The Call From Kester Avenue
Diana called us on a Saturday morning in late March. She lives in a single-story ranch house off Kester Avenue, a few blocks south of Victory Boulevard in Van Nuys. She sounded a little embarrassed on the phone — said she wasn’t sure if she was being paranoid.
“I just finished a big kitchen remodel,” she told our dispatcher. “Three months of contractors, plumbers, electricians, tile guys. I gave out my house key to… honestly, I lost count. At least five or six people had copies at some point. The project’s done now, and I keep thinking about all those keys floating around.”
She wasn’t being paranoid at all. We hear this exact story more often than you’d think.
The Problem With Renovation Keys
Here’s something most homeowners don’t consider before a big project starts: contractors need access. That’s obvious. So you hand over a key. The general contractor makes a copy for the plumber. The plumber’s apprentice borrows it one afternoon. The cabinet installer gets one too. Somewhere along the way, a key sits on the dashboard of a work truck for a week.
Nobody’s doing anything shady. These are working professionals. But once a key has been copied three or four times, you genuinely don’t know how many exist or where they ended up. Diana figured she’d originally given keys to her general contractor and one subcontractor. By the end of the project, she estimated at least six copies were made — and she only got two back.
That math bothered her. It should.
What We Found at Diana’s Place
Our technician, Marco, arrived at Diana’s house around 11 a.m. She had a standard setup: a front door with a Schlage deadbolt and knob lock, a side door off the carport with another deadbolt, and a back door leading to the yard. Five lock cylinders total.
Diana initially thought she’d need brand-new locks on everything. That’s the most common misunderstanding we run into with lock rekey in Van Nuys — people assume rekeying means replacing. It doesn’t.
Marco explained the difference right there on her porch. Rekeying means we take apart the existing lock cylinder, swap out the internal pins, and configure everything to work with a brand-new key. The lock hardware stays. The old keys become useless. Every single one of them — including the ones Diana couldn’t track down.
Her Schlage locks were in solid shape, maybe four years old. No reason to replace them. Rekeying saved her a good amount of money compared to buying five new locks.
The Job Itself
Marco worked through all five cylinders in about 45 minutes. He started with the front door, removed the cylinder, repinned it on a portable work surface, tested the new key, and moved on. Diana watched most of it — she said she’d always wondered how locks actually worked inside.
We keyed all five locks to the same new key. That was important to Diana. Before the remodel, her front and back doors had been on different keys (the previous owner’s doing), and she’d been carrying two keys around for years. Now she had one key for every door in the house.
While Marco was finishing up, Diana mentioned she’d been thinking about upgrading her front door to a smart lock eventually. Marco gave her some info about our options and told her it’s an easy upgrade whenever she’s ready — especially since her deadbolt prep was already standard size.
Who Else Should Think About Rekeying?
Diana’s situation is incredibly common in the Van Nuys area. There’s a lot of renovation activity happening right now — kitchen remodels, ADU builds, garage conversions. Every one of those projects means keys changing hands.
But it’s not just renovations. We recommend a lock rekey in Van Nuys to homeowners and renters who’ve been through any of these situations:
- You just moved into a new home or apartment (you have no idea how many copies the previous occupant made)
- A roommate moved out and didn’t return their key
- You lost a set of keys — even if you found them later, someone could have copied them in between
- A house cleaner, dog walker, or pet sitter no longer works for you
- A relationship ended and your ex had a key
Basically, if someone who shouldn’t have access might still have a key, rekeying is the fastest fix. It’s cheaper than replacing every lock and just as effective.
A Few Tips From Our Team
After doing hundreds of rekey jobs across Van Nuys — from the neighborhoods around Van Nuys Boulevard to the residential streets near Sherman Way and Sepulveda — here’s what we always tell customers:
1. Rekey right after the project wraps
Don’t wait weeks or months. The day your contractor hands back the last key, call us. The sooner you rekey, the sooner those extra copies become dead weight.
2. Get everything on one key
If your doors currently use different keys, a rekey is the perfect time to consolidate. One key for the whole house makes life simpler.
3. Keep a log
Going forward, write down every time you give someone a copy of your key. Name, date, reason. It sounds excessive, but when it’s time to rekey again, you’ll know exactly what you’re dealing with.
4. Think about whether a smart lock makes sense
If you’re constantly handing out keys to contractors, cleaners, or guests, a smart lock lets you give temporary access codes instead. No physical keys to track at all.
We’re Here When You Need Us
Diana told Marco she wished she’d called sooner — she’d been stressing about those missing keys for two weeks before finally picking up the phone. The whole job took under an hour, and she walked away with a single new key that worked on every door.
If you’re in a similar spot — post-renovation, post-move, post-breakup, whatever the reason — our team handles Van Nuys locksmith services every day, including lock rekey jobs of all sizes. Give us a call at (818) 398-9391 and we’ll get it sorted out for you.
