Smart locks
House lockouts
Re-keying
Deadbolt upgrades
Schlage
Kwikset
Car keys & fobsNon-destructive entry first, always - and we re-key Schlage, Kwikset, and Baldwin locks on the spot while you watch
You get a price before we start. It does not change when we arrive. No surprises.
Get your free estimateFast, Reliable Emergency Locksmith Across Los Angeles
An emergency lockout in Los Angeles rarely happens at a convenient time. Whether you’re standing outside a locked car in a Koreatown parking structure, locked out of a 1920s Craftsman bungalow in Mid-City, or a Pico-Union landlord who just realized the new tenant’s key doesn’t turn the old mortise lock, our Emergency Locksmith team reaches most Los Angeles neighborhoods quickly and can usually get you back inside without destroying the hardware. We’re Glendale Lock & Key, led by Noel Tarkanian, and we’ve built our reputation on non-destructive entry, honest assessments, and rekeying old locks rather than selling replacements you don’t need. Call (855) 791-2710 and a tech will head your way.
Why Glendale Lock & Key Is Los Angeles’s Preferred Emergency Locksmith Company
Los Angeles locksmith work is different from what you’d find in a suburb full of single-family homes and attached garages. Our techs get called to curbside car lockouts on Wilshire Boulevard at midnight, broken keys in apartment-court entry doors in Echo Park, and tenant-turnover rekeys in 1920s courtyard buildings where every door still carries its original hardware. Noel Tarkanian leads a team that works on Schlage, Kwikset, Medeco, and Abloy hardware as a matter of routine, so we don’t need to drill a cylinder just because it’s older than the tech working on it. Los Angeles customers regularly tell us the two things they want from a locksmith: show up fast, and don’t turn a $40 rekey into a $400 replacement. That’s the standard we work to.
Response time to central Los Angeles neighborhoods is typically under 30 minutes for urgent lockout calls. For non-emergency work like eviction lock changes or safe openings, we schedule a window that works for the property owner or tenant. The dispatch team at (855) 791-2710 quotes the full price on the phone before a tech is dispatched. That quoted price is the price on the invoice. There’s no call-out surcharge added when the tech arrives, and no pressure to authorize extra work once the door is open.
Styles & brands we work with
Our Emergency Locksmith Services in Los Angeles
24/7 Emergency Lockout
Car door lockouts in surface lots and parking structures, house lockouts on residential streets in Los Angeles, and apartment lockouts where the key is on the kitchen counter and the deadbolt is engaged. Our Emergency Locksmith response covers ZIP codes 90005, 90006, 90007, and 90008, along with surrounding neighborhoods. We open doors without drilling when the cylinder is functional, and we’re trained on the old mortise locks that still secure thousands of pre-war buildings in this city.
Broken Key Extraction
A snapped key in an exterior deadbolt on a 1924 Spanish Colonial in West Adams is not the same job as a broken key in a modern Kwikset on a new build. The old mortise cylinders and skeleton-key-era locks using converted cylinders often have tighter tolerances and decades of wear. We extract the broken piece with key extractors and picks first, and only drill when the cylinder is already beyond saving. In Los Angeles, the dry air doesn’t rust locks much, but Santa Ana dust gets into keyways and makes a brittle old key snap more easily than people expect.
Safe Opening
We open residential safes and small commercial safes throughout Los Angeles. Most calls are combination failures, electronic keypad failures, or jammed boltwork. We handle entry without destroying the safe whenever the locking mechanism is standard, and we tell you before we start whether the safe can be reused or if the lock needs replacement. If you’re a landlord with a safe left in a vacated unit or an office manager in a 90005 building with a jammed overnight deposit box, call (855) 791-2710 for a flat-rate quote before anyone is dispatched.
Eviction Lock Change
Los Angeles landlords handle turnover differently than most markets. In Koreatown, Pico-Union, and South LA, evictions and tenant changes move faster than suburban move-out cycles. We do same-day eviction lock changes and rekeys, and we do them without asking you to replace the hardware if the cylinders are still functional. Rekeying a Medeco or Schlage deadbolt is often faster and cheaper than a full lock swap, and it restores key control immediately. If the existing lock is an original mortise set on a 1920s door, we rekey the cylinder in place rather than cutting the door for a modern deadbolt.
What happens when you call
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A real person answersNo phone trees — you reach a local pro.
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You get an upfront price rangeHonest numbers before anyone is dispatched.
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A background-checked tech heads outLicensed & insured, dispatched right away.
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You approve before work beginsNothing starts until you say go.
Trusted Brands We Service in Los Angeles
We work on Schlage, Kwikset, Medeco, and Abloy hardware regularly, along with Yale, Baldwin, Mul-T-Lock, and Sargent. The reason this matters in Los Angeles is the age of the housing stock. A lock on a 1962 dingbat in Silver Lake might be a Kwikset that was installed during the Reagan administration. A lock on a Craftsman in Jefferson Park might be an original mortise cylinder that no big-box store stocks parts for. We carry a range of pins, cylinders, and replacement parts for both, so a rekey doesn’t turn into a two-day parts wait. If the lock can be saved, we rekey it. If it’s genuinely dead, we tell you before we replace it.
Common Emergency Locksmith Problems We See in Los Angeles Homes
- Worn mortise locks on pre-war doors. Cities like Los Angeles still have tens of thousands of 1910s-1920s Craftsman and Spanish Colonial homes with original mortise lock bodies. When the cylinder is worn, the key feels loose, the deadbolt is hard to throw, and eventually the key just spins. Rekeying the cylinder often solves the security issue without touching the 100-year-old lock body. Drilling these out is the expensive mistake we get called to fix.
- Warped original doors that won’t take a modern deadbolt cleanly. Wood doors on old Los Angeles bungalows have settled and warped over decades. A modern deadbolt installed by someone who doesn’t do this work daily will bind, stick, and fail within weeks. We either adjust the strike, rebuild the mortise pocket, or rekey the existing hardware so the door closes and locks the way it was designed to.
- Santa Ana grit in keyways and car door cylinders. The dry heat and wind-driven dust in Los Angeles don’t rust locks like a humid city would, but they do foul exterior keyways and car door cylinders. A key that won’t turn after a windy week often just needs the cylinder cleaned and lubricated, not replaced. We see this misdiagnosed constantly in the 90006 and 90007 ZIP codes.
- Mismatched knob and deadbolt combinations in rental units. Decades of different landlords and tenants means many Los Angeles apartments have a Schlage deadbolt and a general-import knob that share nothing but the same door. When we rekey a unit during turnover, we key the knob and deadbolt alike so the tenant carries one key instead of two, and the landlord gets a clean key-control reset.
Pricing for Emergency Locksmith in Los Angeles, CA
Here are the honest numbers for Los Angeles. A standard car lockout runs $75 to $130. A house or apartment lockout with no drilling is $85 to $150 depending on the lock type and time of night. Broken key extraction runs $70 to $140. A full eviction lock change or tenant-turnover rekey typically runs $95 to $190 for the first cylinder and $25 to $40 per additional cylinder. Safe opening runs $180 to $380 depending on the lock type and whether the safe is reusable afterward. These are real ranges, not teaser prices. When you call (855) 791-2710, you get the full price on the phone, and that’s the price on the invoice. No call-out surcharge is added when the tech arrives.
We Also Serve Cities Near Los Angeles
Our service area covers the central Los Angeles neighborhoods we get the most calls from: Koreatown, Echo Park, Silver Lake, and Hollywood. We also serve the wider Los Angeles metro area, including Mid-City, Pico-Union, Westlake, and South LA. If you’re just outside central Los Angeles, call us anyway. If we can’t get to you fast enough, we’ll tell you straight before anyone is dispatched.
Serving Los Angeles, CA — Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Los Angeles area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage — if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs – Emergency Locksmith in Los Angeles
In most cases we can rekey the existing mortise cylinder without replacing the lock body, and that’s almost always the right call on a pre-war Los Angeles building. The lock body on a 1920s Koreatown apartment door was built into the door itself, and pulling it means cutting into original wood, patching the mortise pocket, and often ending up with a lock that fits worse than what was there. We pick or shim the cylinder open, rekey it to new keys, and you keep the original hardware. Rekeying typically runs $95 to $150 in Los Angeles. Call (855) 791-2710 for a flat quote before we’re dispatched.
They don’t need special hardware, but they do need someone who understands the original door and lock geometry. Craftsman and Spanish Colonial bungalows in neighborhoods across Los Angeles commonly have original mortise locks, single-cylinder deadbolts with narrow backsets, and doors that have warped out of square. A modern deadbolt can usually be installed, but doing it without addressing the door alignment just creates a lock that binds and fails. We’d rather rekey the existing cylinder when it’s in serviceable shape. If the old lock is genuinely done, we quote the replacement honestly and fit it to the door, not the other way around.
Yes, in the large majority of Los Angeles apartment lockouts we open the door without drilling. That includes old mortise locks, Kwikset and Schlage cylinders, and most standard apartment entry sets. The exceptions are locks that are already mechanically failed, or high-security cylinders like some Medeco and Abloy models where non-destructive entry is deliberately difficult. We tell you on the phone what to expect based on the lock type, and we don’t drill anything unless it’s the only option. Our non-destructive lockout service in central Los Angeles typically runs $85 to $150.
Rekey the existing cylinders rather than replacing the locks. In Pico-Union and the surrounding renter-heavy neighborhoods of Los Angeles, most doors carry Kwikset or Schlage cylinders that rekey in 15 to 20 minutes per lock. We meet you at the property, rekey every exterior cylinder so the previous tenant’s keys stop working immediately, and hand you one key that controls the unit. For landlords with multiple units on a single property, we can set up a simple master-key system so you carry one key and each tenant carries their own. Rushed turnarounds are normal in Los Angeles rental markets, and we schedule rekeys around move-out and move-in dates, not the other way around.
Probably not. The Santa Ana winds push fine dust and grit into exterior keyways, car door cylinders, and padlocks all over Los Angeles, and a key that won’t turn after a windy week is often just a fouled cylinder. The fix is usually a good cleaning and lubrication, not a new lock. It’s one of the most common calls we get across the 90005 through 90008 ZIP codes, and the majority of them end as a service call rather than a hardware replacement. If the key is also visibly worn, or the cylinder has actual mechanical damage, we’ll tell you that on site and quote the repair or replacement before doing any work. Call (855) 791-2710 for a free phone estimate.
For any urgent lock issue in Los Angeles, call (855) 791-2710 and get a straight quote from a tech who knows this city’s locks better than anyone. Free estimates, honest pricing, and no call-out surcharge. From the ignition to the deadbolt, we’re there when it can’t wait.
Written by Noel Tarkanian, Owner at Glendale Lock & Key, serving Los Angeles and the surrounding area.