Everyone knows that the holiday season is prime time for burglars. In Paris, 97% of the population skips town in August, so the tourists, crazies and thieves have the city all to themselves.
With that in mind we decided to have our faulty locks on our doors changed the week before heading off to vacation.
Finding a trustworthy locksmith in Paris is almost as hard as getting your child into daycare here, which is why we turned to Yelp, of course, for guidance.
This shop in the 9th came up first, and knowing the people who reviewed the place, we didn't hesitate a moment before calling them for an estimate. A couple of hours later we had a friendly guy in our apartment, investigating our lock and taking off with the contraption it to try and fix the parts rather than replacing the whole system (which we gathered would cost around 800E since that what our neighbors said they paid to have that that done..)
He said he had to take the lock with him as well as the keys in order to make sure he could get it to work. We were a bit paranoid about giving lock and key to someone who could copy said key in 30 seconds flat, but the positive Yelp reviews calmed us down, and we crossed our fingers and hoped for the best.
In an hour he called us back saying that that particular lock was no longer manufactured but that he was able to find the parts to make it work for 250E, or 500E if we decided to change the cylinder on the lock too. We went for the first option.
Next chapter he was back in our house installing the lock. We were happy until he dampened the mood by saying that we should have replaced the cylinder on the lock too just to be sure that no one else had the keys.
Um.. that's a scary thought especially from someone who could have easily copied the key himself! But that's part of the locksmith's strategy, making people scared so that they throw more cash into their locks, isn't it?
In any case, we now have a fully-functional lock now for 30% of the price we expected to pay, so all in all a positive experience, as long as our locksmith is not a psycho with a spare set of keys to our apt -- and, if that's the case, then you've got my testimony right here! read more
