Locked Out of House or Apartment in Orlando? What to Do First

Someone inside, or the stove on: call 911 first

Some lockouts are emergencies. A toddler who turned the lock, a dog shut in a hot house, a parent who may have fallen, a pan on a burner, a bath still running: call 911 now, then call everyone else.

Police and fire crews can force a door when a life is at stake, and a door can be fixed later. Give the 911 dispatcher the address, any gate code and who is inside, so the crew goes straight to the right door.

A locksmith is the right call once everyone is safe and the only problem left is the lock. Then work through the rest of this page in order.

Check every way in before you call anyone

Most Orlando houses have more doors than people remember when they are standing outside the front one. Walk the whole house and try each of them calmly, because a back door someone forgot to lock ends the problem for free.

Do not break glass, climb onto a roof or pry at a window frame. A cut hand or a fall turns a lockout into a hospital visit, and a broken slider costs far more than the lockout ever would.

If none of it works, our house lockout service in Orlando sends a technician to open the door without damage. Before you call, run through this list:

• The back door, and the slider to the lanai or patio.
• The side door into the garage.
• The keypad on the garage door opener, if you know the code and the power is on.
• A ground-floor window you can open from where you stand, without a ladder.

Who has a spare key, a code or an app?

Think about who else could let you in. A partner at work, a roommate, a relative across town, a neighbor you trust with the house while you travel, or the cleaner or dog walker who has a key or a code.

If the front door has a smart lock, open its app before you assume you are stuck. A lock connected to Wi-Fi may unlock from your phone, and a household member with access can send you a code.

A spare across town can still beat waiting. Weigh the drive against the time a technician takes to reach you, and ask the dispatcher for an honest arrival window.

Apartment lockout: the leasing office comes first

In an apartment, call the leasing office during office hours, or the after-hours maintenance line after that. Many complexes keep a key to every unit, and letting a resident back in is often part of the service, sometimes for a fee the lease spells out.

Read the lease, too. Leases often say who may open a unit, whether residents can add or change locks, and what a lockout costs, so it is worth knowing before you call a locksmith.

If the office is closed and maintenance cannot come, an apartment lockout is still something we handle. The technician opens it once you show you live there, and leaves the landlord's lock exactly as it is unless the office approves a change.

Gated communities and HOA gates: have the code ready

Gated streets in Lake Nona and Horizon West, and many apartment complexes along Alafaya Trail near UCF, add a step before the technician even reaches your door. Give the dispatcher the gate code, the call-box number or the name of the guard house when you call.

If the code is on your phone and the phone is in the house, ask a neighbor, a family member or the HOA's management company. Some communities with a staffed gate also need your name on a visitor list before a van is waved through.

Downtown high-rises work the same way with a front desk instead of a gate. Tell the desk a locksmith is coming and give the technician the tower and unit number.

What proof of residence the locksmith asks for, and why

You will be asked for photo identification and proof that this address is yours. A driver's license with that address works, and so do a lease, a utility bill, a closing document or a piece of mail. If your license still lists an old address, a text or email from your landlord or property manager can stand in.

If the ID is inside the house, say so when you call. The dispatcher explains what will work for your situation before anyone drives, so the technician is not turned away at the door.

Any locksmith who opens a door without asking whose it is would open yours for a burglar just as fast. The check takes a minute, and it protects you more than anyone.

How a locksmith gets you back in without damage

Most front doors in Orlando use standard knobs, levers and deadbolts, which a trained technician opens by picking or bypassing, with no marks left behind. That is the first approach on every house lockout.

Drilling is kept as a last resort: a lock broken internally, or a high-security cylinder that resists picking. If it comes to that, the technician explains why and goes over the price for the new lock before the drill comes out.

Be wary of anyone who says a standard deadbolt has to be drilled straight away, or whose price climbs once you are standing on the porch. Our guide to spotting a scam locksmith in Orlando lists the other warning signs.

Keypad or smart lock with a dead battery

Most electronic deadbolts on homes run on batteries, not house power, so a storm outage alone should not lock you out, though app unlocking may stop while the Wi-Fi is down. Schlage says its electronic locks keep working when the power goes out; a dead battery is another story.

Several models have a way in from outside when the battery dies, and the makers describe it like this. If your lock also has a keyhole and the key is on your ring, use it.

For a lock with no backup and no key, call us. Our smart lock installation page covers replacing a lock that keeps failing, or adding one with a better backup.

• Schlage Touch Keyless Touchscreen Deadbolt: hold a new alkaline 9-volt battery to the contacts below the touchscreen, keep it there, enter your code and turn the thumbturn, then replace the battery.
• Kwikset Obsidian: hold a 9-volt battery to the outside terminals, wait for the screen to light up, enter a valid code and wait for the bolt to retract, then replace the batteries once inside.
• Yale Assure Lock Touchscreen Deadbolt: apply a 9-volt battery to the terminals below the keypad for backup power.

If your landlord changed the locks on you

Florida law is direct on this. Section 83.67 of the Florida Statutes says a landlord may not prevent a tenant from reasonable access to the home by any means, including changing the locks, and a landlord who does can owe the tenant damages and attorney's fees.

Under section 83.59, a landlord gets a unit back through a court case or in a few narrow situations, such as a tenant who surrendered or abandoned it; changing the locks is not one of them. After a judgment, section 83.62 has the sheriff, not the landlord, restore possession, once a notice has been posted on the property.

Contact the landlord first, in writing if you can. If that goes nowhere, talk to a lawyer or call the police non-emergency line; we do not take sides in a dispute between a landlord and a tenant, so this is not a locksmith's call.

Vacation homes in Kissimmee and Davenport

Guests should try the host or the property manager before anyone else, because a fresh keypad code can be the quickest fix. If you do call us, the door is opened after the owner or manager vouches for you.

Owners who live out of state, as plenty of Kissimmee and Davenport owners do, carry the other side of this problem. A local contact with a spare, keypad codes you can change from home and a standing arrangement with a locksmith keep a lockout from becoming a ruined check-in; our vacation rental locksmith service is set up for that.

If the rental car key went missing with the house key, the car is a separate job. Our guide to a rental car lockout in Orlando covers who to call for that one.

Waiting in the heat and the afternoon storms

From late May into October, Central Florida is in its wet season, and the National Weather Service in Melbourne notes that showers and thunderstorms form along the sea breezes on most days. Do not wait out a storm under a tree or on an open driveway.

Wait in your car with the air on, at a neighbor's, or in a shaded spot with water. Keep your phone charged in the car if you can, because the technician will call or text when the van is close.

Our vans run 7 am to midnight, every day. Tell the dispatcher if you are waiting with small children or someone who cannot stay out in the heat.

Back inside: a spare plan and a rekey if keys are gone

Once you are in, make sure it does not happen again. Leave a spare with someone you trust who lives nearby, or put a keypad deadbolt on the door you use most, so a code you can change does the work a hidden key would.

Skip the doormat, the planter and the top of the door frame. Those are the first places anyone looks, and a key found there opens the house for whoever finds it.

If the keys were lost or stolen rather than locked inside, assume someone could have them. A lock rekey swaps the pins inside, so the missing keys turn nothing, and the locks themselves stay put.

Just bought a new build, or never changed the locks after moving in? Our guide to rekeying a new-build home in Orlando explains who may still hold a key.