Lock Rekeying in Aurora, CO

Why Aurora homes collect old keys

Aurora grew in waves. The city's 2020 Housing Strategy says the population rose 325 percent in the 1950s and more than doubled in the 1970s, and Census estimates for 2024 date about 44 percent of the city's homes to 1970 through 1989. A house that age may have passed through several owners and tenants, along with the cleaners and contractors who were handed copies. Rekeying resets the pins inside the existing cylinders so the old keys stop working, while the lock bodies, handles and finish stay where they are.

New construction has its own key history. The Housing Strategy puts the newest homes around E-470, and before a sale closes, builders' crews and others may have handled keys to the house.

Count every keyed door

Aurora's City Code Sec. 22-190 calls for a deadbolt on each exterior door of a home, with limited exceptions, in structures whose building permits date from September 1, 1983 or later. It counts the door from an attached garage into the house as exterior, so in a home built under it, a full rekey can cover the front door, any back or side door and the garage entry, each of which may also have a keyed knob beside the deadbolt. Ask for all of them to run on one new key, and keep track of how many copies you hand out.

Renting and rekeying in Aurora

Colorado law speaks to working locks but not to new keys. Under C.R.S. 38-12-505(1)(b)(XI), a rental is uninhabitable if it substantially lacks locks on all exterior doors, and locks or security devices on windows designed to be opened, kept in good working order. Nothing in that section requires rekeying between tenants, so a new tenant can ask in writing at move-in whether the locks were changed and keep the answer. For landlords, rekeying at turnover retires keys that a former tenant or an earlier manager never returned. C.R.S. 38-12-510, which bars removing a tenant without court process, lists the return of keys among the signs of abandonment. This is general information, not legal advice.

If a lock is worn, sticking or damaged, new pins will not fix it; see lock replacement. The service is outlined on the lock rekeying page, and Aurora has the wider city notes.