By By Superpages
Interrupting the routine of your daily events to rekey the locks in your home is probably not a welcome task. But there are a number of times where a homeowner who does not stop to at least rekey locks in the home is taking a big risk with the safety of his or her family.
After a move. Over time, any number of copies of the key to your home could have been made. First, there are the keys given away to relatives, friends, former roommates, workers, etc. Any of those keys could have been lost or, even worse, copied by someone. That’s why one of the first things to do when you move to a new home is rekeying locks throughout the house. If you are moving from one apartment to another, make sure that your landlord takes care of rekeying the locks.
When keys are lost. Don’t assume that nothing sinister will happen with a lost key, even though that’s probably the case. It’s best to be prepared for any situation and to always ensure the security at your home is always on your mind.
After a break-in. Even if a window was used to gain entrance or a door was forced open, this is a good time to rekey locks in your home. Having a locksmith or someone else show up at your home to work on the doors is a good sign for neighbors and others to see. Obviously, this is much more important if the burglary didn’t involve forcible entry. In that case, the likeliest scenarios are a picked lock, a key or the door wasn’t locked in the first place.
Passage of time. It’s also a good idea to rekey locks every 5 years. Over time, it’s easy to forget about who has keys and how many keys have been lost or misplaced. Five years is plenty of time for lots of people to have chances to copy the keys to your home. That could include someone who works or used to work with your mechanic, a valet or a worker or someone else who briefly had a key to your home.
Why Rekey Locks Instead of Replacing Locks?
Both choices accomplish the goal of enhancing security in your home by creating a new key. However, for many situations that call for a new key, a homeowner could decide to replace the entire lockset instead of just removing the lock to make a new key. If money is an issue, then rekey locks in most cases – replacing locks will cost more. But if the lock is defective, or you want to upgrade the type of lock protecting your home, the only choice is to replace the locks.