Recommendation for Cal-Royal mortise cylinder replacement

[ARF-GEF]

Don't take "the lawyering" the wrong way
It's not aimed at bothering or "interrogating" you, it's just that people don't want you to get into trouble in the future because of some obligation you might have overlooked.

That said I always found the US practice of providing other "unknown" people with keys to your apartment very peculiar. Here the philosophy is: my home, my castle, if you want in better ask me or face the consequences.
The idea that someone other than the owner would have right to enter the apartment isounds very strange to people here. But that's just here, (frankly it's an appalling concept to me too).

[GWiens2001]

That said I always found the US practice of providing other "unknown" people with keys to your apartment very peculiar. Here the philosophy is: my home, my castle, if you want in better ask me or face the consequences.
The idea that someone other than the owner would have right to enter the apartment isounds very strange to people here. But that's just here, (frankly it's an appalling concept to me too).

Agreed. My house can be entered by seven people: Me, my wife, my son, my parents and my wife's parents. Every now and then one of our parents will take care of our son, or may have to have access while we are away, so they have access. We also have keys to their homes for the same reason. We do not rent, nor are we in an apartment, so we have no other concerns with 'right of access'.

Gordon

[Evan]

That said I always found the US practice of providing other "unknown" people with keys to your apartment very peculiar. Here the philosophy is: my home, my castle, if you want in better ask me or face the consequences.
The idea that someone other than the owner would have right to enter the apartment isounds very strange to people here. But that's just here, (frankly it's an appalling concept to me too).

When your "castle" is on the 10th floor and has 8 or 9 other people's castles below it, your strict concerns for total privacy and denying everyone entry without your prior consent are mitigated by the other people's rights to not have to wait for you to come home in the event of a water leak or other disaster...

In high density occupancy dwelling units many of the AHJ's will require some form of centralized fire alarm system as opposed to simple line-voltage battery back up smoke detectors which are allowed for use in low density and single occupancy dwellings... With a fire alarm system comes the "right of access" or the "you pay for the door repair charge" situation...

The real lawyering would only begin in a situation where you were allowed to have total control of access and kept everyone out of your apartment and had some sort of leak -- management would force/break your door AND you would have to pay for repairs to everyone below who got wet they would not wait for you to return home... That is why in high density dwelling units your locks have master keys and "unknown" people have access, because every little water leak would devolve to lawsuits otherwise...

~~ Evan

[cledry]

Here in my area no condominiums have a master key system. Hence we get a lot of calls to open apartments because of water leaks etc. If you own the condo you have the right not to have another key available to enter your home. There is too much liability involved for the management.

Apartments on the other hand sometimes have a master key, but even then it is not common these days. Liability is the reasoning. A few rapes by maintenance or management employees, the cost of rekeying if said employee leaves far outweighs the cost of calling a locksmith.

[fgarci03]

When your "castle" is on the 10th floor and has 8 or 9 other people's castles below it, your strict concerns for total privacy and denying everyone entry without your prior consent are mitigated by the other people's rights to not have to wait for you to come home in the event of a water leak or other disaster...

Evan, you are right. But there's this: I don't have to trust the management of the building. They are human beings just like the rest of us.

I do agree that some sort of secondary access should be achieved, for no one having to take your door down, but I find that just the existence of a master key in the hands of someone I wouldn't invite to my daughter's birthday is just pushing it. Maybe the existence of said master key but stores somewhere where all access are logged?

Not to mention that having a masterkeyed building opens a lot of security issues. I would IMMEDIATELY disassemble the lock and make a master key for the whole building!

And I'm an honest guy, think of what I would do if I wasn't


My (hopefully future to be) parents in law live and work in Switzerland. On their building it works the same way. Their key (wich is a KABA something) opens the building's front door, laundry and their home door. Their neighbours' keys are the same, each for their own homes. And the owner has a masterkey that opens them all.
What prevents him to enter someone's home and steal whatever he want's when people are out?

[dll932]

Lots of lawyering on this forum! As I already replied to jeffmoss26, this is a condominium which I own and have the right to rekey.

cledry: I agree; the various mortise cylinders I have inspected definitely do not seem to have standardized mounting holes for a cam. Hopefully the Corbin Russwin or Falcon will be close enough to work, otherwise I'm stuck with rekeying the current cylinder I guess.

Thanks for the advice!

I have lots of Corbin mortise locks where I work. We had Schlage cylinders with cloverleaf cams that worked fine, but I found that the General I/C shells I got with those don't work unless I cut off the "wings." Some few I have had to file the top round portion down.