Category: Blog
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Did you remember to reprogram the garage door opener?
The longer I do this job the more I find myself mentioning to new homeowners. Sometimes I think I should just print out a pamphlet to give them instead; often they are anxiously shifting from foot to foot as they look over their shoulder at their zoom meeting nearby while I try to give them…
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Eviction Moratorium to End Soon
Today I noticed that Gov. Inslee is bringing an end to the eviction moratorium in WA. After two years of not receiving compensation of any kind from tenants or the state, property owners will now have recourse to legally remove nonpaying tenants. Not so fast though! The Governor surely doesn’t want to be remembered for…
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What is a “Sticky” Lock?
Locksmiths love it when people call them up, describing a myriad of issues with their locks as being caused by stickiness. I’ve never once found that one of these locks felt sticky to the touch. It would be a strange situation outside of maybe a maple syrup production facility or maybe an apiary or meadery.…
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Is Lockpicking Bad for Your Lock?
I have a professional interest in lockpicking so I sometimes check on what the sport lockpicking community is up to. One of their rules is to only pick locks that you own which is prudent from a legal standpoint but I’ve also read that this rule is because you may break the lock. It would…
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Locks for a Thick Door: Where Do You Get Them?
Update: in a huge upset to the industry and customers alike, Napco/Alarm Lock have stopped selling their locks for thick doors. There isn’t much that we can do except migrate these customers away from the Alarm Lock ecosystem to the Schlage or Kaba ecosystem unless Napco figures out that this is mabye a bad idea.…
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How to Prevent Theft of Outdoor Objects
Thieves are more desperate and using boltcutters to steel things. It can be prevented.
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Can Somebody Hack my Electronic Lock?
The short answer is: yes, there are ways to unlock your electronic lock but you probably have nothing to worry about; the people with the knowledge to do so most likely have bigger fish to fry. To protect against unauthorized entry we must consider motivations for the would-be intruder. The most obvious one is theft.…
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Keyless lock lockouts: how to prevent and get back inside
There are lots of ways to get locked out with an electronic lock. The most common reasons are that there is a keyed lock elsewhere on the door that is locked, or the electronic lock’s battery died. If you are having this problem figure out which lock isn’t working by sliding a card between the…
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Hacks: Stop Using Incorrect Mortise Lock Spindles Please!
Two days and two people locked inside because somebody halfassed the replacement of the knob spindle on a mortise lock. Yesterday I had a customer who wanted to show a condo but people kept getting stuck inside the unit after they shut the door. This wasn’t a strong selling point. To get out somebody had…
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When Shoddy Work Causes Break-ins
Today I went out to fix a lock after somebody broke in over the night. The owner thought they used lockpicks after watching the security camera video but the telltale signs of somebody using a wrench were on the lock cylinder and its housing. Whenever somebody can put a wrench on the physical lock cylinder…