House Lockout in Redwood City
A front door, a flat, a side gate or a garage, opened with picks rather than a drill, $119 to $205 with the visit inside.
$119–$205
Typical price
21 min
Avg. arrival
24/7
Availability
The stories are small and they repeat. A 1928 house in Mount Carmel whose mortise latch caught behind someone carrying out the bins. A flat over a Broadway restaurant, the door on a closer, the key on its hook inside. A Redwood Shores townhome where the remote is in the car and the car is in the garage. Sequoia Lock & Key opens residential doors across Redwood City at any hour. Calls are answered 24/7, the figure is settled on the call, and a text with the technician's name and a thirty-minute window reaches you before the van leaves.
The city's doors sort into three families. West of El Camino, the older streets carry mortise sets from the twenties and thirties: a brass case let into the door edge, with a cylinder that picks readily unless somebody has forced it before. The postwar houses in Woodside Plaza and Roosevelt carry a knob and a deadbolt that answer to a pick or a bypass in a few minutes. The Shores and the downtown buildings run modern levers and keypads, and where there is a lobby buzzer the technician meets you at it rather than working the building door. In every case your ID with the address, or a lease on your phone beside a piece of addressed mail, is compared with the door before a tool leaves the bag.
House lockouts run $119 to $205. A single pin-tumbler deadbolt on a street-level door in daylight is $119. A mortise set with a seized cylinder, a high-security cylinder, or a second locked door behind the first moves toward $205. The $89 service call is already inside those figures; nothing is added afterward. Between 8pm and midnight the $119 door reads $169; between midnight and 7am it reads $204. If drilling turns out to be the only route left, you hear why, you say yes, and the figure stays where it was.
Tell us the door: house or flat, the lock on it, roughly what the key looks like. Hear the figure read back, whole, on the same call. Watch it opened: the ID check, the opening, and the bolt run through a few cycles to confirm nothing inside was strained. Pay what was read, by card or tap at the threshold, with an itemized receipt by email. Twenty-one minutes is the average across the city. Mount Carmel runs about that. Emerald Hills and the streets above Farm Hill Blvd run longer, and the window in your text says so rather than pretending otherwise.
“Our 1926 house has the original mortise lock and I managed to shut the door with the only working key on the kitchen table. The call gave me $139 and a text with a name arrived while I was still standing on the porch. The technician had the door open in a few minutes with the brass untouched, then showed me how the old key was worn and why it had started sticking. $139 on the card, receipt in my email before he reached the van.”
Every job is priced from the list below. The figure is settled on the call, before the van turns its own key, and the receipt shows the same figure.
- Daytime (7am–8pm)standard rates
- Evening (8pm–12am)+$50
- Overnight (12am–7am)+$85
FAQ
House Lockout: quick answers
My building in the Shores is HOA-managed and I have not been given keys yet. What counts as proof?+
Photo ID plus the signed lease or purchase papers on your phone, with the unit number on them. If the association holds the building keys, the technician opens your unit door only; the lobby is not defeated. A text from the property manager naming you is also accepted.
Our Mount Carmel front door still has its 1927 mortise lock. Is picking it a risk?+
A small one. Those cylinders were made to close tolerances and most still pick cleanly. The larger risk is a cylinder somebody has already forced, which is checked first. If the case is worn past reliable use, you hear that plainly and a replacement is quoted as its own line for another day.
How long to a house at the top of Emerald Hills at night?+
Longer than twenty-one. The roads wind, the driveways are long, and twenty-seven minutes is the honest average up there. The text gives the window for your address, not the citywide one. Leave the gate open if there is one, or send the code.
Related
More emergency services
24/7 — nights, weekends & holidays
One call, one figure, settled before the van turns the key
Calls answered 24/7 for Redwood City and the towns beside it. One figure for the visit, the labor and the parts, with the $89 service call inside it, and a receipt that matches it line for line.