San Mateo neighborhood · 24/7
North Central locksmith calls, for the apartments and duplexes between downtown and the Burlingame line where the lock is older than the lease
The dense flat blocks north of downtown: apartment buildings, duplexes and flats on N Humboldt St, N Claremont St and Poplar Ave, corner markets and laundromats, a renting population, and hardware that was fitted once and left.
4.9 / 5· 319 reviews from San Mateo & the towns beside it
19 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Most doors in North Central are rented and most locks on them predate the tenant by decades. A 1920s building with a rim night latch on the street door, a 1960s four-plex with a knob set and no deadbolt, a duplex where the two units share a porch and one key opens both. A rekey is $24 to $40 per cylinder and a unit lockout is $112 to $195. The usual tenant lockout is the self-latching building door: someone steps out for the mail, the door clicks, and the key is on the kitchen table. Say on the call whether the building door has a buzzer and whether it works.
Managers here have a steady turnover and call to book several units at once, and the $89 service call sits inside that one figure once. A door that will not latch is nearly always a strike or a hinge, not the lock, and the technician says so rather than replacing it. Where a deadbolt does need to go on a door that has only a knob, replacement is $112 to $305 per door, with a strike that reaches the framing. Mailbox banks in the entry are on cam locks that are swapped in a minute when the technician is already in the building. A written line for the owner or the manager is provided on request, and proof of tenancy is asked for at the unit door.
The corners are small commerce: a market, a taqueria, a laundromat, a barber, behind aluminum doors that get cycled all day. Storefront work is $147 to $455, a business lockout at opening is $127 to $235, and the recurring fault is a deadlatch that no longer catches because the closer is tired. Parking is the hard part of this district; the van stops where it can and the case walks a half block. Arrival is about nineteen minutes by Delaware St or El Camino Real.
Give the unit letter and say which entrance it is on. The numbering on these buildings rarely matches the street. If the trouble is the building door rather than your unit, say so, since that decides who authorizes the work.
Nearby
A few blocks over, the same van
FAQ
Asked about North Central
I rent here. What does the manager have to agree to before a lock is changed?+
Anything on the building door, the mailbox bank or the common entry is the owner’s decision. Your own unit door is normally yours to rekey at $24 to $40 per cylinder, though most leases ask that a key be handed back afterwards. The technician asks for proof of tenancy at the unit door and provides a written line for the file.
Three units turn over the same week. Can they be done in one visit?+
Yes, and it is the cheaper way to do it. The $89 service call sits inside one figure for the whole visit instead of once per door, and the cylinders are pinned at the van between units. Give the unit letters and say whether the building door will be propped or whether the technician needs to be let in each time.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
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.