Is the lock not pickable for you?

Nope it isn't. But I haven't seen frogs yet so I might get a key of her. I look for her.

Frigs* damn auto correct. And I read it wrong, because tova commuted suiside, saw her body ten it dissapered later on the game. Grrr I do want to have hjerim.

You won't find Friga; she is the murdered, previous owner of Hjerim which is why her mom Tova has the key to the house.

Like I said before.. I would just go around and talk to every last person in Windhelm. If no one starts the quest for you, it's not going to work.

Ah I just read it in usep. My mistake. It said she might be in a coffin with the key inside. Couldn't find the key. I am about to give up, but because I have nothing to do on skyrim I will try.

I feel kind of sorry for your console fellows when it comes to these sort of quest breaking glitches. On PC, you can just use a couple of commands to either give yourself the required item or just manually advance the quest along, but on a console, you pretty much have to start from scratch if you want to do that quest.

I might just as well give up. Going to stay in my Proudspire manor.

Did you try breaking into the house? When I did that it started the quest.

I can't break in as it's requires a key to break in. I used to have a key but it vanished. I really want hjerim. I thought 1.5 update fixed it.

Hjerim? Go get Lydia and bring her there. Tell her to unlock the door, and you're in.

Really? What I just tell her to unlock it? But I don't have Lydia, she died... So will mjoll work?

Interesting. You aren't the first person to tell me that the house in Windhelm requires a key, but every time I've gone there it just has a Master level lock.

Well your lucky that you have the best house or going to.

Indeed, and previously he is saying that there is no lock picking ability on the door. I still cant figure out how he opened it with the key, then lost the key, then had the door relock? Superbugged I guess?

I am not even lieing, that's what happened with the key. Apparently I have initiated the quest when I opened hjerim but I wasn't sure what to do so I left. The key dissapered after that, and has been that since.

But the person that said get your follower to open hjerim, might try that...

Calixto has a key. He is mostly in his shop, Calixto's curiosities. He sits on his chair a lot and so is easy to pick pocket. Get the key, enter Hjerim 'investigate' the chest. Go to the far bookcase and pick up the journals and that should trigger part of the quest.

You might try searching for the glitch that someone posted that uses your follower to somehow unlock the door.. The thread title was something like "Unlock any door" and it was supposed to work on all platforms. I'll search for it and edit my post if I find it..

Well, that was easy, lol..

http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1363480-how-to-unlock-any-door/page__p__20583665__hl__unlock%20any%20door__fromsearch__1#entry20583665

The video is pretty crappy quality, but people are posting that it works..

You basically just tell your follower to stand as close as possible to the door without telling them to open it, get up next to them and tell them to follow you again, and then run into them and make them fall through the door causing them to open it. Might not work on a house door because you're entering another cell.. but it's worth a try.

I got 'Butchers Journal 1' but that still hasn't started the quest.
he dosen't have the key to Hjerim, only for his chest with that journal.

and sometimes breaking into that house breaks the quest as well..on my first player i cannot get the quest to start [170 hrs]
but on all of the others i have
i just make sure that windhelm is the first place i go after winterrun
in fact i do not even talk to the jarl in winterrun i just grab the carriage to windhelm
it always starts, if not right away than after a trip or two back and forth


the quest can break if you break into the house and
also can break if you pick pocket calipso and get that extra journal before the quest starts
or break into his house

on my first character i was in and out of windhelm dozens of times
and talked with every one ///just never fired off after 120 hrs i pickpocket the key
i will assume if it says it can be picked than your quest actually has started
mine requires a key before the quest wil start and only says that after the fact



one more thing the wizard did not do it so do not put him in jail

talk to him first before the stewart
will be faster and the wizard can get stuck in his cell

I don't know if Mjoll will pick any lock, as she's a bit goody-two-shoes. But Lydia did it in a New York minute.

Guys I have a far far worser problem then this.
I have started this quest called 'dragon seekers' and I have to go with vilkas to kill a dragon at this certain place, but the dragon has been already killed by me, so he dosent respawn.
Now vilkas follows me around, and I cant kill him, also there are no follower commands, like go home' he just follows me around.
So that means, I can't try out the follower openibng any doors, and 2nd, I have 5 quests broken now...
i am just going to stop playing skyrim and play minecraft or oblivion.

thanks guys for trying to help me to sort out this bug infested game.

I suggest selling your copy to someone or gamestop and using that money to buy it on PC if you've got a PC that can handle it. There are console commands you can use to bypass these glitches, and there are also mods that fix glitches, etc so playing on PC, you usually find a way to finish any quest, even if it's broken like in your case.

Skyrim is really a lot of fun to play through once you get past the few really glitchy quests. There are ways to avoid these glitches, so you could just start a new save and read up on the Skyrim wiki sites to look at all of the potential glitches for each quest and how to avoid them. There's only like 3 or 4 quests that I can think of off the top of my head that can potentially become really broken, and there are ways to avoid each situation.

Hjerim is not fixed, it is still buggy as hell, so even when/if you do get access to it, it is still annoyingly bugged inside. It is by far the best house in the game IF IT WORKED, most of the display racks and cases are bugged and you lose whatever you put into them. The latest patch did nothing to fix this issue. The mannequins work though.

My favourite house that works is the Markath one, it is a fairly large house in size but doesn't have as many display areas as Hjerim worked. I hope they do fix Hjerim eventually because as I mentioned previously it would be the best house in the game.

Sorry stupid question. Have you opened/read the journal? Maybe that triggers it. Or you could go down into the catacombs (next to the Graveyard and talk to the women in there. Maybe talking to her will move the quest along. Only other thing I can think of is going to a previous save if you have one.