I hear it is good to change the locks when you move into a house, but did you? How necessary do you think it is?
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We didn't change them, but we had our friend/locksmith come over and rekey them all and make us new keys. You don't necessarily have to buy all new hardware, you can rekey them.
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Yes, the locks that were here were pretty shabby.
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@PurplePumps: First time home buyer here...how do you get them re-keyed? Is it a lot cheaper?
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We had them rekeyed!
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We put new locks in.
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We put new locks in, but depending on what type of lock it is (like a KwikSet), you can re-key it yourself! You push a tiny little "button", insert the old key turn it a quarter turn (forgot which way), remove old key, insert new key and turn it a certain way and ta da! Re-keyed!
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@Bao: Sorry, I have no idea if it's cheaper. My friend did it for free and matched all our external doors so we would only need one key. I'd try calling a lock smith and seeing what he'd charge to rekey all your external locks. A new set is probably $40-50 if you were to buy it at home depot. If you go to the post office and ask for a movers packet, they should have a 10% of lowes coupon that you can use at either lowes or home depot too. (We sort of just drop in to the post office and ask for one whenever we need to buy something expensive there)
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We put new locks in! The house was owned by my mother-in-law and she had given keys to all her family members- I found out one day while I was at work that my 2 young neices got off the bus at my house and used the keys to get in to wait for their Dad to pick them up- and I got so mad- I didnt want to be responsible for them when neither DH or I were home- so I stopped on my way home from work- bought all new locks and changed them myself! Its acutally REALLY easy to do!
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@PurplePumps: Ditto! We had the locks re-keyed. It saved us a quite a bit of money on buying new door handles.
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@PurplePumps: I just looked up a new set for a handle and deadbolt and it's $30 for one we like and it's a kwikset one. I will have to price compare that one to getting them re-keyed. Thanks!
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We did, but we still haven't changed the garage door code (head slap). You never know who was given an extra key to the house. And the previous owners had a teenage son . . .
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I'd get them re-keyed or buy new locks.
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We put in a new lock.
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It was actually in the contract that we had to change the locks because it was a foreclosure.
@Bao: I replaced all of the doorknobs in my house because I hated the tacky brass ones that were in it. It was going to cost a FORTUNE to replace everything, but a friend showed me this ebay seller. It's the same quality stuff you would find at Home Depot or Lowe's, but half the price. Oh, and they had all of them keyed for free. Just thought I'd share
http://stores.ebay.com/eBuilderDirect?_rdc=1 -
We had them re-keyed. Just in case.
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@BabyBoecksMom: That's a great site, thank you!
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No doubt. I'd buy new ones or re-key them. I still have keys to the last 2 houses my parents lived in. lol
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We did, but six months after we moved. A friend of mine had a key and went into my house without asking. Needless to say, she no longer has a key to my house.
It turned out to be a blessing in disguise because our old key/deadbolt was very cheap and made the door hard to close.
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Hahah we really, really meant to...and then forgot
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@PurplePumps: hahahah what an amazing idea on the moving packet. I love it.
@autumnlove: it's a good thing you had them rekeyed after all you've been though
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Nope, we never did this! Three years and no incidents yet! The previous owners moved out of state and given the number of keys they gave us, I just wasn't concerned.
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Yes I had my locks rekeyed. To save some money I took the lock to the locksmith (vs having him come to my house to do the work). Locksmiths likely have a minimum charge ($150 in my area) so by bringing the work to their shop, you can avoid that.
You just need someone to hang out at home while all the locks are off!
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No, but we installed a bolt lock that only we have the keys to and it is locked whenever we are home. Since our super really needs to have access to our apartment when we're gone, it would be pointless to change the locks since he could just as easily copy it and give it out to friends.
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We planned on changing the whole lock, since the lock is orginial to the house, so 60 years old. Turns out new locks won't fit on the door. So we have to replace the whole door and lock. So we put the orginial lock back on and were going to wait a month or so to do it. Apparently the house had other plans, DH went to lock the door from the inside Sunday night and the lock fell off. We can now only lock the front door from the outside. So we are having to go back and forth between the front and back to enter and leave the house and keep it lock up. Trying to find someone to come and replace the door and lock this weekend. Headache!!!
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Nope! Felt kinda weird about it at first but quickly forgot and haven't thought of it since
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You bet!!!
I don't know who has my key!!!!
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@Bao: Just wanted to add that we had to install a lock on the garage door entry since the previous owners never even had a locked door for that! So we wanted the keys to match front door & garage door. Our front door handle/lock is pretty nice, I think it would have been close to $80-100 to replace. The locksmith came to our house and installed the garage door lock, re-keyed, and gave us a key for under $20. hth
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I did. The people we bought from built a bigger house in our subdivision. I can literally see their house from my bedroom window. So we felt like we needed to since they are still so close. They seem like lovely people but you never know.
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It was one of the first things we did! Partly for security reasons and partly because we wanted keypad locks. We also got new garage door keypads when we replaced the garage door openers.
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