Bend roofing company can help you open doors with your foot

Avoid the doorknob: free materials for an alternative door opener

BEND, Ore. (KTVZ) -- A Bend roofing company is offering a free, simple way for people to open doors without touching the doorknob, using only your foot. 

Thomas Hunziker, the president and owner of AM-1 Roofing in northeast Bend, told NewsChannel 21 Wednesday the metal door handles and doorknobs tend to attract a lot of bacteria and keep them alive longer than they would on other materials, such as wood or cardboard. 

At first, he said, he thought about a way to open doors using elbows.

“One of my people said, ‘Well, Thomas, that doesn’t work,’” Hunziker recalled. “Because I was thinking about using our elbow, and people sneeze in their elbows, and it could make matters worse. So I figured, we can use our feet to open the door.”

Hunziker said he happened to have spare metal materials lying around and came up with a foot handle to attach at the bottom of AM-1 Roofing’s office door. He also placed a piece of duct tape over the latch hole, so the door does not stay locked. 

He said people who use this device can simply remove the tape at the end of the day, when they want security.

“It’s just so hard if you have to hand-sanitize it,” Hunziker said. “This way, it’s cut and dry. Our policy now says, ‘Do not touch door handles.’ We can actually do that, and it’s a heck of a lot easier to do that than sanitize.”

Hunziker said if enough people show interest in installing the foot handles themselves, he plans to leave a box of extra metal plates and screws outside AM-1 Roofing’s office. 

In order to request the materials, he asks the community to call him first, to let him know they are interested.