Locksmithing and Security

If you’ve arranged for a locksmith to come and fit an extra lock to the front door of the house you’re moving into, it’s a fair bet that they would quite like to spend a bit of time standing, kneeling, squatting or otherwise occupying — the doorway.

If you’ve arranged for removal people to bring all your furniture to your new house, they would probably also like to spend quite a bit of time transiting, blocking and otherwise taking up — the doorway.

So it’s not a hugely good idea to book both people for the same time.

Still it can be entertaining. Mother was also there (I’m guessing it was mother) and she was giving the movers the sharp edge of her tongue over some alleged damage to a piece that was so hideous I don’t know how you could be expected to tell damage from design.

Normally I rescue people stuck outside and occasionally people stuck inside; and normally it’s the fire brigade who rescue cats — from trees, drains, etc.

Here, however, a living room door latch bolt had parted company with the tubular latch retraction hook. And a kitten was locked inside the living room.

I had a quick look at the window and, full marks, it had proper locks, so it was back to the door. The kitten seemed to think I’d been sent to alleviate its boredom. It had got tired of the food scraps the owner had been pushing under the door, so whenever I popped a mirror or other sundry device or instrument within its reach, it had a fine old time trying to pull it from my grasp.

It all ended well, I’m happy to report; although I should have remembered about the food scraps waiting for my hands and knees just inside the door.

It’s not just kittens who like to play with locksmith tools that appear through a door. Many of my colleagues have fallen to the dark side and open doors for the gas board, the electricity board and sundry others who’ve persuaded a Justice of the Peace to issue an entry warrant. I’m kidding about the dark side of course; my colleagues are the Jedi of the industry in that they rarely use a drill or other destructive means of entry (nor do they use light sabers which are pretty destructive), they pick their way in. But while someone who hasn’t paid their bill and is quietly watching the door from the inside isn’t going to grab a drill bit, they do tend to grab anything else they see. One of the many stress-increasing aspects that keeps me away from that side of the work.

I had a couple of safes to open a little while back. One was an elderly Chubb and the other was a more recent Dudley. Both were key locks. Safes are divided roughly 60:40 in the UK between key locks and combination locks whereas in the States they’re nearly all combination locks. Of course, key locks are much more difficult for the safe engineer to open. Anyway, these two need different techniques so I started with the one that needed the venerable Hobbs pick. (I’ll come back to Mr Hobbs another day in another post.)

First you get as comfortable as you can. Other locksmiths poke fun at my collapsible chairs but hey. Then you get acquainted with the levers — seven in this case. You’re doing a couple of things here but it’s quite repetitious. You either get bored on unlucky days or you enter a Zen-like altered state on lucky days. This was a lucky day.

I wasn’t aware of it — that’s the point — but after five minutes there was almost nothing in my mind except a growing picture of my friends the levers. What I was also unaware of was that the lights had gone out; this was a basement of a delicatessen undergoing refurbishment and they’d cut the power to install some board or other and they’d told everyone but me.

So there I was in a gloomy corner, dressed in black (good for the image), forehead resting on a safe door, making no noise except for the occasional and pleasing click of a tumbler; and there was the electrics board that was about to be replaced, above my head. The electrician walked in pointing her torch high up at the board. I wouldn’t have heard her even if she’d been wearing wooden clogs.

I think we both screamed. I certainly lost all the levers.

Still, I don’t normally need meditation classes.