Short answer: The keys handed over at closing or at a lease signing are almost never the only keys that exist for your new place. Before you unpack the last box, taking control of who can walk through your doors is one of the cheapest and most reassuring things you can do. This guide explains why old keys are still floating around, how to choose between rekeying and replacing, and a short checklist to lock down your first week in a new Sunnyvale home.
The keys handed over at closing or at a lease signing are almost never the only keys that exist for your new place. Before you unpack the last box, taking control of who can walk through your doors is one of the cheapest and most reassuring things you can do. This guide explains why old keys are still floating around, how to choose between rekeying and replacing, and a short checklist to lock down your first week in a new Sunnyvale home.
When you take over a home, you have no way to know how many copies of the existing keys are out there. Previous owners, their kids and relatives, former tenants, house cleaners, dog walkers, contractors, real estate agents, and neighbors who watered the plants may all have had a copy at some point, and keys are trivial and cheap to duplicate. Nobody hands those back at closing, and most people never think about them, which means the lock on your door has an unknown guest list until you change it. Rekeying resets that list to zero on day one, so the only working keys are the ones in your pocket, and that peace of mind is the whole point of doing it early.
Rekeying means a locksmith changes the internal pins of your existing locks so the old keys no longer work and a brand-new key does, all while keeping your current hardware. It is the fast, affordable answer when your locks are in good shape, and it typically runs in the range of roughly fifteen to forty dollars per cylinder plus a service visit, with the bonus that a pro can key several doors to a single new key so you carry one instead of five. Replacing the whole lock makes more sense when the hardware is old and worn, when you want to upgrade to a higher-grade deadbolt or a smart lock, or when a cylinder is damaged and no longer secure. A quick walk-through with a locksmith will tell you which doors just need a rekey and which are worth upgrading, so you are not paying to replace hardware that still has years of life in it.
Beyond the front door, think about every point of entry a stray key or code could open. Rekey or replace the deadbolts on all exterior doors including the interior garage door, and check the side or back door that is easy to overlook. Change the code on any keypad lock, garage door opener, and alarm panel rather than trusting whatever the last owner set, and clear out any saved smart-home or smart-lock accounts tied to the previous residents. If the property has a mailbox lock or a shared gate, ask the landlord or HOA about resetting those too. Doing all of this in the first week, while you are already dealing with utilities and address changes, folds security into your setup routine instead of leaving it as the thing you always mean to get to later.
When you take over a home, you have no way to know how many copies of the existing keys are out there. Previous owners, their kids and relatives, former tenants, house cleaners, dog walkers, contractors, real estate agents, and neighbors who watered the plants may all have had a copy at some point, and keys are trivial and cheap to duplicate. Nobody hands those back at closing, and most people never think about them, which means the lock on your door has an unknown guest list until you change it. Rekeying resets that list to zero on day one, so the only working keys are the ones in your pocket, and that peace of mind is the whole point of doing it early.
Rekeying means a locksmith changes the internal pins of your existing locks so the old keys no longer work and a brand-new key does, all while keeping your current hardware. It is the fast, affordable answer when your locks are in good shape, and it typically runs in the range of roughly fifteen to forty dollars per cylinder plus a service visit, with the bonus that a pro can key several doors to a single new key so you carry one instead of five. Replacing the whole lock makes more sense when the hardware is old and worn, when you want to upgrade to a higher-grade deadbolt or a smart lock, or when a cylinder is damaged and no longer secure. A quick walk-through with a locksmith will tell you which doors just need a rekey and which are worth upgrading, so you are not paying to replace hardware that still has years of life in it.
Beyond the front door, think about every point of entry a stray key or code could open. Rekey or replace the deadbolts on all exterior doors including the interior garage door, and check the side or back door that is easy to overlook. Change the code on any keypad lock, garage door opener, and alarm panel rather than trusting whatever the last owner set, and clear out any saved smart-home or smart-lock accounts tied to the previous residents. If the property has a mailbox lock or a shared gate, ask the landlord or HOA about resetting those too. Doing all of this in the first week, while you are already dealing with utilities and address changes, folds security into your setup routine instead of leaving it as the thing you always mean to get to later.
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