Left your keys inside your home and didn’t bring a spare? Well don’t worry, because here at Keyside Locksmiths, we not only provide a variety of
quality services to our clients, but we’re also here to give you some tips and steps on what to do if you can’t be able to get inside your home, as well the necessary precautions on how you will be able to enter inside.
Getting locked out is no fun thing at all, everyone knows that. Which is why, from our point of view, if I have locked myself out of my house, we made the following steps listed below to do in order handle the situation (1):
One of the last things you need to do when you realize that you can’t get inside your home is panic. Panicking may lead to you making rash decisions just to find a way to get in, and you may end up regretting your decision once you do. So before you consider breaking your windows to get inside, make sure to take time to breathe first and take the more level-headed approach of thinking it through first.
Before doing anything else, make sure that you’ve thoroughly checked all the entrances possible to get inside your home. This means any open doors or windows that you might’ve left opened, or forgot to lock when you. If there is one, you can also look at any other uncommon entrances that could get you in. This is important as you might save yourself from spending a sum of money on hiring someone to unlock your door for you.
If you know anyone who has a spare key to your home, then it would be best to contact them during a situation like this. May it be a family relative, spouse, or even your local housekeeper, manning up to them and saying that you need to borrow their key should save you the time and effort of trying to find a way inside to no avail at all.
If you just so happen to be knowledgeable about using mechanical tools and have a toolbox lying around the area, you can choose to do the job yourself by manually removing it. However, we don’t recommend this to inexperienced or unsure people because you might end up breaking the lock to your door or damage your property, which will cost you even more than you expected. Which is why we recommend the next step.
If all previous steps don’t work out for you, then it’s time to call the professionals to handle the job. Getting a locksmith might cost you a bit, but it’s better to let people like us who're trained for these situations to let us do our job so that you won’t have to worry about anything else.
With Keyside Locksmiths, we always make a promise to our clients that we work with the utmost care and respect for their property, taking the necessary precautions and actions to make sure we do our job properly to the satisfaction of our clients.
Thank you for contacting us. For any emergency please call us on (02) 4504-0277
We will be in touch with you as soon as possible.
When you’ve decided to finally call a locksmith, you’re probably wondering how much you’ll be spending for it. Well, we can’t exactly say the exact price for it, because it depends on factors like what exactly is the job needed to do, and how much is the locksmith going to charge for their fees, because no one has a fixed fee for their services.
To give an overview, we can give a rough estimate on the usual jobs locksmiths do and how much they would cost (2):
| SERVICE TYPE | PRICE |
|---|---|
| Door unlocking | $100 - $200 |
| Lock change | Around $75/hr |
| Trip charge | $50 - $100 normal rate |
| $150 - higher for emergencies | |
| Cost to rekey the lock | $20 - $50 |
Prices can vary depending on your location. Here at Keyside Locksmiths, we serve our clients throughout New South Wales, from Sydney, New Castle, and Central Coast. So wherever you may be, we’ll make sure that you get a reliable and trustworthy locksmith by your side.
To be honest, it’s highly unlikely that the police will voluntarily help you unlock your house door. They will be more likely to help if there were emergencies involved like someone being trapped inside the house or cases of very bad weather happening. Since police aren’t exactly professionals in opening and unlocking doors, they won’t have the necessary tools to do the job. So even with the second situation, they might just let you stay inside their vehicle until a locksmith arrives. (3)
Though police are meant to serve the people, individuals who are caught up in unfortunate personal circumstances is not something for the police to prioritize and solve.
If you’re the type of person who wants to take the risk (which we highly don’t recommend doing) to avoid a serious emergency and not have to pay to have your door opened, you can use a variety of tools in order to help you out (4):
Credit Cards
The most common and popular method of opening a locked door is sliding in your credit card through the small gap between the opening of the door. Force in between and then bend it against the lock to push the locking mechanism back inside, allowing you to open the door.
It is worth noting however, that this method will work only with spring locks. Deadbolts are way too tough to crack with only just a card. Also, as much as possible do not use your main card to do this method, because it may end up damaging the shape of the card. It’s best to use a thick, laminated, and bendable card that you don’t use often to do this method, like ones that you use for arcades.
Screwdrivers
The use of screwdrivers would be best used on interior doors or those with private handles. The way to do this is simple, push it into the doorknob hole as far as you can and then twist it around while inside until the lock opens. However, as easy as it may sound, you run the risk of damaging your locks even further because you might break the mechanism inside if you’re not gentle with it.
Lockpicking Sets
If you’re experienced enough and have a lockpicking set lying around, then you can do the job yourself, just make sure you know how to do it because you might just end up wasting time if you don’t know how. Sets usually come with a variety of rakes and hooks made for any kind of lock. It’s even better if you have a high quality set, to maximize efficiency and durability of it too.
Bobby Pins
This is another effective method to do but it will require a lot of patience and focus, because most of the time you won’t be able to do it in the first try. To do this, you’ll need two bobby pins, one to bend in a specific shape to match the pattern within the locking mechanism, and another one to bend it near the fulcrum to make a long piece.
Afterwards, convert one end slightly and place on the top of the keyhole. This will push each lock pin out of the way to allow the cylinder within the locking mechanism to turn, opening the lock.
References: