for them is the cluttered space. A study found that when we search, our eyes focus on the cleaner areas by default.

Basically, your keys are camouflaged. So the best tactic to employ is to consciously focus on the least obvious areas, and look for them in the cluttered spaces.

4. Unusual locations

So you’ve checked your bag, your pockets and your desk and the keys are definitely not there. Before you continue searching aimlessly, stop and think. Retrace your steps. What did you do first?

Did you have groceries in the trunk of your car? Start there. With your keys in your hands and no room to pick up your shopping bags, you could have put them down.

Can’t find them inside your home? Maybe you went straight to the bathroom to wash your hands, or you went to the kitchen to put the groceries away. Finding lost keys in the pantry or refrigerator is more common than you think.

5. The door

If you arrived home in a rush, talking on the phone, hands full of bags or picking up a package from your doorstep, the first place you should look for your keys is in the door.

Getting distracted is only human, and even if you’re the type of person that has never forgotten the keys in the door, going to have a look won’t hurt. It’s highly possible that you unlocked the door and you forgot to take the keys out afterwards.

Found them in the door? Great! But, keep this in mind: if you think they’ve been there too long and don’t feel safe anymore, getting a locksmith to rekey your locks will give you safety and peace of mind.

Conclusion

Losing your keys is a nuisance, but sometimes it’s a simple case of lost and found! So make sure to have a thorough look before you call a locksmith. And one last word of advice: make a spare key and give it to a neighbor or a friend.