A Cure for Creaks

Creaky Doors No More

   Do you have creaky doors? I did not too long ago. Want to know how I fixed it? Because that's what I'm sharing in this post: a surefire way to quiet those creaky hinges.

This is a door hinge. Image from askthebuilder.com.

   First, let's talk about doors. Doors are things you open in the walls of buildings to move through them. Doors can be made of many different materials, like grass or dead bodies. Doors generally have knobs and hinges, possibly also windows and locks. You can cover up the windows with things called curtains - some people are unaware of this. Some doors are very pretty, while others aren't so much. Doors keep things out that we don't want in, and things in that we don't necessarily want escaping, like Granny or the kidnapped body before you kill it. Doors are important to our well-being and protect us from wild animals, or the police, depending on who you are. They usually don't fail in doing their job, but again, that depends on who you are and what you're trying to keep out or in.

   Sometimes, doors get creaky, or start making some groaning sounds, like that dead body you don't know exactly what to do with. Some people have absolutely no idea what to do to make such things shut up, so I'm writing this post to help those of us who've never dealt with a dea-, I mean, door, a creaky door before, and don't have the handyman parents to help them out.

   Now what usually causes doors to make creepy, annoying noises are the hinges. Yeah, those things that attach it to the wall and possibly hold it up off the floor. No, I'm not talking about the dead body now. Most hinges are made of metal, kind of like nails, or most nails anyway, and when metal moves against other materials, like other metal, it sometimes makes a noise or two. Some people are bothered by these noises, and others can have an inhuman ability to totally block them out, as if they don't exist. I mean, it really is inhuman, like they don't even know the sounds exist, they just pretend there isn't anything lying on the floor, uh, I mean, creaking, creaking in the door.

One of those oil brushes. Image from zappos.com.

   Anyway, what I thought was, hey, if we just put something between what's rubbing to make those sounds, then the sounds will stop. I considered WD40, but I didn't want to spray black oil that close to white doors, I thought that could look pretty nasty, so that was out. Then I thought, hey, vegetable oil! It's clear, I just had to figure out how to get it on the hinges without making a terrible mess, because you know how cooking oil just goes everywhere when you try pouring it down someone's, I mean, over the hinges of a door.

   I used one of those oil brushes from my kitchen. Put it in the dishwasher afterwards, came right clean again. Mine's made of some rubber stuff, so it's pretty flexible. Made the job real easy. Anyway, I took one of my oil brushy thingies and dipped it in a really small bowl full of vegetable oil, then took the brush right down the middle of the hinges, both sides. Then I worked around the door a bit: open-shut, open-shut, a little weight on it open-shut, open-shut, lifting up on it a bit open-shut, open-shut. Then voila! No more groaning, creaky doors.

   That was at least a week ago. My house is still as silent as the dead are supposed to be, you know, when they're in the ground, six-feet under. And no smell!