Locksmith Services in Spokane, WA

Homes and locks in Spokane

Browne's Addition, just west of downtown, was Spokane's first neighborhood. Mining wealth filled it with large mansions, among them the Campbell House of 1898. Most of those houses now serve as apartments, a trend that began in the 1920s, and in 2017 86.4 percent of its households rented, against 45.3 percent citywide. A converted mansion can have a shared street door, unit doors and a back stair, so a tenant who loses a key should tell the manager which doors it opened; a lock rekeying of shared doors needs the owner's approval.

Five Mile Prairie is the opposite case. It sits on a basalt mesa at the city's far northern edge, and most of its city portion was annexed in 1966. Housing has been replacing rural land there since about 2000, on winding roads and cul-de-sacs instead of the city grid, and in 2017 only 11.9 percent of households rented. For a newer house there, list the garage-to-house door and any keypad or smart lock along with the front door.

Businesses and buildings

Hillyard was platted in 1892, the year the Great Northern Railroad began building its rail yard and locomotive shops there. Its historic business district, on Market Street, Diamond Avenue and Olympic Avenue, is mostly simple one- and two-story commercial blocks built between 1901 and 1948. A building of that age may have a front door, a rear door and a separate stair door, each on its own key, so list every door when you ask for commercial locksmith work.

Car trouble in Spokane

The City of Spokane runs snow season operations from November 15 to March 15:

• Residents are asked to park on the odd side of the street in residential areas all season.
• On snowy days, on-street parking downtown, from Maple to Division and from I-90 to the Spokane River, is prohibited from midnight to 6 a.m., and vehicles can be towed during noticed events. Peaceful Valley's residential area is excluded.
• At four inches of snow or more, crews start a full-city plow the city expects to take about three days: arterials first, then residential hills, then flat areas.

A car left downtown on a noticed snow day because its key is lost can be towed after midnight, so arrange a car key replacement or a spare before then.

Local rules worth knowing

Under Spokane Municipal Code (SMC) 10.57.020, renting out residential property in the city requires an annual business license and registration of the rental units, plus a per-unit fee. Registration includes a declaration that each unit complies with RCW 59.18.060, the state landlord duties. Subsections (6) and (7) of that statute require the landlord to provide reasonably adequate locks, furnish keys to the tenant and safeguard any master or duplicate keys with reasonable care. Without the license and registration, an owner may not increase monthly housing costs or evict a tenant.

Under SMC 10.57.110, landlords must self-inspect a unit before a tenant moves in, and anyone operating rental housing must keep move-in and move-out inspection records for at least three years, a natural place to note a rekey between tenants. This is general information, not legal advice.

Requesting service in Spokane

Give the neighborhood and nearest cross streets; on Five Mile Prairie, add the development name or nearest through street. Say which doors are involved and whether the home is a rental or the car is parked downtown on a snow day. Washington Locksmith Pros takes service requests from homes, businesses and drivers in Spokane. See house lockout, car lockout or the Washington page.