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Garage door opened by itself? Is this even possible? (1 Viewer)

Worm

Worm

slimy ninja
I'm driving into work this morning talking to my girlfriend while she finishes getting ready at home. Our bedroom/bathroom is above the garage. All of a sudden she hears the garage door open (or close). She goes downstairs and opens the door from the kitchen into the garage and the garage door is open. She asks if I went out through the garage or if it was open and I say no and she freaks out. She hits the button and runs upstairs and gets her 16 y.o. son and 14 y.o. daughter up, getting ready to call 911 if needed, etc.

They clear the house and garage. All the exterior doors were locked. She has a garage door opener in her car so she goes out and checks and the doors to her car were locked and the opener was inside, so there was no break in there.

Our house is only ~8 years old, and I thought modern garage door openers didn't have any chance to open by signal contamination, etc. But I'm struggling to figure out how it could have opened and she is freaking out. Anyone ever have this happen?

 
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Could be a circuit board going bad.  That happened to us.  We suspect it was one of the electrical storms, or simply faulty board.  Could also be an alignment issue of sensors or a cobweb etc.  

 
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Sometimes a button on a remote or wall mount can become stuck. Check your opener unit and look for the “learn” button. If the light next to it is flashing, then one of the buttons is stuck. If that's the case then start removing batteries from your remotes to find the faulty one.

 
I had the opposite problem where the garage door opener got really finicky and often wouldn't work.  Turns out LED bulbs can interfere with the signalling, so use another bulb type in your opener. 

 
Nipsey said:
Tell her everything is probably fine but if it's not you'll do all you can.
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Trying. She is freaking out. Her daughter is often home alone during the summer so it's understandable.

We live in a nice neighborhood. There has never been any issues in our neighborhood that I'm aware of but that doesn't mean it can't happen. She makes a good point that her car was in the shop over the weekend with the remote in it. Who knows. People are capable of crazy stuff.

We've been looking into a home security system recently and will accelerate that.

 
Nah, could well be signal contamination. At my house we just got a new door opener about 2 or 3 years ago. First few months it would do that at random times throughout day and night. Then we figured out our door has a lock signal feature on it. We hit the activate button before going to bed each night and deactivate it when we wake up. It's been fine since.

 
Worm said:
Trying. She is freaking out. Her daughter is often home alone during the summer so it's understandable.

We live in a nice neighborhood. There has never been any issues in our neighborhood that I'm aware of but that doesn't mean it can't happen. She makes a good point that her car was in the shop over the weekend with the remote in it. Who knows. People are capable of crazy stuff.

We've been looking into a home security system recently and will accelerate that.
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If someone is going to break in it's probably not going to be like that. Are we 100% sure the sound she heard was the garage? 100% sure it wasn't already open?  I wouldn't worry about it but that's just me.

 
Nipsey said:
If someone is going to break in it's probably not going to be like that. Are we 100% sure the sound she heard was the garage? 100% sure it wasn't already open?  I wouldn't worry about it but that's just me.
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100% sure on both accounts. I had just left the house a few minutes prior, and the garage door was closed (I went out the front door). And the sound is unmistakable from our bedroom.

I do agree with your first and last sentence, but she is more prone to worry about stuff like this.

 
Worm said:
100% sure on both accounts. I had just left the house a few minutes prior, and the garage door was closed (I went out the front door). And the sound is unmistakable from our bedroom.

I do agree with your first and last sentence, but she is more prone to worry about stuff like this.
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We had this issue. It's typically just interference from another device (in your home or not) or a possible malfunction.

Resetting the codes fixed it. If not, then it may need to be serviced. It's disconcerting but it's not a big deal and not out of the ordinary.

 
We used to drive around town to see which garages would open with our remote "just for fun".....    :unsure:

 
Worm said:
100% sure on both accounts. I had just left the house a few minutes prior, and the garage door was closed (I went out the front door). And the sound is unmistakable from our bedroom.

I do agree with your first and last sentence, but she is more prone to worry about stuff like this.
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Tell her Nipsey from the internet thinks it's probably fine.

 
Back when the home link in cars and on star was first starting up I borrowed the opener from my buddy and programmed it into my dads car (he had onstar).  The next day we went over to visit and opened his garage door.  It freaked him and his wife out and they wondered how we were able to do it.  I told him that we just had onstar do it.  Gave them the address and told them to open the door.  He was baffled but didn't believe me.  I told him in only took his SSN and they could do it.  After that he believed it was onstar.  Had him going for about a year before we finally let him in on the joke. 

All that to say maybe it was onstar that opened your garage......

 
Constantly mutter under your breath tonight:  “crap, I didn’t think they’d be able to find me this time!”  Then, tell her she’s hearing things if she asks if you said anything AND be sure to throw in the occasional “calm down” too; womenz respond positively to such reassurances

 
There have been stories about people driving through neighborhoods using garage door remotes and making notes of which doors open. The idea is that they then come back later, so there might be something to worry about. 

 
If it was me, Id probably unplug the opener from power until I was home for awhile.  Then plug it in, reset it, rotate codes and see how it goes.  

Good luck. 

PS:  They sell traps for clowns.  Maybe set a couple of those by the door too. 

 
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Just for giggles, take one of the remote controls and hide it under your pillow tonight.  Randomly mess with her through the night.

 
“I would fire the footman whose job it is to open and close the garage door.  Possibly fire one of my chauffeurs as well...just to send a message.”

-Chet

 
belljr said:
We used to drive around town to see which garages would open with our remote "just for fun".....    :unsure:
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Yeah, back in the early 80s, when remote garage doors were still somewhat rare, we would do the same thing.

It was pretty surprising how often it worked. I guess they didn’t use too many unique frequencies at first.

 
belljr said:
We used to drive around town to see which garages would open with our remote "just for fun".....    :unsure:
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As a kid I found one and did the same thing riding around on my bike. It only opened one. Probably should have gave it to them, but I didn't have very many toys to play with.

 
El Floppo said:
Sex/drug/killer-clown/maniac/ghost.

Or it picked up the same frequency from another remote or device. But I'd bank on the former.
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If it continues to happen, well move. Your girlfriend will never feel safe in the house again.

If it doesn't happen again, accept that your new clown friend has ball cancer and she's leaving you for him.

 
Sputnikv8 said:
If it was me, Id probably unplug the opener from power until I was home for awhile.  Then plug it in, reset it, rotate codes and see how it goes.  

Good luck. 

PS:  They sell traps for clowns.  Maybe set a couple of those by the door too. 
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Warning: If you accidentally catch a Juggalo, you have to find the nearest WalMart parking lot and release it back into the wild.

 
Do you have one of the new garage door openers that you can open with your phone.  They're nice, so maybe one of the teens is messing with their mom pulling a prank.  My step son use to love doing that to his mom and the dogsitter.

 
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