Residential Locksmith
If your key slides in but will not turn and someone has left a key in the cylinder on the inside of the door, the lock is not broken and it is not jammed with dirt. On a lock keyed from both sides, both cylinders drive one shared cam, and the key sitting on the inside is holding that cam where your key cannot move it. Stop turning, because the next thing that gives is your key. This is a routine opening for a locksmith, and it is almost always done without damage.
A lock with a keyhole on both faces of the door is not two locks. It is one bolt driven by one cam, with a cylinder reaching it from each side. The cam can only be in one place at a time, and whichever cylinder has a key in it is the one holding it there.
Insert your key from the hallway and the plug will usually rotate a few degrees, enough to feel like the lock is about to give, and then hit a dead stop. That stop is the inside key's tailpiece sitting in the path. Pressure does nothing useful, because the obstruction is on the far side of the door and is not going to move. What pressure does do is load a brass key against a fixed point, which is one of the most reliable ways to snap one, and the problem then becomes a key broken off inside the lock as well.
Some cylinders are built so this cannot happen. In the trade the feature goes by names like emergency function or clutch, and it lets the outside key disengage the inside one and take control of the cam. If a key-both-sides lock is the right answer on your door at all, this is the version to ask for. Most locks sold on price do not have it.
The most common one. A roommate, a partner or a cleaner locked up on their way out and left their key in the inside cylinder, and now nobody can get in. The apartment may be empty for the rest of the day, so waiting for the person who did it is not usually an option.
An elderly parent, a child, or someone unwell has turned the inside key and cannot manage the rest. If there is any concern about the person's condition, that is not a lock problem to work through slowly, and the approach is the one in getting in for a wellness check on an elderly relative.
Someone has already forced it. Now there is a key fragment in the inside plug holding the cam, and the opening has to work around a broken piece rather than a whole key. Still routine, but it has moved from an opening to an extraction and usually a cylinder swap.
The order of attack depends on what is on your door, and the first question on the phone is usually how many locks it has and whether any of them has a thumb turn inside.
Expect to be asked for identification tied to the address before the door comes open. That is normal practice, not an obstacle, and what counts as ID for an apartment lockout explains what works when your wallet is on the other side of the door.
Stop turning the key and call. We open blocked double-cylinder locks across Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, typically arriving in about fifteen to twenty minutes. Licensed, insured, 24 hours.
This problem is shaped by the hardware that happens to be on New York doors, and a few local details change how the call goes.
Pre-war apartment and brownstone doors often carry a mortise lock buried in the door edge with a cylinder on each face. Those are the doors where the blocked-cam situation shows up most, and where the lock body is old enough that parts are not interchangeable with anything on a shelf. If the lock turns out to be worn as well as blocked, the repair question is covered in mortise lock repair.
The classic city alternative does not have the problem at all. A rim cylinder on the outside paired with a jimmy-proof or vertical-bolt lock with a thumb turn inside cannot be blocked by a key, because there is no inside keyhole to leave one in. That is one practical argument for the arrangement described in jimmy-proof and police locks in NYC.
There is also a reason not to fit a key-both-sides lock casually. A door that needs a key to get out is a door that can trap the people inside it, and that is why the double-cylinder question is a code question in this city before it is a security preference. Read double-cylinder deadbolts in NYC before you install one, and confirm what your building and your lease allow.
In a co-op or a rental the corridor face of the door may not be yours to change at will. Before swapping hardware on a hallway door, check the house rules, which is the ground covered in co-op board approval for door hardware.
Once the door is open, there is a choice to make, and it is cheap compared with a second lockout.
If a key is holding your lock from the other side right now, we cover this across the five boroughs, including same-hour calls through our Brooklyn locksmith service.
Yes, and in most cases without damaging the door. The usual route is the lock the inside key is not blocking, because an apartment door with two locks rarely has a key sitting in both. Where only one lock is fitted, the cylinder itself can be removed from the outside on many designs, which clears the key and lets the bolt be retracted. Drilling is the last option, not the first.
On a lock keyed from both sides, the two cylinders drive one shared cam. A key sitting in the inside cylinder holds that cam engaged on the inside, so the outside plug can rotate a little and then stops hard against it. Nothing is broken and nothing is jammed with grit. The mechanism is simply being held from the other side, which is why pushing harder changes nothing except the odds of snapping your key.
No. A lock with a thumb turn on the inside instead of a second keyhole cannot block anything, which is why the common New York combination of a rim cylinder outside and a thumb turn inside never produces this call. The problem belongs to locks keyed on both sides, and even among those some cylinders are built with an emergency or clutch function that lets the outside key override a key left inside.
Very little, and the useful moves are all gentle. Try your key in the building's other locks on the same door, knock in case someone is home and asleep, and check whether a second set is with a neighbor, a partner at work, or the super. Do not force the key, do not use pliers on it, and do not slide anything into the gap at the latch. Those attempts are what turn a routine opening into a replaced lock.
Usually not. If the lock was working before the key was left in it, clearing the key leaves it working, and the only question is whether you want to change the hardware so it cannot happen again. Replacement becomes necessary when a key has been snapped off inside the cylinder, when the plug has been twisted out of shape by force, or when the lock had to be drilled because there was no other way in.