San Leandro neighborhood · 24/7
Bayfair and Halcyon-Foothill, where the parking lots run late and the apartment blocks run on call boxes
Bayfair Center and its lots, the Bay Fair BART station and garage, and the apartment blocks along Halcyon Drive and Foothill Boulevard. Courtyards on a code, carports at the rear, unit numbering that ignores the street. Twenty-six minutes, and longer when the freeway is heavy.
26 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
Parking is the biggest single source of work in this district and it peaks after six. A shift finishes at the center, somebody walks out to a car with the fob face down on the passenger seat, and that is a car lockout at $99 to $189 with the lot and the row named on the call so the van pulls up beside the right vehicle. Commuter parking is its own case: a car left at the BART garage since seven in the morning with a fob whose battery finally quit during the day, which is a cell and a few dollars rather than a job. Where the fob is genuinely gone, programming a replacement at the car is $89 to $185, and that floor cannot go under the $89 visit. A car with no key of any kind left is $145 to $389, cut and coded in the lot. An ignition that turns partway and stalls is $175 to $425.
Across Foothill the buildings take over. Most of these blocks now run a call box that dials a cell phone instead of a buzzer wired to an apartment, which is convenient until the phone with the courtyard code on it is the phone locked inside the unit. A lockout on one of these buildings is $119 to $205 and the courtyard gate is inside that figure rather than counted as a second door. The cylinder is opened without harm, because it belongs to the owner of the building and returning it in one piece is the difference between a bad hour and a bill somebody has to argue about. Proof of address is asked for at the door and the standard is identical for the person who signed a lease and the person who signed a mortgage.
For owners and managers along Halcyon the calendar is turnovers, and turnover season here is loud. A rekey is $26 to $42 per cylinder; three units changing hands in one building go into one visit with the $89 service call counted only once across all of them. The openings that fall off the list are the ones nobody personally owns: the courtyard gate, the laundry room, the mail alcove and the trash enclosure. Those are added to the tally while the figure is being set, so nothing gets discovered later. A common door that has stopped catching is usually mechanical and usually adjustable; where it is an electric strike that hums without releasing, that is a wiring problem and it gets called a wiring problem instead of being billed as a lock. Calls are answered 24/7, $45 inside the figure after 8pm, $80 after midnight.
In a lot or the BART garage, give the lot, the level and the row, plus the make and color of the car. In an apartment, give the unit number and which courtyard or stairwell it opens off, and say whether the trouble is the gate, a common door or your own.
Most requested in Bayfair & Halcyon-Foothill
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.