So, you would like to increase your home’s security?  Most people don’t think deeply about this problem and put a band-aid on it: they buy a more expensive lock.  Unfortunately, that will rarely make your home more secure.

To figure out what you need to do to increase your home’s security, first we must identify who it is that we are trying to keep out.  For most people, we don’t need to keep international diamond thieves out.  Here in Seattle, we residentials only need to keep unsophisticated men in the pitiful throes of desperation at bay.  They are probably not educated, nor do they have any abilities related to lockpicking.  They probably don’t know how to use a bumpkey, either.  Most likely they will attempt to kick your door open, open an unlocked door or window, or possibly pry your door open with some kind of prying tool.

To keep such men honest, we must identify the weakest links in our chain of security.  We must put on the glasses of the common criminal and identify what means he would use to enter our home.  This may include as was mentioned before forcing the door or lock, gaining entry through an unlocked door or window, or perhaps using a key either found or entrusted to him or an acquaintance of his.

Key control is important.  Don’t lend your keys to people unless you not only trust them, but everybody who has access to their keys.  Children with loose lips may give out your garage door code to their friends who may be shady.  If you must lend out keys to people, consider lending keys that are stamped “Do Not Duplicate” or even better, lend keys that only operate a doorknob, and won’t open the door when the deadbolt is locked.

Your ground level entry doors need to have deadbolts. If you don’t have a deadbolt and are only relying on a doorknob, your door is probably really vulnerable unless you live inside some building with external locks.  I can install deadbolts for you if your door doesn’t have one, or replace the deadbolt with a better one.

Even the best lock won’t keep people out of your house if your door is hollow core and your door frame is thin and not anchored well.  If you really care about security, make sure that your lock’s strike plate is anchored to a stud with some long screws (at least two, hopefully three) and that the door is somewhat sturdy.  A good inexpensive way to increase your home’s security is to put long strike plates on all of your ground level entry doors.  I can install these for you.  I can also install a deep strike pocket with 3.5″ screws for your existing deadbolt.  Even the cheapest Defiant deadbolt from Home Depot will fare better with a strike pocket installed.

If you are also concerned that people may try to defeat your locks, you can also elect to replace the cylinder inside your lock housing with a lock cylinder that has a side bar and steel rods and ball bearings to prevent drilling through the lock’s keyway.  Of course, this is a little bit more expensive than replacing the strike plate.  It is still a reasonable and less expensive option than replacing the locks outright, however.

There is a great deal of paranoia right now concerning the use of bump keys.  I will retrofit your lock cylinders with anti-bump springs and anti-pick pins.  They will work the same with your keys, it will just make it incredibly hard for somebody to manipulate your lock open.

Another great way to prevent unauthorized entry is to make your property look more difficult to break into.  Get motion-activated lights, get alarm signs in your yard, get alarm stickers, get signs warning of a large mean dog, leave a pair of size 13 boots outside every door, spent shell casings near your back door, etc.  This way nobody will even think of breaking into your property.  Also clear away large shrubs or trees that are near your windows and doors.  This gives criminals cover under which they may be more comfortable working on opening your door, knowing they are less likely to be observed.

Also don’t leave expensive looking objects in window view, especially laptops and iphones and the like.  Remove temptation, and make yourself a hard target.

If you have a car made in the last twenty years and sold in North America or Europe, your keys probably have transponder chips in them.  That is why everybody wants so much money to copy them!  It isn’t cutting the key, it is programming the chip inside that requires very expensive equipment that is the reason for the high cost.

If you have a DIY mindset and some time, you can avoid paying lots of money though.  All you have to do is crack open your key blank, take out the transponder, and put it in some other key blank that is identical.  Then you have a locksmith copy that key.  It is easy, and will save you $90 or so.  Of course, it won’t give you two copies from one but if you messed up one of your keys or maybe even your only key, this could be the answer for you.

The other option open to you is to take the broken key, copy it onto a new key, and cut the transponder out and tape or glue it near your ignition.  Then any key with the correct cuts will operate your car, unless the transponder falls off.  The benefit to this trick is that it makes it a lot harder to lose your only transponder.  If you lose your only key containing a transponder, it costs a lot more money to program your car to accept a key with a new transponder.  Could be over $300, and the dealership will probably ask for more than that!

I have always wondered about the feasibility of setting up my own security system using off the shelf parts.  Wireless security cameras are everywhere and they are cheap!  I have plenty of experience setting up hardware and software systems.  There are drawbacks to doing this, though.  Apparently insurance companies essentially enforce ADP’s market dominance by requiring a third party company to do your security system.  Some slashdot users have found ways to circumvent this requirement, however, and in the comments are the thoughts of many brilliant nerds on DIY security systems.  My favorite so far were

1. Blue Iris Security Software

2. A big caveat to using cheap cameras on your network

3. Slick Willy points out that you can get a better system than ADP will give you with their “free” system and it will be cheaper after a few years of not paying $50 a month.

4. Also the Elk M1 appears to be highly thought of amongst people who have taken the plunge and rolled their own security system.  They will supply you with all of the training manuals and stuff necessary to install.

In Washington State you have to be a licensed electrician to run electrical cables, so beware!

What will 2014 bring?  For me, it will be lots of locks, keys and lube to make them work with each other.  Along with these hopefully will be many laughs.  What is in your year’s future?  I hope that everybody has a good year in 2014.  Also, let nobody have to carry more than one house key on their key ring!  Call me to consolidate keys and make your life simpler.

It costs a bit of money to get a broken key out of a lock.  If you don’t know how to take your lock apart or don’t fancy the idea of procuring an old hacksaw blade and sticking it in your keyway to get junk out of there, consider inspecting your keys for hairline fractures and replacing the ones that look like they might break soon.  You are also well advised to not use keys to pull doors open.  They are only for unlocking doors, not pulling them open.  If you abuse your keys, you may be looking at a $65 charge sooner rather than later!

I can copy keys for you, but you can copy your keys inexpensively at many places including your local hardware store or even Fred Meyer’s, where it is about $2/key.  Be advised, they don’t always work very well.  Test them to be sure when you get home.  Better yet, keep an original code cut key in your desk and always make copies of that key.

Uncle Joe can fix a lot of problems with his duct tape, but the right tools for the job are often more than just duct tape and miscellaneous tools.  Sometimes it is better to just call a pro.  Like Maple Leaf Locksmith!  I don’t even have duct tape, all my repairs are done the right way.  Or at least all my repairs to customer’s property.  I use duct tape all the time around my own place!

Sometimes people call me up and ask, “Is it possible to make a key from one of my locks?  I have none of my keys anymore!  I lost them in the lake/in San Diego/on the farm!”

It is absolutely possible.  All that need be done to reconstruct your key is to take apart the lock by first picking it and then disassembling it carefully, and then examining each pin in each pin chamber.  The size of these pins determines the cuts on your key and differentiates your lock from other locks.

When one has accurately measured these pins, all that needs to be done is compare these lengths to standard cut depths for the lock manufacturer’s locks.  You can either cut the key to factory spec’d codes, or cut the key to the actual length of the pins in your lock.  I generally cut to factory specs to avoid the issue of different pin lengths in different locks because of different wear patterns.  A lock that sees more use will show more wear and the pins may be 5/1000’s of an inch smaller just because of key abrasion, especially if there are strong springs to counteract the possibility of bumpkeying or lockpicking.

The charges associated with reconstructing a key for a lock are as follows:

• Service call – 65-85 depending on location
• Pick lock – 3-45 depending on lock’s complexity
• Reconstruct pin lengths – 12
• Code cut key – 20

That is all it takes.  It is far less expensive to reconstruct your key from a lock than it is to go the conventional route taken by all too many unfamiliar with the abilities of a well-trained locksmith, which is to go to a big box store and buy new locks.  It is also far less expensive than rekeying all of your locks, though this is a good thing to do every five years or so and especially good to do if the keys you lost were attached to some sort of identification that could show where your house is, or you lost them near your house.

It takes me about 30 minutes to perform this procedure.  Give me a call if you lose all of your keys!  I can also reconstruct many car keys, though not all of them.  File cabinets and the like are very easy for me.

For the third time in six months, Google has decided to suspend my listing on “Google Places for Business”.  My business is still showing up on Google search results, but it is having disastrous results for my search engine optimization which is a death knell for a business in this day and age.

The last time this happened, I was forced to make a new email address and new listing.  This required abandoning all of my wonderful 5star reviews left by my appreciative customers.  I refuse to make another gmail address and listing.  I am trying to fix this with Google, even though the last time this happened I spent countless frustrating hours on the phone with Google who kept telling me there was nothing more they can do.  Apparently they are slaves to their own algorithms now.

This time around, I tried verifying my business by phone.  This failed.  Google instructed me to “Listen for your PIN and enter it below:” and after I clicked the call button, it said, “Call failed”.  Google, did you forget to pay your phone bill?  What’s going on?

As an experiment, I tried adding a Google Voice number to my spare cellphone.  A chirpy robotic female’s voice called me up promptly and had me enter a two digit confirmation code.  Unfortunately, Google Voice then failed to find a phone number for the Seattle area.  Once I chose a texas number, I tried calling my phone with it and it, too, failed.  I can call my phone with my spare cellphone every time, so what’s wrong Google?

While trying to post about my problems on Google’s Business Help forum, the forum kept timing out.  I have a solid connection to the internet, I am not timing out to any other server.  What’s the problem, Google?  Why is your server spitting out error codes at me?  Why does it say “Loading…..” for minutes at a time?

Chinks are beginning to show in the search giant.  I wonder if Google has spread themselves too thinly and that giant Chinese search engine, Baidu, will take over the internet?