I would suggest you head to your nearest locksmith shop and have duplicates of at least your house key made because you should never have only one key to anything that you don’t want to be locked out of!

Getting a duplicate key made will take hardly any time, is quite an insignificant fee and it will be much cheaper than paying a locksmith to let you in if you’re ever locked out in the future.

Our Berkeley locksmith shop is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 5:30 and on Saturdays from 9:00 to 4:30.

When searching online for a locksmith in Berkeley, you’re likely to come across twenty or thirty different businesses but there are only about four legitimate locksmith shops in Berkeley.

There are two or three fraudulent locksmiths in Berkeley operating under ten or so different names each at ten or so fake addresses. They even go so far as to pirate the address of a local locksmith and put their own name and number on the listing. These people reason that no matter who you think you’re calling, you will end up reaching them. The odds are excellent that you will actually be contacting a fake locksmith even when you think you have found a legitimate company.

An excellent way to tell if you have a fake is to always ask if you can stop by their shop during normal business hours to get a duplicate key. Anyone who says no is not a legitimate locksmith in Berkeley.

Anyone like this is completely untrustworthy. Someone desperate enough to post an erroneous address or to steal someone else’s is very bad news. They also have minimal training and are probably not licensed. It is illegal to operate as a locksmith in  the state of California without  one.

Here at Rex Key & Security, this is very bad news for us. Not only are these fraudulent locksmiths basically poaching our customers, but even though we’ve been in business for a hundred years, we’re concerned about being painted with the same brush as those unscrupulous companies.

We’ve responded to many complaints from customers that need us to come and fix their locks after they got locked out and have had fake locksmiths damage their locks. The fakes often get the jobs by quoting super low prices but they will raise the price when they get to the location and they rarely do the job they were hired for.

A consumer only makes that mistake once.

One of my competitors, a fellow locksmith, has done two sting operations. He calls out one of the fakes to unlock a car and after the fake opens the car he has his employees box in that car with a couple of other cars and then makes a citizen’s arrest. The police arrive and arrest the fake. The last guy caught is still in jail for immigration problems as it turns out he was here from Israel and has an expired visitors pass.

These people don’t care about you or your security needs. They just want to make a buck at your expense. We call them hit and run artists.

Please take your time when choosing a locksmith in Berkeley. Hiring one of these fraudulent companies will not result in a good situation for you and you will likely end up calling us anyway. Program our number in your phone and call on us when you find yourself locked out: 1-800-739-5397

That means in single-parent homes, a parent might have to work two jobs or overtime in their one job. In most “nuclear” families, both parents work at least one job. That means there are probably more latchkey kids in California and the entire United States now than there ever have been before, because parents have limited options when it comes to providing care for their children, especially at a certain age.

Parents have no choice but to work and when a child is deemed old enough or mature enough, they’re often given a key to get in their house and then they look after themselves until a parent gets home.

The “latchkey kid” phrase was coined in the 1800s when a child would literally wear a key to their house on a string around their neck.

You don’t see that these days, but in most cases, a child does have a key to their house somewhere on their person.

We’ve all been guilty of misplacing a key as adults, but what happens if your child loses their key and has nowhere else to go until you get home? They would be so scared, you hardly want to think about it.

This is when having a keyless locking system really benefits a family. You can find locks operated by a combination code or a key that will work with your existing door. If your child is home from school before you get home and they have the code, they can let themselves in whether or not they have a key.

To make the code easy to remember, let your child help come up with the number you choose.

At Rex Key & Security we sell a variety of this type of lock. Come see us at our well-stocked locksmith shop located at 1908 University Avenue in Berkeley.

If you haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions yet, here’s an idea for you. Ensure you and your family get through 2010 safe and sound by resolving this year to make some home improvements to protect against intruders.

Almost everyone could stand to add one or two items to their home security repertoire. Here are some suggestions for you to help protect your home:

• Install bright lights around your homes points of entry to deter a burglar for fear of being spotted
• Make sure you have good quality deadlocks on all of your doors.
• Stop hiding a key outside in an obvious place.
• Put your family’s valuables in a fireproof safe or store them off site in a safety deposit box.
• Always lock your doors even when you’re at home.
• Never let a strange into your home, no matter how official they might appear. There are many scams running rampant and some robbers dress as delivery personnel or other officials. Always ask to see ID and inspect it closely before letting someone in your home.
• Don’t forget to lock your windows.
• Never leave ladders or anything else alongside your home to help a burglar climb to the second floor to find a new way to gain entry.
• Ensure your home’s doors are of high quality.
• If you did not change your locks when you moved into your current home, change them now. It’s never too late.

You can never be overly cautious when it comes to protecting your home. A few small improvements and minor investments can go a very long way in ensuring your family’s safety.

Using a technique called lock bumping, anyone who knows how to use Google can pick your lock in under 60 seconds.

The act of lock bumping might sound new to you but rest assured – criminals have been doing it for decades. A bump key is a key that’s been cut in a certain way so that when inserted in a pin tumbler lock and tapped in a particular way, the pins in the lock cylinder are released and the door opens.

The first US patent for a bump key appeared in 1928 but surprisingly it wasn’t until around 2002 that the use of a bump key was seen as a possible security threat.

Today you can purchase bump keys on the Internet for a couple of dollars and learning how to use one to gain entry into a home is very easy, again, thanks to the Internet. An intruder can open your door using a bump key within seconds.

There are a couple of ways you can protect your home being entered with a bump key:

Buy a bump proof lock. There are several manufacturers today making bump proof locks.  A bump proof lock system is more expensive than a regular lock, but it’s an important investment in your home’s safety.

Have your lock bump proofed. Your local locksmith can convert your standard lock into a bump proof one for a very small amount of money.

Please do not make the mistake of assuming that your expensive door locks can’t be bumped because ironically, the more expensive locks are easier to bump. Because they’re more accurately machined, locks made of tougher steel are easier to open with a bump key because they’ll hardly sustain any damage during the bumping process. Whereas a cheap lock likely won’t be able to resist the strength of the knock it receives during a bump cause it not to turn as the intruder hopes it will.