Dear Ozbargain community,
I have a new tenant who told me he has lost his key to the house (<1 mth). What is the norm here? Do you change the whole lock or just go to the lock smith to make a new one? I live in the same house, I am not sure which is the best approach. Is it unreasonable to ask him to pay for the lock and the keys that needed to be duplicated?
Is the house location identifiable from the keys?
If not, just make a copy and move on with life.
Nope it is not identifiable. Just paranoid of me, as i read insurance coverage it is difficult to cover if the break in is because of open windows or unlock doors
open windows or unlock doors
That doesn't relate to the lost key.
maybe i should phrase it better. insurance coverage doesn't cover if there is no sign of force entry.
@fullmetal87: That's a tight insurance policy! Not all theft includes signs of forced entry (e.g. jumping over your backyard and stealing your whipper snipper! Is changing your insurance policy an option? I know some policies like NRMA cover theft if you leave doors/windows open/unlocked.
@fullmetal87: We left our backdoor open and unlocked while trying to get our chihuahua inside. My husband forgot and left it open and went to work. Someone came in through the backdoor and stole about $8k worth of items. Insurance covered it all even though we admitted leaving the door unlocked.
I think you were pretty lucky with this. I specifically asked this sort of scenario with my insurance (AAMI) and they said i WOULDN'T be covered.
@fullmetal87: heard of bump keys? Get a smart Lock that uses codes or rfid tags. That way you have full control over codes and tags and can activate and deactivate as you need and bump keys don't work.
Choose life.
Choose a job.
Choose a career.
Choose a family,
Choose a (profanity) big television
Choose washing machines, cars,
Compact disc players, and electrical tin openers.
Choose good health, low cholesterol
Choose to cut some keys for the tenant.
But only on hire purchase
Oooh, I know this one…
Change Tenant. lol
Disappointed. The correct response was obviously bikies.
Both wrong. Upgrade to the 80k high yielding investment. Once done op be rolling in it will no longer be needing tenants.
You’re all wrong, OP is worried about the new keys scratching their new laminate floor and wants to know if a $5,000 floor bond would be ok…
i have the keys now.
I'm afraid you will have to sell the property.
Just came here to say that this is the hardest I have laughed this month. Thank you. Thank you.
Sell it? The keys have been lost, you'll have to give it away! No one will want it now!
Seriously, cut some more keys, it's the cheapest.
Burn it to the ground is only viable option.
But the ground itself will still be susceptible. As the key was associated to the, now, non existing dwelling.
Serious decontamination will be needed.
No guarantees.
Look at Chernobyl, they are still trying.
Eternal doom if you ask.
Depends in which federal electorate you are in.
If you rent to the Deputy Prime Minister, it isn't going to be long before
your house keys are part of some weird Canberra Key Party.
The agent should have a spare key. Make another copy and get him to pay for the spare key? Why do you need to change the lock?
He needs to change the locks to all doors and windows immediately. Then install a military grade infrared security system inside and around the perimeter of the entire property.
Retina scanner on all entry ways or no dice.
My Retina Scanner is powered by Eneloops.
any mention of retina scanners immediately reminds me of the movie 'demolition man'
the quality of posts around here has really dropped 🤔
Thanks thank you :)
That is the key…
No point replacing the locks. I doubt anybody is going to go around to every house trying the keys. Most locks are cheap and with years of daily use they are easy to pick anyway.
Burn the house down then get a new key and door when you rebuild the house. Much easier.
Easily the most sensible course of action.
change house
Actual locksmith here, my advice is just get a new set of keys cut if you still have the original set.
If you are really worried about the other keys being found and used, all you need to do is call and ask for a rekeying. You retain your old locks and hardware, and the locksmith will just change the combination of the pins in the locks and issue you with new keys. Much cheaper than replacing all the locks on the house, but not as cheap as just getting a new set cut.
PS: Y’all bein’ a bunch of hobos posting in here… some funny stuff though… :D
My “idiot” suggestion. Keep the locks and replace the house. That way it will look different and they won’t know if it’s the right house or not…
I thought you were a casino dealer and a mechanic. You're also a locksmith too. How about a locksmith AMA?
I am a man of many many hats, my friend. ;) life is about learning. Just because I got one trade, doesn’t mean I had to stop there.
That is also the key…
Just cut new keys as has been said, as long as you are renting it out, it doesnt really matter, but if you choose to live in it, then change the barrel of the lock, you dont want previous tennants possibly having cut their own keys and being able to access it again.
Thank you all for your kind suggestions, Rekeying is definitely something I have not thought about!!! I will look into it and get it rekeyed. Cheers all
So many people are way more trusting then me it seems.
If there were a real estate agent involved here they would 100% make the tenant replace the locks or re-key them asap, at the tenants expense of course, they don't take risks, my other consideration would be insurance i'm sure they'd love to read about how an occupant misplaced a key on a internet forum when said occupant makes a robbery claim.
to me, it doesn't matter if the key identifies the address or not you simply can't trust that the key is truly lost in a random place and not stolen by an acquaintance of the tenant or the tenant themselves or some such situation where someone is just hoping you cheap out and don't replace the locks/re-key them
just get the combinations in the locks changed with new keys.
I did this recently and had every door keyed alike so I only have to carry one key.
Aren't there some locks where you can just replace the barrel only? A bit cheaper. Or is that almost the same as rekeying (didn't even realise that could be done, learn something new every day).
Re-keying is removal of the barrel, changing the pins to a different code and refitting that same barrel back into the door. Essentially the same as changing the PIN on your EFT card. No need to change the card, just change the pin.
The benefit of replacing the barrels/core, is that it can all be set up back at the workshop, taken to the premises and just swapped over. A lot less downtime on site to just swap them out.
For a domestic job, I would just say that a re-key is fine.
We own our home but we bought ourselves a Samsung electronic lock that works with both PIN numbers and smart cards. We don't need to worry about keys anymore because we can add and delete entries when we want to. We have provided each of our family members with their own PIN so they can let themselves in if we aren't home. If we change cleaners we just remove their PIN. Can't lose of forget the keys. If you are renting and you change tenant then you just wipe out the entries and start from scratch. No risk that a previous tenant, housekeeper etc for them will retain keys and comeback later.
And people always wonder why I always suggest electronic locks… This post sums it up exactly.
I've got the Samsung lock too I bought it to protect against bump keys as well as the geek factor. I've only gone through one set of batteries so far but you could hear that it was struggling to open the lock and battery change was easy. No override key available which I see as a big plus.
Yep, I'm the same. I have these Samsung type on my house, with no external keys, It's just one less thing to attack on the lock if you have no key, and if you have a keyway in the door, you may as well just carry a key.
When my batteries get low, it sings a little beeping song. Then I know it's time to get a fresh set of Eneloops out.
How do you add/remove PINs/smart cards?
What happens in the off chance of a power outage? Traditional keys?
It's done through the back of the lock with some buttons and some sounds.
EG: Samsung door lock settings procedures
These locks are typically battery operated in domestic applications. Some have also got a traditional key override built into them.
They are battery operated and, I presume, they use flash memory to hold the keys for a while after the battery is "flat". If there is a battery problem you have a couple of outlets and you touch a D-battery type to the terminals to operate it. Ours doesn't have it but you can buy them with physical key over ride. We are looking at one of those next. Youadd/remove PINS/Keys by opening the inside of the lock and pressing the right combinations of buttons. I would be happier if it had a USB and you can connect a laptop with a program but that may be something for future locks.
We are really happy with this. I've had a couple of occassions in the past where I've forgotten to take the key with me and had to wait for the other half to get home to get in. Now, as long as I remember the PIN or have my smartcard I'm in the door. I've often thought these would be ideal for AirBnB people because you can send the PIN remotely and you can replace the PIN for the next person. Some of the really fancy ones you can do all this remotely using an app, but I'm a bit worried about hackers to do that.
Yes digital lock is a good idea too. Out of curiosity, what happens when your battery run out? Do all locks comes with override physical key? How long does eneloop batteries last in it?
I think our batteries have lasted for years. See above for comment about battery running out. If I had my time over again I would buy one with a physical key over ride, purely in case there is a catastrophic failure of the lock. Battery going flat is not so much of an issue.
Don't change the lock.. Add a second lock just to be sure :)
That will means more keys to be made and potentially lost.
Just get him to pay for the keys. No point in asking for a lock.