San Mateo neighborhood · 24/7
Bay Meadows locksmith visits, where the racetrack became towers and townhomes with a garage underneath and a fob for every door
The former racetrack between Delaware St and the rail line, built out in the last decade: apartment towers with a lobby, a package room and a garage below, rows of townhomes with roof decks, a park in the middle, an office campus at the north end and an HOA for nearly all of it.
17 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Everything here was built at once, so the hardware is uniform and the calls repeat. A tower unit has a lever and a deadbolt, sometimes on an interchangeable core the building can swap itself; a townhome has a front door, a self-latching door from the garage into the house, and a door onto the roof deck that closes behind people carrying a tray. The deck door is the classic lockout, $112 to $195, opened without damage in nearly every case. Rekeys are $24 to $40 per cylinder, and where the building runs interchangeable cores the technician says so on the call, because a spare core from the manager is cheaper than a visit.
The fob is the building's and the cylinders are yours. One credential opens the lobby, the garage gate, the elevator, the bike room and the package room, and it is issued and canceled by the manager, not by a locksmith. What a locksmith handles is the mechanical side of the same ring: the unit door, the mailbox cam, the padlock on the storage cage, and the override cylinder on any keypad lock a landlord fitted. A smart lock on a tower door is $172 to $445 and most HOAs here want the outside to match the corridor, so the finish and the model go on a note to the manager first. A written line for the HOA or the manager is provided on request.
The garages under the buildings are where the cars live, and a car lockout at $97 to $167 begins with the resident meeting the technician at the pedestrian door, since the van cannot pass the gate. Cell reception two levels down is poor; a text from the ramp with the building, the level and the stall arrives when a call does not. The office campus on Delaware St brings suite lockouts at $127 to $235 and exit devices at $285 to $749 per device. Arrival is about seventeen minutes by Delaware St, and the park's weekend events on the lawn do not change it much.
Say whether the address is a tower unit or a townhome, which door is the trouble, and whether the technician can reach it from the street or must be let through the lobby or the garage pedestrian door. Give the building name; the street numbers here run in unexpected directions.
Nearby
A few blocks over, the same van
FAQ
What people ask before the figure is written down
How long until the van reaches my part of San Mateo?+
Twenty-three minutes is the average across the city, which is flat between El Camino Real and the bay and only about twelve square miles. The streets around the mall and its Caltrain stop are usually 15, Downtown and Central Park 17, Bay Meadows 17, North Central 19, Baywood and Aragon 23, San Mateo Park 24, Shoreview and Coyote Point 26. Sugarloaf and Laurelwood, up the winding streets above Highway 92, run about 30 and are the longest in the city. Burlingame is about 24, Belmont 26, Foster City 28, Hillsborough 28 and Millbrae 30. The thirty-minute window texted with the technician's name is built on the roads at that minute, not on the average.
Is there a different figure at night, on a weekend or on a holiday?+
Weekends and holidays are charged at daytime figures. Arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $45, and arrival between midnight and 7am adds $75. Both are written inside the figure on the call. A $112 house lockout is therefore $157 in the evening and $187 overnight, and that is the number on the work order, not a daytime number with an addition produced at the door.
What goes into the written figure, and what could change it?+
The $89 service call, the labor, the parts fitted, and any evening or overnight hour, combined into one number on the work order before you decide. Distance, stairs, a gated driveway, a buzzer panel or a parking level do not alter it. The only addition is a second job you ask for once the technician is there, such as rekeying the rest of the house after a lockout. That is written as its own line and started only after you say yes.
Will my lock be drilled?+
Only after non-destructive methods have been tried and you have agreed. Apartment cylinders, residential deadbolts, the mortise sets in the older houses, aluminum storefront hardware, and most car doors open with picks, decoders, bypass tools or an air wedge and keep working afterwards. Drilling comes up when a cylinder is high-security, already damaged, or seized by a snapped key or corrosion. In that case the technician explains the mechanism, names the replacement part and its cost, and the total stays at the figure on the work order.
What proof is asked for before a door or a car is opened?+
For a house, townhome or condo: photo ID with the address, or ID plus a lease, a utility bill or addressed mail on your phone if the ID shows somewhere else. For a car: ID plus registration or an insurance card, digital is fine. For a shop, office or suite: ID plus a lease, a business license, or confirmation from the property manager or the company. Without one of those the lock stays shut, which is the same rule that protects your own door.
I live in a Bay Meadows tower with a fob, a buzzer panel and an HOA. How does that work?+
Say so on the call. The technician needs a way past the lobby and the garage gate, so either meet the van at the entrance or have the panel buzz it through. The apartment door itself is opened, rekeyed or fitted with a new lock the same way as any other. Fobs for the building are issued by the HOA or the management company, not cut on a van, so if that is what you have lost, the call will say so before anyone drives over. For hardware on the unit door, check the HOA's finish and style rules first; most allow a keypad deadbolt in a matching finish, and the receipt describes the work in a line the board can file.
Our Baywood house still has its 1930s mortise lock. Should it be replaced?+
Usually not. The mortise sets in Baywood, Aragon and San Mateo Park were made to be serviced: the case comes out, the springs and levers are cleaned and re-tensioned, the cylinder is rekeyed, and the whole thing goes back into the same pocket. Worn latches and strikes are replaced without touching the door face. When a case is truly worn through, a modern mortise body is sized to the existing pocket so the original brass plate and knob stay. The side gates on these houses are a separate matter and often just need a proper deadbolt. Which route applies is decided at the door, with the figure written down beforehand either way.
Do you come into the Caltrain lots, the downtown garages and the mall structure?+
Yes. Car lockouts, key cutting and fob programming are done in all three Caltrain lots, the downtown garages off 3rd and 4th Ave, the mall parking structure, the garages under the Bay Meadows buildings and the lot at Coyote Point. Say which lot, which level and roughly where the car sits. For a gated garage, have someone able to let the van in or meet it at the gate. On a busy Saturday the mall structure is honestly slower, and the window you receive by text will reflect that. The figure does not change for any of it.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure on the work order, the same figure on the receipt
Calls answered 24/7 across San Mateo and the towns beside it. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the number written down on the call, and the receipt matches it line for line.