Alternatives to the $25.90 Quiet Closer

If you’re a parent you’ve probably seen the Quiet Closer ads on children’s TV. The advertising is aimed at parents who have tried to close the baby’s bedroom door and made a slight click that woke the baby up and turned the night into a nightmarish cycle of getting baby to sleep only to be woken up while attempting to exit the room. You’d pay $10 to prevent that right? Well if you order from that commercial you’re paying $25.90 so listen up sleep deprived parent, you can pay your $10.00 plus $7.95 postage and handling plus an additional $7.95 postage and handling for that “free,” one for a total of $25.90 or you can do the stuff below the next section for next to free. I say “next to free,” because I believe the cost is somewhere in the quarter penny range if you added it up.

Understand the noise points when closing a door

There are three places that make noise when you close the door. The first noise comes from the latch (thing that sticks out of your door,) hitting the exterior contact point of the strike plate (thing in the door frame the latch goes into). The second noise is the noise of the latch dropping into the strike plate hole (the door clicking shut). The third noise is the door smacking into the door frame if there are no guards.

Step 1 – cover the strike plate latch hole

Using a business card and a quarter inch of scotch tape I accomplished half of what the Quiet Closer does. Place the business card over the strike plate hole. This will prevent the second noise of the latch dropping into the strike plate hole.

Step 2: Stop the strike plate contact noise

You can simply turn the handle to pull the latch back slightly when closing the door, but if you’re thinking you or your S/O is so freaking tired that they’re incapable of remembering to turn the knob (it happens, I’m not judging, I’ve been there this week twice already,) you can use a small amount of tape to pull the latch back in. It doesn’t have to be pushed back to completely flush, it just has to not hit the strike plate. You could also put a piece of cardboard over it and tape that down as the only thing your’e attempting to stop here is the metal on metal click. I’m doing the pictures on an office door as I have oddly built 1940’s doors with cartridge locks at home. I was able to make a security latch push back with about 4 inches of Scotch tape. You can also use a toilet paper roll or cardboard taped over the latch to prevent it from popping out. Metal on metal is your noise, so you could also cover more of the strike plate if you wanted. Alternately you can also just take the latch out of the door assembly, on most doors it’s pretty simple to convert to just a pull door.

Stop the door bump noise

The last thing that should be making noise is your door bumping into the door frame. You’ll need to find the contact point (usually top, last area the door hits,) and place something there as a bumper. You can use gum if that’s your thing, anything really to stop the noise. If it’s at the top, you can also just throw a washcloth over it.

Do all three with a rubber band

If you can find a decently strong rubber band you can probably even emulate what the Quiet Closer does with simply hooking on a knob. You’ll need one of the stronger ones and a little imagination, so do that when you’re not tired.

Take That $25.90 and do something with it

In a decent mutual fund that $25.90 will be worth almost $200 in 18 years. While that’s not going to be a whole lot based on inflation, remember every $25.90 you save now is worth five or six times that (accounting for inflation,) when your child becomes a legal adult. Or you can give it to me, I’m not above shilling to get baby some storage racks 😉