Handing someone the keys to your apartment is easy. Getting back the certainty that only you can enter is the part people do not plan for, and in a New York building it involves more keys than the one to your front door.
A typical NYC apartment involves several separate credentials: the unit key, a building entrance key or fob, a mailbox key, and sometimes storage, laundry, roof or bike room access. Each is independently copyable and each is commonly forgotten at handover.
Fobs deserve particular attention. A mechanical key can be cut by anyone, but a fob is registered to the building system, which means it can usually be deregistered when it is not returned. That only works if someone records which fob number went to whom.
Write the list down at handover and have both parties acknowledge it. The purpose is not formality. It is that at the end of the term, there is a definitive answer to what should be coming back.
If anything is not returned, treat the credential as compromised rather than lost. The difference matters: a lost key is an inconvenience, a compromised key is an open door.
Most NYC buildings have rules about subletting, and many require notification, approval or registration of occupants. Co-ops in particular frequently require board approval, and the rules often address keys and fobs explicitly.
Short-term rentals are a separate matter. New York City regulates short-term rentals tightly, buildings commonly prohibit them outright in their own rules, and the hardware side of this has consequences: lockboxes on railings, propped entrance doors and fobs circulating among strangers are exactly what makes buildings act.
The practical point for a resident is that the lock arrangements you make can themselves breach the house rules, independently of the sublet. Check before fitting anything external.
If the building requires management to hold a key, that continues during a sublet, and subtenants sometimes change the lock without knowing it.
Collect every credential on the list and check it against what went out. Then decide whether collection is actually enough.
For a short, known subtenant who returned everything, rekeying may be unnecessary. For a longer term, an unknown occupant, or anything that was not returned, rekeying the unit cylinder is the only way to be certain. Keys are copied quietly and copies are not returned.
Deregister any fob that was issued and not returned. Buildings can usually do this quickly, and it is the single most effective step because it cannot be defeated by a copy.
Change the mailbox lock if the mailbox key was out of your control. Mail is where identity documents and financial correspondence arrive.
Collect everything, deregister fobs, rekey the unit cylinder at the end of any sublet longer than a few weeks, and change the mailbox lock if that key travelled. None of that is expensive relative to the alternative.
The habit worth building is treating the end of a sublet as a security event rather than an administrative one. The apartment is not yours again at the moment the subtenant leaves. It is yours again when only you can open it.
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For anything beyond a few weeks, or where you did not know the occupant well, yes. Keys are copied quietly and copies are not returned, so collecting the original does not restore exclusivity.
Fobs are registered to the building system and can usually be deregistered if not returned. Record which fob number went to whom at handover so this is possible.
Many buildings require notification or approval, and co-ops frequently require board approval. Short-term rentals are tightly regulated in New York City and are commonly prohibited by house rules as well.
If the mailbox key was out of your control, yes. Mail is where identity documents and financial correspondence arrive, and mailbox locks are inexpensive to change.
It is frequently a breach of house rules and it advertises that the unit is let to strangers. Check the building rules before fitting anything external.