Mobile Locksmith in Melville

Character houses with tired locks

Melville was proclaimed in 1896, which makes it one of the city's early suburbs. MyProperty describes its housing as "largely character-filled freestanding houses and older apartment blocks", with features such as pressed ceilings and Oregon pine floors. A house of that kind often has a timber front door that swells in the summer rain, an old mortice lock that only one key on the ring still fits, and a steel security gate somebody added decades later.

Those locks rarely fail all at once. Usually the key gets harder to turn over a few months. Calling at that stage is cheaper and calmer than waiting for it to jam with you outside. The technician checks whether the door has dropped or the lock itself is worn, and repairs the lock where that's sensible. Our guide to lock care in older homes explains what to watch for.

Rooms, cottages and student lets

MyProperty notes that Melville "primarily attracts academics, creative professionals, and students", and lists the University of Johannesburg about 2 km away. In practice that means plenty of shared houses, garden cottages and flats where keys pass from one tenant to the next every year.

• Tenants: before asking us to change a lock, check your lease. Most landlords want to give permission first and keep a key.
• Landlords: when a tenant leaves without returning every key, swapping the cylinder or the whole lock is the clean answer. See lock replacement and key control for landlords.
• Room doors: a lock on a bedroom door in a shared house is still the owner's lock, so the same consent applies.

7th Street or 7th Avenue? Help us find you

Melville's streets and avenues are both numbered, and OpenStreetMap shows a 7th Street and a 7th Avenue inside the suburb, as well as a 4th Street and a 4th Avenue. Please say "Street" or "Avenue" clearly when you phone, and give a cross street. Linden, a few kilometres north, also has a 4th Avenue and a 7th Street, so mention Melville too.

The busier roads around and through the suburb are Main Road, Beyers Naudé Drive, Barry Hertzog Avenue and Judith Road. If you're near one of those, use it as your reference point.

Locked out of the car after a night out

Wikipedia describes 7th Street as the home of most of Melville's restaurants, bars and shops, with more on 4th Avenue and Main Road. Keys left in the ignition or dropped somewhere between the car and the table are a common reason to call. Send us the make, model and year of the car, where it's parked, and whether the key is locked inside or lost. Before we open a car we'll ask for something that shows it's yours. See car locksmith help and lost or broken car keys.

Paying for the visit

R250 call-out fee. The technician assesses the job on site and gives you the price before any work starts. Nothing is done until you agree. You can pay by EFT, cash or card. For a lockout at a house or flat we'll need proof that you live there, and we always try to get you in without damage before anything else.

Locksmith services available in Melville

• Emergency lockouts

  Keys inside, a lock that refuses to turn, or someone stuck behind a deadlocked door. Phone any hour and we drive out to you.

• Residential locksmith

  Door locks, gate locks and home safes at houses, flats, townhouses and cluster homes, sorted at your front door.

• Lock repairs

  Stiff keys, bolts that catch, doors that won't latch and gate locks that have seized: repaired on site where the fault allows.

• Lock replacement

  New cylinders, deadlocks, nightlatches, multipoint gearboxes and gate locks, supplied and fitted at your door.

• Car keys & lockouts

  Locked car with keys inside, a sheared-off car key or a lost one: we meet you wherever the vehicle is.

• Broken-key extraction

  Half a key left in the door, gate or padlock? We remove the broken piece and check whether the lock still works.

All of these are part of our mobile locksmith service in Johannesburg.

Useful guides

• Older Doors, Older Locks: Lock Care in Established Suburbs
• Key Control for Landlords and Short-Let Hosts
• Lost or Broken Car Key: Your Options

Nearby areas we cover

• Auckland Park
• Westdene
• Emmarentia
• Greenside
• Parkview
• Montgomery Park

All Johannesburg areas