Getting Keys Made

If you need a duplicate key, don't take it to the grocery store or to a Big Box Store to have it made. I am not naming names but you know what I mean. We are talking about those big chain stores that have put local hardware stores out of business.

It doesn't cost more to take it to a professional, a lock smith. They charge the same price. The difference? Their keys always work. Always. Not so the keys from the Big Box Stores.

Let me tell you how many times I have had a property owner duplicate a key and bring it to me, only for us to discover that it doesn't work. I currently am working on a listing where the owner lives in another state. They over-nighted the keys to me. I drove over to the property once, only to discover that I had left the gate code at the office. I drove over to the property a second time, got inside the gates, found the unit (which is identified with a unit number not in the tax records or supplied by the owner so I got to intuitively locate the unit and hope that I wouldn't get shot in the process). The keys don't work. I am about to go back over with someone else and a a can of WD-40 just to make absolutely certain that the problem is the key.