Repairs
A Squeaky Door Hinge Is Wear, Not Just Dryness
Squirting oil into a squeaky hinge quiets it for a few weeks because it's treating the symptom of a barrel that's slowly wearing.
Hinge pins sit inside a metal barrel with a thin factory coating of lubricant. Repeated opening and closing gradually wears that coating away or lets it collect grit, leaving bare metal surfaces to grind against each other — that's the squeak. Household oil (or WD-40, which is a solvent-carried light lubricant, not a long-term grease) coats the surfaces again, but it evaporates and attracts dust faster than a proper lubricant.
A longer fix is to remove the pin, wipe it clean, and apply a small amount of white lithium grease or silicone lubricant before reinserting — it lasts many times longer than a squirt of household oil and doesn't drip onto flooring below.
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