Mountain View neighborhood · 24/7
Greater San Antonio: four doors between the sidewalk and the apartment, and every one of them reads a fob
The blocks around the shopping center, where the newest buildings in the city stand: glass lobby doors onto the sidewalk, a ramp dropping to a gated garage under the whole block, a mail lobby and a package room off the ground-floor corridor, and apartments above reached by an elevator. Twenty-two minutes.
~22 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Count the doors on the way in and the shape of this neighborhood becomes obvious. The lobby door off the sidewalk. The gate at the top of the garage ramp. The stair or elevator lobby behind it. The room where deliveries are left, and the mail lobby beside it. Then, at the end of a corridor, the apartment door. Five openings between a resident and a sofa, and four of them are opened by touching something to a reader. Only the last one still has a keyway that gets used daily. This is not a criticism of the arrangement, which is convenient and works for years without a visit from anybody. It is a description of where the work is, because four of those five doors are not opened by a locksmith at all on an ordinary day.
Under nearly every one of those readers there is a mechanical cylinder. It is the way in when the power is out, when the board behind the panel has failed, or when a credential has been switched off by mistake. It is also the part of the building that goes years without being turned. Grit collects, the springs stiffen, and the first person to try it is trying it in an emergency, in the dark, with an audience. Servicing that cylinder and cutting a key that provably turns is a short, cheap job and it belongs on a maintenance list rather than in a crisis. Where it is seized past service, replacement is $133–$345. The request comes from whoever is responsible for the shared door, which is a matter between the resident and the building and takes one message to settle.
Move-in and move-out here look nothing like a change of owner in the old part of town. Nobody recuts a key. The departing resident's credential is struck off a list and a new one is issued, the hardware is not touched, and that work sits with the building's office rather than with us. What genuinely is a locksmith job at a change of resident is smaller and easily forgotten: the apartment door's own cylinder, repinned at $32–$50 per cylinder so keys cut for previous residents stop working, and the separate keys for the mail box and the package room, which are their own locks with their own keyways and get overlooked every single time.
The rest is lockouts, and they arrive in two flavors. Shut out of your own apartment, it is $138–$252 with the $89 service call inside, picked open rather than drilled, and you are asked to show who you are before the door is touched. Standing on the sidewalk with a fob that no longer opens the lobby, the first job is finding somebody in the building who can let a technician in, and that is worth starting while you are still on the phone. Down in the garage there is a third version, the one where the car is on level two and the key is on level five. A car lockout is $112–$208. Add $52 between eight and midnight and $92 after midnight, both inside the number quoted.
Say which of the doors stopped you: the lobby off the sidewalk, the garage gate, the package or mail room, or your own apartment door. If it is a shared door, say whether anyone inside can let a technician in. Give the building entrance and the floor rather than just the street number, since several buildings here share one block. For your own door, have identification ready.
Most requested in Greater San Antonio
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about Greater San Antonio
My fob opens the garage gate but not the lobby door anymore.+
That is a credential problem, not a lock problem, and it is fixed at the building's office rather than by us. Somebody has changed what that fob is allowed to open, or one reader has dropped off. We do not touch credential lists and we do not claim to. What we can do is get you through your own apartment door, and look at the mechanical cylinder under that lobby reader if the building asks for it.
Where is the mechanical key on a door like this, and who has it?+
Usually in a cylinder set into the panel or beside it, sometimes behind a small cover that swings aside. Who holds the key is a building question and the honest answer in most cases is that one key exists and it is in an office. That is worth changing before it matters. The cylinder is serviced, a key that actually turns is cut, and a note is made of where it hangs. If the cylinder has seized, it is $133–$345 to replace.
We are moving out at the end of the month. What part of this is ours to arrange?+
The building deactivates the fobs and issues new ones, and that costs you nothing from us. What is worth arranging on your own side is repinning the cylinder in the apartment door at $32–$50 per cylinder if you are the one who owns the unit, and checking the mail box and package room keys, which are separate locks and are the ones that get forgotten. Say on the call whether you own the unit or rent it, because that decides who orders the work.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
Say what the door reads, and the rest of the call is short
Mountain View and the mid-Peninsula, at any hour. A fob, a card, a code or a plain key, and how many doors stand between the sidewalk and you — that decides the work, and the work decides the number. The number comes back on the same call with the $89 call-out and the clock already inside it, and it is the number on the receipt. The labor carries 90 days, in writing.