Elmwood locksmith calls, for houses that have not changed hands in thirty years and the short shopping block on College Ave at Ashby

Elmwood turns over slowly, and that is the shape of the work. A family that has held the same house since the 1980s has handed keys to a housekeeper, two contractors, a garden service, three sets of neighbors and a grown child who has since moved away, and nobody kept the list. When the house sells, or when a parent moves and a family member takes over, the sensible first visit is a whole-property rekey at $22 to $37 per cylinder, with the front, the kitchen door, the basement and the side gate padlock brought onto one key. Hardware here is old enough that some of it has worn past pinning: a bolt that has to be lifted to throw, a key that turns only at one angle. Lock replacement is $105 to $285 per door, and the technician will say which doors need it and which need the strike moved an eighth of an inch.

Two other jobs are unusually common on these blocks. Safes bought a generation ago and inherited with the house, where the combination went with the previous owner or the dial no longer tracks, open at $169 to $485 without cutting the door apart in most cases. And side gates, which is where the lockouts start: someone carries compost down the driveway, the gate latch drops behind them, and the front door is bolted from inside. That is a house lockout at $109 to $189, opened without damage first. Along College Ave the shops sit behind wood-framed glass doors under awnings, and storefront work at $139 to $435 is mostly deadlatch and alignment. Arrival to Elmwood is about sixteen minutes.