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Comment by righthand | Hacker News Reader

Yeah I agree. I accidentally walked out my front door without my keys in my pocket for the first time in my life. I called my property management company who sent over a technician to unlock the door. The management company intentionally does such a poor job that there is no spare key to my apartment. So the technician has to drill the lock. Surprise! The technician only claims they have a lock-drilling skill.

My phone dies and the technician says I have to call a locksmith and pay for it myself. Now I’m in small claims court for $1275 no good reason other than my property management company enabling extortion by a locksmith. All they had to do was hire or train someone into being competent lock driller.

Real estate industry in this city is a toxic grift game. People are very nice here, but these real estate people are the “assholes” in which everyone refers. The whole thing is rotten except for maybe 5% of landlords.

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FWIW I would consider nobody other than me having access to a key to my apartment a feature!

That’s nuts though. Imagine a locksmith not being able to pick a lock. Like… you have one job?!

Some locks are much harder to pick.

Especially if you don’t bring basic tools and bore the whole thing out with a drill and then give up when it doesn’t magically open.

Because he’s not a locksmith, he is a contracted technician that performs duties in the illegal absence of a building super. There are more details to my case that will just make your jaw drop more but I chose to keep focused on the fundamentals. And yes if I owned the apartment I would not want property management having a key. However I include that detail to indicate how poorly managed my building is without listing off 10 other things.

Ah, apologies misunderstood

Drilling the lock is literally what emergency locksmiths do. This isn't a Mission Impossible movie. Bet you don't forget your key now.

Without attempting a pick?

Only the grifters.

I have yet to see the first emergency locksmith that isn't a grifter. The moment you can't open a lock yourself, you're paying ten times the reasonable rate, or worse.

It's usually cheaper to knock in a window, or if you live in an expensive area, to buy a fire axe and break down the door.

The trick is to to find real locksmiths, with a real storefront, preferably ahead of time. If you just Google emergency locksmith and your ZIP code or location, all of the top results will be scammers in unmarked vans. This is an old scam, it's got its own Wikipedia page: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locksmith_scam

There's been some reporting about these fake listings on Google maps: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/google-maps-fake-listings-lawsu...

Locksmiths won't do that in general - even if they know how. Picking makes it look easy - not only can they not justify their bill but also people ask if locks provide any security and that is bad for business.

I watched a locksmith pick someone's apartment door in 10 seconds and then charge them $80. Then everyone commented on how easy it looked and the locksmith was very friendly about it.

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