wmartin@STL-06SIMA.ARMY.MIL (Will Martin) (11/22/90)
For what it's worth, just this past weekend (18 Nov 90), the "Fight Back" consumer program hosted by David Horowitz, which I think is a nationally- syndicated TV show, had a segment on locks being keyed alike. Unfortunately, I missed the first minute or so of the segment, but it appeared that a viewer had sent in a letter reporting that all (or a large number) of the door locks for sale at a hardware store in her area had the same key. Horowitz interviewed a lock manufacturer, who stated that there were about 6000 possible key combinations on standard door locks, and that they tried to spread the duplicates out geographically, with one shipment to a single dealer not having any duplicates (or at least minimizing the number of duplicates). Duplicates were supposed to be sent to disparate areas of the country, like New York versus San Francisco. The situation reported by the viewer was a failure of this policy, of course -- possibly an order for locks keyed alike had gotten mispackaged into the regular retail-sales output. Horowitz suggested that people purchasing door locks check out the other identical items in the store, and see if the one lock's key will work a different lock. If these things are in sealed packages, though, I don't see how this would be possible. I would be more wary of a situation where a builder, say, creating a subdivision, bought a truckload of locks from a single vendor to put on the doors of those houses. If *he* got a keyed-alike batch, now *that* would be an interesting mess...! If all the locks on the shelf at a K-Mart were keyed alike, and I bought one, that really isn't much of a risk -- who would know that the lock now on my door was one of *those* locks? My neighbors' locks would have come from dozens of other sources, and it would be unlikely that one of them would have bought the same kind of lock at the same K-Mart during that same time period, after all... This program is usually repeated later in the viewing year, so you may well be able to catch this segment on a show aired this coming spring, if it is carried in your area. Regards, Will Martin PS -- Hmm... Do subdivision builders master-key their houses' locks so they can get in to all the houses with just the one master key? Or aren't the houses locked before they are sold? [I always lived in old city houses and know nothing of subdivisions...] WM
gwyn@SMOKE.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (12/13/90)
Locks are usually installed near the end of construction. Often there is a special "construction keying" used that is disabled after construction is complete; this can involve an extra pin that comes into effect once the regular key is used, or on large projects using interchangeable cores, normally the cores are replaced with the final set after construction is complete. You should always hire a reputable locksmith to do lock work, not simply buy locks at a hardware store and install them yourself. The extra $$ that you pay buys improved workmanship and security.
bixenman@scr1.ocpt.ccur.com (michael bixenman <bixenman@scr1.ocpt.ccur.com>) (12/14/90)
We moved into a house 18 years ago. It was two years old at the time. We had new neighbors after after two years had passed. One day the neighbor came over and stated he locked himself out. I got my tools and went to jimmy the front door. Just for a joke we tried my key ( all the door locks were the same manufacturer ). It worked! We found his keys inside and noticed they were keyed alike. We checked with the surrounding ten homes and none were the same. I went out and purchased a new lockset that weekend (different manufacturer!). That was coincidence or what ! This happened to me when I started driving also. It was 1966 and my '62 Chevy Impala keys opened a similar car at a shopping center, I sat in the car and realized it was not mine. Strange ...