Santa Clara neighborhood · 24/7
Locksmith work in the Old Quad, where a 1910 front door and a student lease from last week share the same block
The oldest grid in the city: Franklin St, Bellomy St, Lafayette St and the streets fanning out from the mission and the university, with houses from the 1900s to the 1920s let to students beside houses that have not changed hands in forty years.
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18 min
Avg. arrival
$89
Service call
24/7
Availability
The Old Quad is eighteen minutes from where the van usually is, and the work here splits cleanly in two. Half the doors belong to houses rented to students at the university, which fill in mid-September and empty in June. Those houses have a front door with a deadbolt added in the 1990s, a back door with something older, and bedroom cylinders bought one at a time. A rekey is $24 to $39 per cylinder, and the count is taken on the call, bedrooms included, so one figure is agreed for the entire house. The keying that works is one key for every exterior door and a separate key per bedroom. A lockout on one of these porches is $115 to $199, and the usual cause is a self-latching screen door closing behind someone carrying groceries.
The other half is hardware that predates the university's current campus plan. On Bellomy St and along the blocks between Franklin St and The Alameda there are still surface-mounted rim locks with a night latch, pin cylinders fitted into older cases, and doors that swell in February and shrink in August. Most of these need a strike moved or a case cleaned rather than a new lock. Where the case has cracked or the maker is long gone, a replacement is $109 to $299 per door, and the technician says which doors are worth keeping. The streets here are narrow, permit-parked and lined with mature trees; the van stops where it can and the case is carried the last hundred feet.
Franklin St itself is small commercial: cafes, a bike shop, a bar or two behind wood-framed glass doors. Storefront work runs $145 to $449 and is mostly deadlatch alignment and worn cylinders. Bicycles matter in this district more than cars: a bike-locker key, a garage side door where the bikes live, or a padlock cut and replaced on a shed. Each is a line inside one agreed figure when the technician is already at the address. Evening calls add $45 between 8pm and midnight and $80 after midnight, both stated inside the total on the call rather than appearing later.
Say whether the house is a student rental or owner-occupied, count the bedroom cylinders if it is the former, and mention if parking on your block is permit-only after 6pm so the van does not circle.
FAQ
Questions that come up on calls from Old Quad
Why does the Old Quad take about eighteen minutes when it sits in the middle of the city?+
Distance is not the problem here, stopping is. Bellomy St, Lafayette St and the blocks off Franklin St are narrow, permit-parked after six and lined with mature trees, so the van parks where it can and the case is carried the last stretch. That walk is inside the eighteen minutes rather than added to it afterwards.
The house is a student rental with bedroom locks on top of the exterior doors. How is that counted?+
By cylinder, on the call, before anyone is sent. Exterior doors, the back door, the mailbox and every bedroom cylinder go into one count at $24 to $39 each, and the sum is read back to you. The usual result is one key for all exterior doors and a separate key per bedroom, so a tenant carries two.
The screen door keeps latching behind me. Is that something a locksmith fixes?+
Yes, and it is the most common cause of a lockout on these porches. A self-latching screen or storm door can have its latch swapped for a non-locking catch, or the strike moved so it holds shut without engaging. It is a small job added to a visit already at the address rather than a call of its own.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
One call, one figure, nothing revised at the door
Calls answered 24/7 across Santa Clara and the neighbouring cities. The $89 service call, the labour and the parts are inside the number you agree to, and the receipt repeats it line for line.