I rent a condo from a husband and wife. I will be out of town for 6 weeks for a meds school rotation. I would like to have an extra key to give to my mother while I’m gone so that she can periodically water my plants and just check to make sure everything’s OK. (This is a high security lock so I can’t just go to the hardware store and have the key copied.) I had previously been talking with the husband and from him I understood that they couldn’t give me a key because they had mislaid one of their 2 spares. Most recently I talked with the wife who informed me that I am only permitted to have 1 key. (She claimed this is in my lease but I dug out the paperwork and I don’t see that specified anywhere.)
My opinions:
Common sense says that you should have an extra set of keys for your home and your car.
It is unreasonable for a landlord to restrict a tenant to only one key, especially in this circumstance.
So, am I being unreasonable or is my landlady? Have you ever had a landlord restrict you to having just one key?
I think your landlady is being unreasonable. A spare set of keys is essential in my opinion. I have spare keys all over the place in order to ameliorate my tendency to lock myself out.
Having said that, what’s the harm in giving your keys to your mother?
I don’t think it is unreasonable to want a second set of keys. If I hadn’t had a spare set of car and apartment keys, I’d have been in real trouble yesterday. (As it was, I just felt real stupid when I found my primary set).
There’s no harm, but if s/he gets back and Mom is unavailable or it’s the middle of the night then s/he’s locked out until Mom turns up or wakes up.
It is entirely reasonable for you to want a spare key to your home. If the landlady refuses to give you one then I move you give your spare to your mother to water the plants and when you get home in the middle of the night you wake up the landlady to let you in. What a cow.
I have. The guy wasn’t going to copy it at all, but because my key was clearly broken almost all the way through the shaft he agreed to copy it (on a blank that was also stamped DO NOT COPY) in exchange for keeping and breaking the existing key. That way I still have just the one key.
Ironically, the key was to a building in which I had no legal right to be, where I was illegally entering and sleeping at night during the winter I was homeless.
The only keys I have seen that aren’t copiable are made by the MEDECO company but they’re expensive and are normally used commercially.
I doubt they have MEDECO locks on your condo.
I’d go make yourself a copy.
Condo property managers are tetchy about extra keys, but we (a property management company that has many single condo units in our portfolio) can get extra keys from the strata property management company. Sometimes there’s a charge, $25-50, but you / your landlord should be able to get an extra key.
It’s not unreasonable to ask for one. What if you had a partner? Would the landlord have expected two people to share a single key?
It’s probably going to be tough for them to restrict you to one key, but they don’t have to provide you with a bunch of copies. Try a local hardware store or locksmith, high security or not, your landlord has to go somewhere to get their copies.