--- title: Man Opens Front Door to Brick Wall Built Overnight description: A German man opened his front door on Monday to leave his house only to find out that he had been walled in overnight. canonical: https://time.com/4622072/brick-wall-prank/ author: Cady Lang article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-01-04T19:30:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:39:54.350Z og:title: This Man Opens His Front Door to Find Himself Walled In og:description: Officials don't know if someone built the wall as a prank, dare, or revenge. og:url: https://time.com/4622072/brick-wall-prank/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf4b680ec88b27744/6988b4638fd2ee04663554f7/german-man-walled-in.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: Saint Michael Choir School in Bond Street. Edwardian og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Man Opens His Front Door to Find Himself Walled In twitter:description: Officials don't know if someone built the wall as a prank, dare, or revenge. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf4b680ec88b27744/6988b4638fd2ee04663554f7/german-man-walled-in.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Man Opened His Front Door to Find Himself Completely Walled In  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jan 4, 2017 7:30 PM UTC  (Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images) (Photo by Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images)Roberto Machado Noa—LightRocket via Getty Images  by [Cady Lang](https://time.com/author/cady-lang/)  ## Cady Lang Jan 4, 2017 7:30 PM UTC If you thought leaving the house and heading to work after the holidays was tough, consider the plight of a man in [Western Germany](http://time.com/4617605/germany-police-failure-anis-amri-milan/), who was greeted by a solid wall when he opened his front door on Monday. The man was leaving his house in Mainhausen, Germany only to run into a wall that was built in the doorway of his home during the night. According to the [_AP_](http://bigstory.ap.org/article/4c8e937434c245149235fc2f6b58fa61/german-mans-front-door-walled-overnight), a police statement noted that the man “must have felt like a Berliner in August 1961,” referring [to the closing of the border between East and West Germany with the Berlin Wall](http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1631993,00.html). The police told news agency DPA that officers don’t know if the wall was created as a part of a prank, a dare, or an act of revenge. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4622072/brick-wall-prank/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4622072/brick-wall-prank/"},"headline":"This Man Opened His Front Door to Find Himself Completely Walled In","datePublished":"2017-01-04T19:30:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:39:54.350Z","description":"Officials don't know if a prank, dare, or revenge motivated the building of the wall","url":"https://time.com/4622072/brick-wall-prank/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Entertainment","Humor","Funny","Weird News","Culture"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf4b680ec88b27744/6988b4638fd2ee04663554f7/german-man-walled-in.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Cady Lang","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/cady-lang/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltf4b680ec88b27744/6988b4638fd2ee04663554f7/german-man-walled-in.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Saint Michael Choir School in Bond Street. Edwardian","caption":"Saint Michael Choir School in Bond Street. Edwardian","creditText":"Roberto Machado Noa—LightRocket via Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4622072/brick-wall-prank/","name":"This Man Opened His Front Door to Find Himself Completely Walled In"}}]}] ```