When you're moving into a new home, there are a lot of things that need to be taken care of. One of the most important things is to make all possible arrangements for your family to be safe. A burglary that happens when you've just moved in and haven't had time to take care of all safety precautions could possibly be devastating. The first step in making your new house feel secure is to make sure that the key you have in your hand is the only key able to open the house and that it is safely stored.

Change lock

The first thing you need to do in order to make your new home safe is to make sure that there are no more keys than your own leading to your home. This is a possibility, as the previous owners might have handed keys out to family, neighbours, or contractors. As it's so easy to copy a key, you can't be completely sure you've been handed all of the copies there are of your key. The most common way to solve it is to get your lock changed by a 24 hr locksmith. This option is extensive and can be quite expensive as well. However, if you feel like the locks in your new home aren't up to the safety standard that you're aiming for, this is also a good opportunity to get the locks that you want.

Rekeying

A simpler method to make all old versions of your house key useless is to rekey the lock to your house. A locksmith performs this by tampering with the lock until it has been changed to not let the old keys fit. Instead, it will be altered to only accept a new set of keys. This is cheaper than changing your lock entirely and is a good option if you feel like the locks in your house hold a sufficient security standard.

Location

After making all old versions of the key useless, you also need to make sure that you're creating your own system of hiding the house keys. It's possible that the previous owners already had a system for hiding their keys, such as a lockbox or a fake rock. You should not use those items for your new key. The previous owners might have had a break in before, which makes burglars aware of the location of the key. If they have a sturdy lockbox installed, you can use this if it's a model which prevents factory resetting and if you change the code to it. For more information, talk to a professional like Border Locksmiths.