Moving into a complex: the key questions nobody asks

Ask how many of everything exist

Start with the managing agent, in writing. How many gate remotes are registered to this unit? How many access tags? Is there a key register for the unit's own door, and what does it say?

The answers are frequently incomplete, and that incompleteness is the useful information. It tells you which items need cancelling and reissuing rather than merely counting.

Deactivate before you replicate

Remotes and tags are managed by the development, not by you. Anything unaccounted for should be deactivated by the managing agent — that is the entire advantage of an electronic system over metal keys, and it costs nothing to use it.

Do this before ordering replacements. Otherwise you have added new credentials to a pool of unknown old ones, which is exactly the situation you were trying to leave.

Then deal with your own door

Your unit's lock is yours. Rekeying re-pins the existing cylinder so every previous key stops working, without changing anything visible — which matters in a complex where external hardware may be regulated.

It is usually cheaper than replacement and it addresses the actual risk, which is unknown keys rather than a defective lock. Where the hardware is genuinely old or weak, replacement makes more sense, and that is a judgement to make on site.

Check the hardware rules while you are at it

Ask the managing agent whether external door hardware is restricted and whether the complex runs a restricted key system. If it does, your door may need to sit inside it.

Establishing this now is far easier than discovering it after an installation that has to come out again. Hardware choices are set out on the high-security locks page.

The doors people forget in a complex

A patio or balcony sliding door, a garage or carport door, a store room, and any door onto a shared passage. These get overlooked because the front door feels like the whole security question.

Sliding aluminium doors in particular are worth a look. A plain latch on a slider can often be lifted or levered out of its track, and a hookbolt is a small upgrade with a real effect. Gates, security gates and household hardware all sit under residential locksmith services in the area.

One thing that costs nothing

Learn how your door actually locks. On a multipoint mechanism, lifting the handle without turning the key frequently leaves it on the latch only — the door feels shut and is not locked.

It is a surprisingly common contributor to break-ins, and correcting it takes one demonstration.

The first fortnight in a Fourways complex

There is a short list worth working through when you move into a complex or estate in northern Johannesburg, and most of it costs nothing.

Ask the managing agent or trustees, in writing, what may be fitted to any door visible from common property. Many developments specify finish or style, some specify brand, and a few run a restricted key system every unit is expected to join. Fitting outside that specification can mean removing it at your cost.

Ask two more things while you are there: who to contact out of hours if you are locked out and the complex gate is involved, and whether a gate remote or tag can be deactivated if lost. Save those numbers somewhere that is not inside the flat — it is the single most useful preparation for a house lockout behind a boom.

The walk-round nobody does

There is one job worth doing in the first week that costs nothing, takes ten minutes, and prevents a disproportionate share of the calls we take. Walk the unit and work every lock, including the ones you have no intention of using.

The front door will be fine, because somebody has been using it. What you are looking for is the patio slider, the door from a garage into the unit, a store cupboard on a shared landing, a gate onto a service lane. Those are the mechanisms that seize unnoticed.

Finding a dead lock on a Saturday morning is very much better than finding it on a night when the main gate is already out. Anything stiff is lock repair now and a broken key later, and both are cheaper today.

What the previous occupant could not tell you

A handover produces a set of keys and an assurance, and the assurance is worth very little through no fault of anybody involved.

A unit that has been let for a decade has been through tenants, agents, cleaners and contractors, each of whom held a key at some point. The person handing you two sets could not tell you how many exist if they wanted to, because nobody kept a record and copies cost a few rand at any hardware counter in Johannesburg.

That is why re-pinning is the standard first-week job here rather than an anxious one. It changes the internals of the locks already on the doors so every previously cut key stops working, and — crucially in a complex — nothing visible changes, so nobody's approval is needed. The detail is on the rekeying in Fourways page.

Numbers worth having before you need them

There is a short list of contacts worth assembling in the first fortnight, and the reason is that every one is difficult to find at eleven at night.

A locksmith, saved rather than searched for one-handed in the dark. The managing agent, a trustee, and the guardhouse — because a lockout behind a boom needs somebody to authorise a vehicle at the gate, and that call takes longer than the drive. And whoever holds your spare set, plus how far away they actually live rather than roughly where.

Keep all of it somewhere that is not inside the unit, which in practice means a phone. It is the cheapest preparation available and it is the difference between a short wait and a long one on the night it matters. What happens once somebody arrives is on the emergency locksmith page.

What not to spend money on in the first year

Worth saying plainly, because a new home attracts a certain amount of advice: most of what gets recommended to new arrivals is not necessary.

You do not need every cylinder replaced. You do not need a high-security lock on an internal door, on a door already behind a sound security gate, or on anything the estate regulates so tightly that you will be removing it in six months. You do not need an alarm integration to solve a key problem, and you do not need to replace hardware that is simply old rather than worn.

What you do need is the key question answered, the frames checked, and the two or three concealed doors looked at. That is a short list on almost every property here, and anything longer deserves a specific reason. The order is set out under high security locks.

The first-year jobs, in order

Beyond the first fortnight there is a short list worth working through across the first year, and it is deliberately short because most units do not need much.

Reinforce the strike plate on the main door with screws that reach structure. Fit a hookbolt to the patio slider if there is one. Put a proper cylinder on the door between the garage and the unit, because that is treated as an internal door and is not one. Have the pedestrian gate lock looked at, since it is the mechanism that seizes unnoticed.

Then stop. Anybody who wants to replace every cylinder in a unit is selling rather than advising, and on most properties here three or four items covers everything genuinely worth doing. The reasoning behind that order is under high security locks in Fourways.

What the previous occupant could not tell you

A handover produces a set of keys and an assurance, and the assurance is worth very little through no fault of anybody involved.

A unit that has been let for a decade has been through tenants, agents, cleaners and contractors, each of whom held a key at some point. The person handing you two sets could not tell you how many exist if they wanted to, because nobody kept a record and copies cost a few rand at any hardware counter in Johannesburg.

That is why re-pinning is the standard first-week job here rather than an anxious one. It changes the internals of the locks already on the doors so every previously cut key stops working and — crucially in a complex — nothing visible changes, so nobody's approval is needed. It is a single rekeying in Johannesburg visit.

The one job worth doing on day one

If you only do one thing in the first week, do this: find out who to call at two in the morning if you are locked out and the complex gate is involved.

It is a single question to the managing agent and the answer differs by development. Some allow the guardhouse to admit a contractor on a resident's authorisation at any hour. Some require the agent, who is not answering. A few run an after-hours trustee rota that residents are never told about until they need it.

Save that number in your phone rather than anywhere inside the unit. Everything else on this page can wait a fortnight; this one cannot, because the night you need it is the night you cannot find it. How the rest of a house lockout in Fourways runs is set out separately.