Emergency Locksmith in Austin, TX

What counts as urgent

Safety comes before any lock. If anyone is trapped in a car or a house, above all a child or a pet, call 911 first. After a break-in, call the police, and ask whether they want to see the door and lock before anything is touched.

A lock problem is urgent when:

• a door cannot be secured for the night after a break-in, a failed lock or a storm-damaged frame
• someone is stuck outside in dangerous heat or cold, as during the February 2021 winter outbreak
• a smart lock has died in the cold and nobody has a working key
• a key has snapped off in the only exterior door that still works

Renters after a break-in

Texas Property Code section 92.161 treats seven days as the presumed reasonable response to a tenant's security-device request, cut to three days when the tenant reports an unauthorized entry or an attempt at the unit. Section 92.156 also lets a tenant ask for a rekey at any time, at the tenant's expense. Report the break-in to the landlord in writing as well as to the police. This is general information, not legal advice.

Co-ops, older houses and storefronts

In a West Campus student co-op, a broken lock on a shared exterior door leaves the whole house open, so say how many doors are affected. In a Hyde Park frame house from the 1924 to 1935 building boom, a forced door may have split the wood frame around the strike; photos show whether the frame can still hold a lock. On Sixth Street, most of the masonry commercial blocks were standing by the 1880s, so a forced storefront may sit in an old masonry opening, and an upper-floor street door may take a different key than the shop below. Say which door it is.

What to send

1. Whether anyone is in danger, whether police have been called, and a report number if you have one.
2. The exact location and the building type.
3. Photos of the door, the frame and the lock.
4. Whether the door can be closed at all.

Service details are on the emergency locksmith page. The most common urgent calls have their own pages, house lockout and car lockout, and Austin gives the city overview.