Safety 1st Lift And Lock Security Gate

I bought this gate when my son was beginning to crawl almost 3 years ago. I intended to mount it but never got around to it so I used it just with the pressure feature. So after 3 years of daily rough use, it broke. But I felt like it did its job ([...]and was nice because I could easily move it around the house in different doorways. It was very easy to adjust and lock too. Also good was that after all this time my son has never figured out how to open. Both kids can push it down if I dont take care is putting it up. So overall I give this 4 stars. Not perfect, but good for the price. I ordered 2 more

The only reason I gave this gate 4 stars instead of 5 is because it was a little hard to get it pressure fitted into my doorway. Once I had it positioned getting the handle back down was very difficult, but once I did the gate was very secure. My cats push off the top when they jump over it and the 50 pound dog has run into it a few times, and it's holding up just fine.

I looked at several types/prices of gates before settling on this one. We bought two - they were both installed within 10 minutes and they've been reliable and safe. We then went on to buy a third for my parents. We've got them hardware mounted but a nice feature is the ability to take them off the wall, leaving the hardware in place, for use somewhere else.

We used the previous model of this gate for several years until the release handle broke off. We were using it on a door to the outside to keep our Rottweilers out of the house. Now we need one to keep our toddler inside the house. I was very happy with the previous model, as it fit well in the door frame and the big, round pressure pads held the gate firmly in place. Also, the handle slid up and down easily and it was easy to get the gate in place, even with one hand.

The newer model requires two hands to put in place, and the handle is very hard to push down. Unless you hold the gate in place, one pressure pad will invariably get left out. Finally, even though the gate is adjusted for maximum pressure, it's still easy for a dog or a child to push the thing over completely. So it does not breed confidence. I'd really prefer having the old style, but this will have to do for now.

I bought two of these gates, as well as 2 more expensive metal gates that open and close for our hallways. These gates were purchased to keep our twins off the stairs going upstairs and downstairs and wouldn't be used very frequently, probably less than once every 2 weeks. So I thought these would be perfect. They were at first. They stayed in place and were secure. Then as we started taking them down every now and then, like I said, less than once every 2 weeks, they became less and less reliable and seemed to "strip" out and wouldn't hold securely. If you are going to put these in a doorway that won't be used much, then these might be ok. But for blocking stairways, which could be very harmful for kids, then I would not recommend this gate by Safety 1st. I would go with a more secure metal gate, as I am now shopping for!

I LOVE my other two metal gates with the one-hand open/close gates, both pressure mounted. They are perfect for high-traffic areas. They have been in place about a year now and are used many, many times a day. One of these is the Evenflo Simple Step in taupe color and the other is by Dreambaby.