Nearby city · 24/7
Ashland locksmith calls up the East 14th strip, on a street where three lots in a row are three different buildings
The unincorporated stretch running north up East 14th Street from the city line. Older houses on deep narrow lots, fourplexes and small blocks, cottages tucked behind the front house, markets, taquerias and repair shops on the boulevard. Twenty-eight minutes from Davis Street.
28 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Twenty-eight minutes up the boulevard, into the most mixed housing on the whole service map. The lot lines here are deep and narrow, so a single address can hold a house at the sidewalk, a second dwelling halfway back and a converted structure at the fence, all with different hardware and sometimes different owners. That is why what the door looks like matters more on this street than the number on the mailbox. A lockout is $119 to $205 anywhere on the lot, front house or the unit at the back, and the lock is opened intact every time. Proof of address is asked for on the doorstep, and the question is asked in exactly the same words at the rear cottage as at the house facing the boulevard.
The apartment side of Ashland runs on shift work, so its calls arrive at hours the rest of the city has finished with: half past five in the morning before a warehouse start, or eleven at night after a swing shift. Between tenants a rekey is $26 to $42 per cylinder, and a small block turning over two or three units at once uses the $89 service call once across the whole visit rather than per door. The openings that get overlooked belong to the building rather than to anyone in it, so the laundry room, the mail alcove and the courtyard gate go into the tally when the figure is set. A unit door that has stopped catching is usually the frame moving rather than the lock failing; adjusting it is cheaper than replacing it and it is what gets tried first.
The boulevard businesses keep long hours in old buildings, and their doors show it. A market that opens at seven, a barber, a tire shop, a restaurant that closes at eleven, all in storefronts with original frames and doors that have been shouldered by deliveries for decades. Storefront door locks are $155 to $449 per door and a business lockout is $129 to $239. Where a rear door has been pried overnight, repair is $165 to $419 and the shop is locking again by the end of the visit, with a plain description of the damage and the parts on the emailed receipt for the insurer. County ground rather than city ground, which changes the address format and nothing on the list. Evening adds $45, overnight $80, both already inside the quoted figure.
Say where the door sits on the lot: the front house, a unit in a small block, or the cottage or converted structure at the back, with the unit number if there is one. If a courtyard gate or a call box stands in the way, say whether it is working.
FAQ
Asked on the way to the phone
How fast does the van reach my street?+
Twenty-three minutes is the citywide average, because the van works out of Davis Street rather than being sent across a bridge. Downtown and East 14th run about 15 minutes, Estudillo Estates and Best Manor 15, Davis Street and the works 17, Broadmoor 19, the Marina and Mulford Gardens 21, Washington Manor and Floresta Gardens 24, Bay-O-Vista and Bayfair 26. Outside the line: the airport and Doolittle strip 24, Oakland 26, San Lorenzo 26, Ashland 28, Alameda 30. The hill and the far side of the channel are honestly the slowest, and you hear that on the call instead of standing on a porch wondering. The window that arrives by text is drawn from where the van actually is, not from the average.
What does per door and per cylinder actually mean on my bill?+
It means the figure is built the way a shop writes a line on a sheet: what the thing is, how it is counted, what it costs. A rekey is counted per cylinder, so a house with a front door, a back door, a side gate and a garage is four cylinders. Hardware and exit devices are counted per door. A lockout is counted per visit, once, however many minutes it takes. When you say what you have on the call, the count is done then and there, so the figure and its unit both come back before anything is agreed to.
Does the lock get destroyed to open the door?+
Almost never, and never without your say-so. Picks, decoders and bypass tools cover apartment cylinders off Bancroft, post-war deadbolts in the Manor, mortise sets in Best Manor, aluminum storefronts on East 14th, most car doors and most safes, and the lock goes back to work afterward. The exceptions are a high-security cylinder, one already smashed, or one welded around a snapped blade. When that is the door, you hear it plainly, you hear what would go back in its place, and you choose. The figure does not move either way.
What is inside the figure, and what could add to it?+
The $89 visit, the labor, whatever hardware goes on, and the night hour when there is one, all rolled together. Stairs, a buzzer lobby, a gated yard on Alvarado, a long driveway up in Bay-O-Vista, a unit at the back of a complex: none of that moves it. The one thing that can add is extra work you decide on once the technician is standing there, such as repinning the back door while the front one is open. That gets a figure of its own, said out loud, and it starts when you say so.
Is it more on a weekend, a holiday or in the middle of the night?+
Saturday, Sunday and holidays cost what a Tuesday afternoon costs. Only the clock changes it: $45 between 8pm and midnight, $80 between midnight and 7am. Both are folded in before you hear a figure, so nothing appears later. A house lockout that is $119 in daylight comes back as $164 at eleven at night and $199 at four in the morning, and the receipt matches what you agreed to.
I rent. Do I need my landlord before you open my own door?+
No. Plenty of this city rents, and a tenant is the customer rather than a complication. For a lockout, bring photo ID showing the address, or ID plus something on your phone tying you to the unit: a lease page, a utility bill, a rent receipt, addressed mail. Give the building and the unit number on the call so the van is not circling a block off Bancroft looking for the right entry. Nobody is telephoned about you, and no owner has to approve putting you back inside the place you pay for.
I own units and rekey between tenants. How does that go?+
Counted per cylinder, so a fourplex with front and back doors is eight cylinders and comes back as one figure. Each unit can sit on its own key with a single management key over the set, so you carry one key rather than a ring. Old keys are returned in labeled bags to check against whatever the outgoing tenant handed over. The receipt lists every door by unit. A manager acting for an owner who lives elsewhere can approve the work with a management agreement or a text from the owner, and the receipt can be addressed to either party or both.
Our house in Best Manor still has hardware from the thirties. Does it all have to come off?+
Usually not, and that is most of the morning work in this city. Estudillo Avenue, Best Manor and the Broadmoor curves are full of mortise bodies and knob sets that still turn well and only need repinning so keys from three owners ago stop working. Three things genuinely earn replacing: a cylinder with real wear in it, a bolt whose throw no longer reaches the frame, and a strike screwed into trim instead of the stud behind it, which is the single detail that decides whether a door survives a kick. Which of the three applies to yours is said before anything is unscrewed.
Do you work the industrial belt west of the tracks?+
That is the afternoon. Man-doors beside roll-ups on Davis Street, freight and yard doors along Doolittle Drive, stockrooms and small factory offices on Alvarado, exit devices at the back of kitchens on Washington Avenue. Early starts are normal, because a shop that cannot open at seven is losing a shift, not a morning. Anything bigger than a single door — a master key set, an access control run, a building that has never been surveyed — gets walked and counted in person before a figure goes on it.
Do you come to Bayfair, the BART lots and the airport parking?+
Yes, and a good share of the car work lives in exactly those places: the Bayfair Center lots, the San Leandro and Bay Fair BART garages, the airport long-term rows and rental returns off Doolittle, the Marina lots, a carport behind a building on Halcyon. Name the lot and give a level, a row or the color of the car, because Bayfair on a Saturday is a lot of parking. A gated garage needs somebody who can get the van through the gate. None of it changes the figure.
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
Houses in the morning, shop floors after, and the figure said before either one starts
San Leandro, San Lorenzo, Ashland, Oakland, the airport and Doolittle strip, and Alameda across the channel, 24/7, holidays included. Describe the door, hear one figure with the $89 visit inside it and the unit it is counted in, and the lock gets opened without damage wherever it can be. The receipt says what the call said, whether the deed is in your name or the lease is.