Yesterday was a memorable day: we finally bought our house! And after signing away our life in the form of a huge down payment check, we experienced one of the most common joys of home ownership: paying a fortune for repair servicing.
Our families and our agent advised us to change the lock as soon as we had possession of the house. And so, obedient children that we are, we called a locksmith. Actually, two locksmiths. We wanted to be responsible and compare quotes. The factor we hadn't counted on? Our new house turned out to have 10 dead bolts (4 are double-sided, so we actually only have 6) plus a handful of knob locks, two of which turned out to be un-re-keyable (that's a word, right?). So including replacing the two broken knobs, we paid a whopping $450. It was unavoidable and we get the peace of mind knowing that the previous owners can show up for a surprise visit. But still, it was painful to hand over our credit card after the check we paid only 5 hours previously.
A weird feature with the house is that it actually is possible to lock oneself inside. All the deadbolts lock on a key, even from inside, so you could lose your keys in the house and not be able to let yourself out. It seems that while leaving a key in the lock on the inside puts you at risk of theft (a thief could see the key in the lock and break a small window, reach in, and take the key, making breaking in a whole lot easier), not putting a key in the lock means that you could burn to death in your house if you can't find a key. I think I opt for choice 1, though I would love to hear your comments, oh reader.
4 comments:
So, I am also in this situation. I opt for the lazy-woman way, which is leaving the keys in the door. It's not smart! But I am notorious for losing my keys and I'd never get to work on time (plus might burn to death inside) if I didn't do this. Either way, you'll be fine*
*are screwed.
:) A
Six deadbolts? Wow. I can't imagine having that many DOORS :-) It's too late now, but I probably would've replaced the whole thing on the double ones and possibly just replaced them all with the new-fangled home-rekeyable ones (I know Kwikset makes one, but other companies might make them too): using the current key and their re-key tool you can change the lock to any new key by that same company. But, I'm much more likely to need to change my locks again in the future than you are!
We thought about that after it was too late. By 8pm on a long day of settlement and preliminary moving and painting, our brains weren't functioning fully. Of course now we probably never will do that because of how much we spent. I have to keep telling myself that it's a sunk cost.
I have this issue. Both of our doors have deadbolts with keys. We put a hook up on the side of the door where there is no window (if you have windows on both sides you could just put it somewhere close) and we hang our keys on the one by the main door, and have a spare key by the back door. It doesn't really look bad and you could use one of those 3M hooks so you could take it down if you don't like it (they come in fancy metal-looking ones now, too).
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