Locks at my Grandmas house comprimised

[corey2444]

Ok, I am new to locksmithing. Months into this now. I have been starting to get business. My grandmother passed away in 2006. She was very well off. The house she lived in has been vacant since she passed away.

My dad wants to get the home ready to sell, and asked me to re-key the locks. There were 16 locks total to re-key. Everything appeared like a normal job with a few snags until I got to the master bedroom and the work room adjacent to the garage. The deadbolt in the master bedroom had glue in the deadbolt, and was in the unlocked position. The knob lock below had a small piece of double faced tape jammed in the striker, keeping it in the open position. All that needed to be done was simply push the door to open it. It was easy to overlook due to the wood being warped, and hard to push/pull open.

The workroom adjacent to the garage had a wood door that has two locks, and a security door with just a deadbolt with the knob lock missing. This is where it gets really weird. The Kwikset deadbolt on the security door had no bolts holding both escutcheon's together. (it's hard to explain, but..) Instead the bolts were removed and replaced by some kind of plate under the escutcheon that's glued on both sides of the plate. You can see the plate behind the 2 bolt holes. I could not get this thing off. It's a normal grade 3 kwikset double deadbolt. In my opinion, someone had the key and did not want this lock serviced at all costs.

The wood door behind the security door to the workroom adjacent to the garage, had the deadbolt drilled out, so it could be turned with a screwdriver. The knob lock had the inner knob cut off so it could not be locked. The funny thing was, there were boxes stacked to hide these doors and make it appear the door was not to be used. Someone however could easily push these boxes from the outside, and sit in this work room unnoticed. When they wanted to leave, the could pull the boxes back through the doggy door.

In the garage there was a Titan knob and deadbolt. My dad said he had to leave this unlocked because there was never a key. The rest of the locks in the house had grade 3 or signature Kwikset.

My grandmother constantly complained people were coming in her house. We all thought she was just losing it due to old age, but now I think she may have had someone really coming in. She said things would be missing, furniture would be moved. Doors left open. Just people messing with her. But she would also say things were missing. Expensive things, like irreplaceable jewelry.

I kind of feel sick to my stomach finding this out. These locks being screwed with may have happened after my grandma passed for some squatters, but that's an awful lot of trouble, imo. I don't want to think about it. It's very strange, the whole thing.

[E1001]

Wow, that's pretty creepy. I wouldn't like the feeling of knowing someone was walking around my house at night.

[Scott_93]

Not nice at all, just shows that regular checks and servicing of locks are needed, but I suppose it becomes like checks before we drive, I mean how many of us check the state of a vehicle before we drive it?

I might be inclined to inform your local law enforcement too, especially if there was people gaining entry, indeed they may be targeting more vulnerable people.

Scott.

[Schuyler]

That's absolutely miserable. I'm sorry this has happened to anyone, and particularly your family. I would certainly follow up with law enforcement. I didn't quite have a whole picture of how police reports come together until we were robbed recently. One of my roommates did the right thing and followed up with the police immediately, even though we were quite confident we were screwed on getting anything back/catching the guy.

However, it turned out enough of us (people he had robbed) had come forward that the cops were able to get a very clear picture of what this guy had been up to and we were the last straw for the investigation. They caught him a week later driving with a bunch of stolen items (some of it ours) in a car to fence it. He admitted to everything and though it's still tied up in the case, we should be receiving either our stolen goods or compensation at some point.

Anyway, this is just to say that every bit actually does count, so reporting this creepiness to your local police may be the start of an investigation, or it may provide information that doesn't seem important to you, but could point to some person or group of persons when couple with other reports.

Either way, good luck.

[E1001]

I agree, reporting it to the police is always a good idea.

[corey2444]

You can make Kwikset hard to pick, and bump resistant by adding a couple of spools, and double up on the springs in two chambers, I like to go 2 and 4 chamber. Basically just take two springs and sorta tangle them together so they look like one. You may have to cut a little of one spring so they are even height. I've done this to all my locks in my house and I cannot bump any. Picking them is very difficult also.

[zeke79]

I have dealt with many cases where seniors state someone is gaining access into their homes. Hopefully it makes you feel better that I have never been able to confirm any of them. I of course am not a doctor but I think most of these cases are due to a mental illness and when you look around the house you see other signs that would confirm that diagnosis along with the paranoia (I almost finished my psychology degree before changing majors). Now, I am by no means saying your grandmother had a mental illness as I am just going by the cases I have been involved with. Once a person is convinced these things are happening it is virtually impossible to convince them otherwise. I know guys who have went so far as to temporarily install video/audio recording setups in the home for a few weeks. The home owner is told to call when someone has been in the home that shouldn't be. When the call comes the video is reviewed. Even when they are shown the concrete proof that no one has been in their home they have explanations such as the person gained access to the DVR in the locked security cabinet and erased the video etc.

Now, I truly hope this wasn't happening to your grandmother. My personal assesment of what you stated allows me to believe that in my opinion chances are very very low it was happening. Now you stated that alot of odd things were present but some of them can be explained a bit by taking into account my experience working with seniors that have been in the same situation. The drilled lock still installed seems odd but if you look at it and take a few points into consideration it's not quite as odd. I have found that when dealing with seniors that are old enough to have been children during the depression they tend to use items until they simply disentegrate. The knob could have been drilled due to a lost key and once she discovered that the knob was still useable but just couldn't be locked she was fine to continue to use it. If it was on an entry door then I would be much more concerned that someone was gaining entry but the fact that it was only on a work room, closet etc leads me to think that it was possibly just not replaced. Did you look at how the lock was drilled? Did it appear to be a precise, cleanly drilled lock that a professional had worked on or did it appear to be a botch job? That can tell you a bit right there. I understand that any person could have the skills required to cleanly drill a lock but chances are if it wasn't a professional you could tell. If it appears to be professionally done then chances are the situation above is the case. The security door with the deadbolt on it that was not operational had another locking door behind it correct? If so, chances are that she was just using the locking door behind it. I tend to run into alot of homes belonging to seniors that have alot of items just like that security door in need of repair. The fact of the matter is that alot of seniors simply cannot keep their homes up as they normally would and many of them for some reason feel as though they are bothering me if they call to have something so small worked on.

I would agree that there were alot of odd things present at your grandmothers home. If you have some experience working with seniors with the same complaint of people gaining access to the home you find alot of similarities though. The items that were not in working order is likely due to the simple fact that they are unable to take care of it themselves anymore and they do not want to bother family to work on it so you likely never knew about it. These things along with the stuff that was piled up all over, covering doors is very similar to the situations I see with seniors here that complain about people gaining access to their home.

As you said, it is possible that you had some squatters. That is not a problem in my area but I know it is a big problem elsewhere. It is definately a possibility. You can likely confirm this by taking a close look around the house. Keep an eye out for candles, food wrappers, blankets etc in odd areas where your grandmother wouldn't have been eating or sleeping.

Of course I cannot say for sure whether someone was getting into your grandmothers home or not. The information you have posted about it however leads me to believe that it was not happening. There are just too many similar things that you described that I see in homes of seniors I have worked with that have the same complaint. Hopefully that puts your mind to ease a bit. I do agree that you need to contact the authorities if you are having a problem with squatters as they cause huge amounts of property damage and pose a health risk to you. Many squatters are drug users so keep an eye out for dirty needles, foils, water bottles, spoons and pipes. I am sure you know what to look for. Squatters tear up alot of stuff from what I hear so it's best to get rid of them as they are likely damaging other homes in the area.

I hope this helps put your mind at ease a bit.

[corey2444]

It's kind of funny it happened to all the locks on two entrances. two locks on a security door, two locks on the same entrance the security door is, and two locks where the master bedroom is.

Didn't see any evidence of squatters.

[jwhou]

Sounds like your grandma was probably taken advantage of by less scrupulous people portraying themselves as friends or caregivers. Unfortunately this happens an awful lot and not only to the elderly. A con artist can be truly devious in assuring continued access to a mark. The re-keying of locks must certainly be supervised or done by people you trust. I re-keyed my house recently and found that the builder left out a pin in half of the locks, pocketed all the anti-pick spool top drivers except one (Kwikset documentation says these locks come with three anti-pick pins each) and were obviously mastered for use with builder's keys which although disabled via the use of the homeowner's key, meant that the entire neighborhood can likely be opened by several master keys that would be trivial to cut from a sample builder's key. The true tragedy is that her loved ones simply discounted her concerns as symptoms of her advancing years, she was probably even doubting her own sanity.