Guides
Plain answers for Palo Alto, read in a few minutes.
Prices, Eichler doors, original hardware, landlord rekeys and lockouts, written for this city and nowhere else.
Aug 2026 · 7 min read
Choosing a Locksmith in Palo Alto Who Picks the Lock Instead of Drilling It
Why drilling is offered so readily, what a drill does to a Palo Alto door that cannot be undone, five questions to ask on the call before a van is sent, what a straight answer sounds like, the few cases where drilling is the honest choice, and the standard Tall Tree Lock & Safe works to.
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Jul 2026 · 7 min read
What a Lockout Costs in Palo Alto in 2026, and Why the Figure Is a Range
House $129 to $219, car $105 to $179, business $139 to $255, with the $89 visit already inside each. What decides where in the range a given door lands, what the hour adds and why it is already inside the figure, why picking the lock does not cost less or more than drilling it, what is asked before a door is opened, and how the number travels from the call to the receipt.
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May 2026 · 7 min read
An Eichler in Greenmeadow: The Atrium Gate, the Slab Door and Six Sliding Glass Doors
A 1955 Eichler on a curved street south of Oregon Expressway, with a gate into the atrium, a flat front door inside it and a wall of glass onto the garden. How the house is entered, why the gate is the lockout, what a deadbolt on a slab needs to hold, why sliding doors were never locks and what makes them one, how short an Eichler rekey is, and what happens after a slider has been forced.
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Apr 2026 · 6 min read
Car Keys at Stanford Shopping Center: Locked In, Lost Between the Store and the Car, or a Fob That Went Quiet
The bags are in the trunk, the trunk is shut, and the fob is in the trunk. Three car-key calls that come from the same lots along El Camino, how to say which lot you are in, what is asked on the call, how a key is cut and paired beside the car, the calls that are not a locksmith at all, and the 2026 figures.
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Feb 2026 · 8 min read
A Professorville Front Door from 1915: Keeping the Mortise Set and Still Locking the House
A shingled house between Addison and Kingsley, a front door with a glass light, a bronze plate with a keyhole, and a rim latch someone added in 1952. What is inside the edge of that door, which part is actually locking the house, what is repaired with the plate on, when a new case goes behind the old plate, why a lockout here is picked and never drilled, and the 2026 figures.
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Jan 2026 · 7 min read
A College Terrace Rental Between Tenants: The Rekey a Landlord Does the Week the Lease Turns Over
The graduate students moved out on the fifteenth and the postdoc arrives on the first. What a College Terrace rental holds in cylinders, why a rekey beats a bag of new locks, how a shared gate is pinned for two units, who may book the work when the owner lives elsewhere, and what a property manager gets on paper in 2026.
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One call, one figure, and the lock kept whole
Calls answered 24/7 across Palo Alto, Stanford and the towns beside them. The $89 service call, the labor and the parts are inside the figure said on the call, the lock is opened without drilling wherever it allows, and the receipt repeats the figure.