After photos were released of boxes piled high in one of Trump’s bathrooms, the House speaker defended the location – but construction experts say otherwise
www.theguardian.com
According to the House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, who on Monday
defended Donald Trump after photos released by federal investigators showed boxes of classified documents piled high next to a shower in the ex-president’s Florida resort home, the answer is the bathroom.
“A bathroom door locks,” the California Republican said.
That would be more secure, McCarthy argued, than the location where classified documents were found stored in Joe Biden’s residence: in his garage “that opens up all the time”.
Biden disclosed in January that his attorneys had discovered a small number of files in his house’s garage, commenting: “My Corvette is in a locked garage, so it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.”
Multiple construction and home improvement professionals who spoke to the Guardian agreed: a bathroom would be one of the worst possible places in your home to store important files.
Could a bathroom lock offer some protection? The experts agree: no.
“It would be very unusual for a bathroom door to lock from the outside as they are almost always set up to only lock from the inside,” says Bartlett, explaining the obvious flaw in McCarthy’s thinking.
Bathroom door locks have another weakness: almost every one has a small hole that allows it to be opened from the outside with a small object like a pin, “in case one of the kids gets locked in”, says Eric Marie, a Chicago-based contractor. “When it comes to safety, a bathroom door will be a two out of 10.”
If a bathroom door is a two, then a garage door would be “more like an eight or nine”, says Marie. The panels may be made of steel, aluminum, or solid wood, and some even have additional locking latches on the inside. “It’s much harder to go through a garage door than any door in your house,” the contractor says.
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