The call came in at 10:47 PM on a Tuesday. We were just finishing up a lockout near the Encino Commons when our dispatcher patched a woman through to the van. Her voice was steady but tired — the kind of tired that comes after a long day that just keeps getting longer.
Her name was Marisol. She lived in a townhouse complex off Hayvenhurst Avenue, just south of Burbank Boulevard, and she had a problem we hear more often than people might guess: her ex had moved out three weeks earlier and taken every single key with him. House keys, mailbox key, car key — the whole ring. She didn’t realize it until that evening, when she went looking for her spare set and discovered the drawer was empty too.
Why She Couldn’t Just Wait Until Morning
Marisol worked early shifts at a medical office in Tarzana. She needed her car by 6 AM. The Toyota dealership on Ventura Boulevard quoted her over $400 and a two-day wait for a replacement transponder key, and she’d already locked herself out of her own front door when she stepped out to check the mailbox without realizing the deadbolt had auto-engaged behind her.
So there she was — sitting on the steps of her own townhouse at almost 11 PM, no key to her house, no key to her car, no spare anywhere. That’s a textbook situation, and it’s exactly the kind of job our night tech, Danny, has handled hundreds of times.
The Drive Over
From the Encino Commons it’s maybe seven minutes to Hayvenhurst at that hour. Danny took Ventura west, cut south past the Encino Town Center, and pulled up to the complex by 11:05. He always carries the full transponder programming kit in the back of the van — including the equipment for Toyota’s H-chip system, which is what the 2019 Camry uses.
First thing he did was the house. Her front door was a standard Schlage deadbolt, nothing exotic. He picked it open in under three minutes so Marisol could at least sit inside while he handled the car. She made him coffee. That happens more than you’d think on these late jobs.
Cutting the New House Keys
Because the ex had the originals, Marisol didn’t want to just rekey to match the old cuts — she wanted the locks rekeyed entirely so the old keys would never work again. Smart move. Danny pulled the cylinders on the front deadbolt and the back patio door, repinned them with a new combination, and cut her three fresh keys right there on the portable machine. About twenty minutes total.
The Camry Was the Bigger Job
All keys lost on a modern Toyota means you can’t just cut a mechanical key — the car won’t start without a programmed transponder chip that the immobilizer recognizes. Danny had to pull the VIN, generate the key code, cut the blade to match, then plug into the OBD port and program the new transponder so the ECU would accept it. We covered the technical side of this process in more detail in our guide on , but the short version is: it took about 35 minutes, and Marisol had a working car key by 12:10 AM.
What Marisol Said Afterward
The thing she kept repeating was that she had no idea you could just call someone and get all of this done in one visit. She’d assumed she’d need a tow truck, a dealership, and probably a second locksmith for the house. The all-in price was a fraction of what the dealer wanted for the car key alone — and her front door was rekeyed in the same trip.
What We Tell Everyone After a Breakup or Move-Out
This wasn’t the first time we’ve handled an all keys lost Encino job triggered by a relationship ending, and it won’t be the last. A few things we always suggest to clients in this situation:
- Rekey, don’t just replace. If you’re not 100% sure where every old key is, rekeying the cylinder is cheaper than swapping the whole lock and just as secure.
- Do the car at the same time. If your ex had access to a spare car key, assume it’s gone. Reprogramming the immobilizer invalidates the old transponder.
- Get a spare cut immediately. Store it somewhere outside the house — with a sibling, a trusted neighbor, in a small magnetic box under the car. Future-you will thank present-you.
- Don’t wait until morning if you need your car at dawn. Most all keys lost jobs are faster at 11 PM than at 8 AM the next day, because there’s no dealership queue.
Encino’s a quiet area most nights — the stretch from Balboa down to Hayvenhurst, the side streets off White Oak, the condos near the Sepulveda Basin. We cover all of it, and we’ve been doing it long enough to know that the worst nights for our customers often happen on the most ordinary Tuesdays.
If you find yourself in a similar spot — locked out of everything, no spare, no idea where to start — give our team a call at (818) 398-9391. We’ll come out, sort the doors and the car in one visit, and have you back to normal before the night gets any longer. You can also check our full list of Encino locksmith services to see what else we cover in the area.
