What’s Happening

When a former tenant, ex-partner, roommate, or contractor moves on but keeps a key, every lock they ever touched is effectively still open to them. The fix is a rekey – your existing locks are reconfigured so the old key works on nothing, and a fresh set of keys is cut that only you control. It does not require replacing your locks, and a trained technician can usually complete the work in a single visit.

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This situation is more common than most people realize. Keys get duplicated at hardware stores without a second thought. A departing roommate hands a spare to a friend “just in case” and neither of them thinks twice about it. A contractor copies your house key before returning it. By the time the problem surfaces, you often have no idea how many copies exist or who has them. A rekey solves all of that at once because it makes every existing copy useless – including the ones you do not know about.

Why It Happens

Keys Were Copied Without Your Knowledge

Standard residential keys – Kwikset, Schlage entry-grade, most builder-grade hardware – can be duplicated at any hardware store or big-box retailer in under two minutes with no ID required. If someone had access to your home for any period of time, the opportunity was there. You will not be able to tell by looking at your lock whether this happened, which is exactly why it matters.

Access Was Shared and Never Recovered

Lease agreements end, relationships change, and housekeepers, dog walkers, or renovation crews come and go. In the busyness of a transition, collecting every key that was ever handed out rarely happens. If you cannot account for every copy – original, spare, and any copies of those spares – your lock is accessible to people who no longer have a reason to be inside your home.

The Lock Was Never Rekeyed After You Moved In

If you bought or rented a property and did not rekey on move-in, the previous owner’s keys, the prior tenant’s keys, and any copies made by the property manager or contractors during the transition still work. This is one of the most overlooked security gaps in residential locksmith work. Builders sometimes hand out master keys during construction that were never tracked or recovered before closing.

A High-Security Lock Was Not Used

Restricted keyway systems – used in locks like Medeco, Mul-T-Lock, and Abloy – are designed so that keys cannot be duplicated at a hardware store without factory authorization. If your home uses standard keyways, there is no mechanical barrier to unauthorized duplication. The fact that you are reading this page suggests that may be exactly what happened.

What to Do Right Now

• Stop using the affected locks as your primary security. Until the locks are rekeyed, treat any door that was accessible to the person in question as unsecured. If you have a door with a deadbolt that was not on their keyring, use it as your main point of entry for now.
• Photograph your existing hardware. Note the brand name stamped on the lock face or the inside of the deadbolt. This helps your technician arrive with the correct key blanks and pins, which speeds up the visit.
• Do not change the locks yourself if they are attached to a door frame under tension or if the door alignment is off. A misaligned strike plate or a door that does not hang true can affect how a rekeyed lock seats – this is something a technician should assess before work starts, not after.
• Make a list of every door that was on the affected key ring. Front door, back door, garage entry, side gate padlock – if the person had access to more than one lock, all of them need to be addressed in the same visit.
• Call now rather than later. There is no mechanical alarm that fires when an old key is used. The window between “someone still has a key” and “something goes wrong” is invisible, which is why this is worth handling today, not next week.

How We Fix It

When your local Novak Lock & Security technician arrives, the first thing they do is assess each lock you have identified – checking the cylinder condition, the keyway, and whether the hardware is worth rekeying or due for replacement. You get a written price before anything is touched. That is not a formality; it is the rule the business was built on in 2002 and it has not changed.

For a standard rekey, the technician removes the cylinder, replaces the pin stack to match a new key profile, and verifies the new key operates smoothly before reassembling. For all locks on your list, this is done in a single visit. If any lock is worn enough that rekeying is not the right call, you will be told that in plain terms – and given the option, in writing, before the technician proceeds.

The services that resolve this are Lock Rekey and, where hardware needs upgrading, Lock Installation. The visit typically runs under two hours for most residential setups. All work is backed by the 365-Day Done Right Promise: if it is not done right, we make it right. A documented photo record of what was found and what was done is included as standard – not an upgrade.

Frequently Asked Questions

Get It Fixed

Call (331) 310-8471 right now – a live person will answer, quote you a firm price on the call, and schedule your local Novak Lock & Security team for a same-day visit. You can also book online. Every rekey leaves you with a documented photo record and a lock that works only for you.

Written by Daniel Novak, Owner at Novak Lock & Security, serving communities nationwide since 2002.