Locksmiths near you

First, slow down for two minutes. Check every other door and window, including the laundry and the garage internal door, and check whether anyone else in the household has a key nearby. If a key has snapped in the cylinder, stop turning the stub, because pushing it deeper turns a five-minute extraction into a cylinder replacement. If you are locked out in extreme heat with a child, a pet or a person at risk inside a closed-up car or house, that is a triple zero call, not a trade call.

Rekeying changes the pins inside an existing cylinder so old keys stop working. It is the right answer when the hardware is sound and the problem is who holds keys rather than how the lock performs, and it has a useful side benefit: a locksmith can usually key several locks around the house to one key while they are there, which ends the habit of leaving the back door unlocked because the key is annoying.

Repair suits hardware that is good quality but worn or misaligned. A great deal of what feels like lock failure is actually the door: timber that has swollen through a humid summer, hinges that have dropped, or a strike plate that was never quite in the right place. A locksmith who adjusts the door and the strike often solves a problem that a new lock would not have fixed.

Replacement is the call when the cylinder is damaged or worn out, when the lock has been forced, when parts for an obsolete set are no longer available, or when you are upgrading from a latch-only entrance set to a deadlock. It is also the moment to think about the whole opening rather than the lock alone, since a strong lock in a weak frame with long screws missing from the strike is not a strong door.

Western Australia publishes the clearest example. WA Police Licensing Services states that private security activities in the state are governed by the Security and Related Activities (Control) Act 1996 and the Security and Related Activities (Control) Regulations 1997, and its Security Installer licence covers installing, maintaining and repairing security equipment controlled by the Act. The classes are split by equipment, with safes, vaults and prescribed locks in one class and other prescribed locks in another. For the safes, vaults and locks class, WA requires the applicant to be a trade-qualified locksmith; the class covering security doors requires a pre-licence test. A self-employed locksmith operating in their own name also needs a Security Agent licence, because supplying those services is licensed separately from performing them.

Elsewhere the arrangements differ and are administered by different bodies: New South Wales lists the security industry among its licences and points to NSW Police, Victoria has a Private Security Act 2004 in force, and Queensland licenses security providers under its own legislation. Because the classes and the words do not match across the borders, never assume that a licence held in one state authorises work in another, and never accept a trade association badge as a substitute for a licence.

Before anyone starts, ask for the licence number and the class, check it against that state's police or fair trading register, and note that a company licence is not proof the individual attending is licensed. This is a trade where the honest operators expect the question.

The classic complaint against a small number of operators follows a pattern: a low figure quoted on the phone, an arrival with no identification, a claim that the lock must be drilled and replaced rather than picked, and a total on the doorstep that bears no relation to the call. Because this happens when people are stressed, tired and outside, the defence has to be set up in the first phone call, not at the door.

The Australian Consumer Law backs you up afterwards. The ACCC says consumer guarantees are automatic when you buy goods and services, that services must be carried out with an acceptable level of care and skill, and that these basic rights cannot be taken away by anything a business says or does. Drilling out a lock that a competent locksmith could have opened, or replacing hardware that did not need replacing, is a care-and-skill question.

The ACCC also sets out what you can seek. For a major problem with a service, one that creates an unsafe situation or that has a serious problem, or several smaller problems, that would have stopped you buying it had you known, you can cancel the contract and get a refund, or keep it and pay a lower price that accounts for the problem; for a minor problem the business must fix it free of charge. Keep the receipt, photograph the old hardware if you can, and take the complaint to your state or territory consumer protection agency if the business will not resolve it.