Mountain View neighborhood · 24/7
North Whisman: new blocks on ground that used to be industrial, where nothing opens with a key until something goes dark
Dense new building filling in what used to be low industrial frontage: four-story blocks around interior courtyards, narrow lanes and paseos between them with a gate at each end, a garage running under the whole footprint, and a delivery room off the ground-floor corridor. Twenty-four minutes.
~24 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Getting to a door here is half the call. The buildings sit around courtyards rather than along the street, the lanes between them are walking width with a gate at each end, and the street number on the block does not tell a driver which of six entrances to stand at. Give the entrance letter or the courtyard name and say which side of the block it faces. Twenty-four minutes is the honest run and you hear it before you agree to wait, but that figure assumes the driver stops at the right entrance. Thirty seconds of description on the phone is worth more here than anything a routing app can do.
The hardware in these blocks is the newest in the city and that produces its own particular failure. Under the reader at each entrance there is a mechanical cylinder that, in a building only a few years old, has often never been turned at all. It came from the factory, went into the door during handover, and has sat there since. The one key for it is in a binder in an office. When a panel finally goes dark on a Sunday, that untried cylinder becomes the whole plan, and an untried cylinder is exactly the wrong thing to be relying on at that moment. Turning it once a year is free. Servicing it and cutting a second working key is an hour. Replacing it when it has seized is $133–$345.
This is also the fastest-turning housing on the map. People arrive and leave on work cycles, a lease ends in the middle of a quarter, and a unit changes hands two or three times in the span that a house on the park side changes hands once. Almost none of that is locksmith work, because a departing resident's credential is switched off in a list rather than cut out of a cylinder, and that list belongs to the building. What remains on the resident's side is small and worth doing anyway: the apartment door's own cylinder repinned at $32–$50 per cylinder, and a backup key that is actually cut and tested rather than promised. If a keypad is going onto the unit door, that is $205–$505 and the keyway underneath it stays live.
Then there are the ordinary nights. Shut out of your own apartment at two in the morning, the door is picked open rather than drilled, identification is asked for at the step, and it is $138–$252 with the $89 service call and the overnight $92 both already inside the figure you were quoted before the van left. Between eight and midnight the addition is $52 instead. Ninety days on the workmanship, written on the receipt. If the door that stopped you is a courtyard gate or a delivery room rather than your own, say so on the call, because that one belongs to the building and the request has to come from them.
Give the entrance letter or the courtyard as well as the street number, since one address here covers several buildings and the lanes between them are not obvious from the road. Say which door stopped you and whether anyone inside can let a technician through the gate. If it is your own apartment door, have identification ready at the step.
Nearby
Over the hill, the same van
FAQ
Asked about North Whisman
The panel at our entrance went dark and the key in the office does not turn the cylinder under it.+
That is the standard failure in a building of this age. The cylinder has stood untouched since handover, the pins are dry and stiff, and the first attempt at it is happening under pressure. It gets opened, cleaned and serviced, and a key that provably turns is cut and left with whoever is responsible for the door. If it has seized past that, replacement is $133–$345. The building has to be the one asking, since it is a shared entrance.
How do I make sure the van finds me? The address covers six buildings.+
Say the entrance letter or the courtyard and which side of the block it faces, and name a fixed thing to stand next to, a gate, a bike rack, a stair. Twenty-four minutes assumes the van stops in the right place. If a gate stands between the lane and where you are, say whether anybody inside can open it, because that is the piece that most often turns a twenty-four minute run into a forty minute one.
I am subletting for six months. Can I change anything on the door?+
A lockout at the door you are living behind is straightforward and is $138–$252 with identification shown at the step. Changing or repinning the cylinder is a change to somebody else's property, so that request has to come from the owner or whoever manages the unit, and a short written message from either is enough. Say which of the two you need on the call and the visit goes out with the right approval already in hand.
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.