About
The van is already on Jackson Street, loaded for the doors this city has.
One van out of Jackson Street since 2013, any hour, across Hayward, San Lorenzo and the unincorporated strip beside them. Half this city rents and the work is set up that way. A lock is opened without damage wherever it allows, and the figure said on the call is the figure on the receipt.
4.9 / 5· 598 reviews from Hayward & the unincorporated strip beside it
2013
On these streets since
24/7
Calls picked up
90 days
On the hands, in writing
Parked near Jackson Street
I keep the van near Jackson Street because the work is here, not in Oakland or San Jose. Hayward has been the city I work from since 2013, and I have never wanted to work from another.
About half of you rent. When a tenant calls about their own unit, that tenant is the person I work for, and nobody else has to approve the number they are given.
Dominic Okafor
Owner · 20 years on Hayward doors · with Eden Locksmith since 2013
Whose phone this is, and since when
Eden Locksmith has worked Hayward doors since 2013, from a van parked near Jackson Street rather than from a counter, because a deadbolt on Tennyson Road stays bolted to its jamb and a car in the Southland lot stays in the lot. Eden was the name this whole valley carried before the city lines were redrawn, and it still sits on a district, a greenway and the hospital, which is where the name on your receipt comes from.
The negatives are worth putting in writing too. No franchise fee leaves this city, no lock maker or car brand gets a say in what goes back on your door, and no address is sold on to whichever van bids for it. One 510 number, one dispatch, and the technician who rings your bell is paid by the same business that gave you the figure. About half the doors on this map are rented, and a tenant calling about their own unit is the customer on that call, not a complication for somebody else to approve.
Four kinds of door inside one city line
Hayward is not one housing stock but several, and the drawers are loaded for all of them at once. Builder knob sets and slim deadbolts for the 1950s tracts in Burbank, Glen Eden and Mt. Eden. Mortise bodies and period strikes for the older houses on Prospect Hill and Upper B Street. Electric strikes, deadlatches and entry panels for the apartment blocks and fourplexes along Tennyson Road and Mission Boulevard, which is where much of the renting half of this city sleeps. Hookbolts, cylinders and closers for the glass fronts downtown, exit devices for restaurant kitchens and for the warehouses out toward Eden Shores, and blanks with the programmers to match for most of what parks at Southland, the two BART garages and the college lots.
Carrying all of that at the same time is the whole argument for a van over a storefront. There are no counter hours to catch, no drive across town at the worst moment of a day, and the door is usually finished on the first visit instead of standing open while a part is ordered. Where a piece genuinely has to come from a supplier, you hear it on the call rather than once the old lock is already off.
The Eden Rule
Four things that hold the same way whether you rent a unit off Tennyson Road or have owned the house on Prospect Hill since the seventies. Ninety days on the workmanship, in writing.
What rides in the van
No shop, no counter, no wait on a supplier. Four drawers and a bench, stocked for the hardware these streets actually carry, which is why most doors are finished on the first visit.
House doors
- Builder knob sets and deadbolts for the flat tract streets
- Mortise bodies that drop in behind an original brass plate
- Long strikes and screws that reach the stud, not the trim
- Closers, shims and spare latch springs for doors that stopped catching
Buildings
- Electric strikes and deadlatches for buzzer lobbies
- Hookbolts, cylinders and pivots for glass shopfronts
- Exit devices for kitchen and warehouse rear doors
- Blank cores and pinning kits for a master set counted on site
Cars and bikes
- Blanks and programmers for most of what parks at Southland
- Transponder chips, remote shells and fresh coin cells
- Ignition wafers and rebuild kits for a cylinder that jams
- Wedges and reach tools that leave the paint and rubber alone
Everything else
- Picks, decoders and bypass tools, out before anything harder
- Safe scopes, dial tooling and plugs for the hole nobody wanted
- Labeled bags so old keys go back to whoever owns the building
- A card reader on the belt, so payment never waits on a bank run
From the first ring to the emailed receipt
The figure arrives before the van does. It is read off the published list while you are still on the phone, with the $89 service call already counted inside it; an arrival between 8pm and midnight adds $45 and one between midnight and 7am adds $80, both folded in before you say yes to anything. Master key systems and access control are the exception, because a door count guessed over a phone is an argument waiting to happen: those get walked, counted in person and quoted in writing.
A text goes out before the van leaves, carrying the technician name and a thirty-minute window drawn from wherever the van is sitting at that moment rather than from the 24-minute citywide average. At the door, identification is matched to the address first, which a lease page or a utility bill on a phone settles for a tenant and the registration settles for a car, and then picks, decoders and bypass tools come out before anything harder. A drill appears only after you have heard what would go back in its place and said yes, and saying yes never lifts the number. Card or tap on the spot, an itemized receipt by email, and ninety days on the workmanship printed on that same piece of paper.
When the honest answer is the cheaper one
A deadbolt that will not throw on a Burbank tract house is usually a frame that has shifted rather than a cylinder that has failed, and the repair is a strike moved an eighth of an inch on two three-inch screws that reach the stud instead of the trim. A house carrying five keys from five tenancies is a rekey at $24 to $39 a cylinder, not five new locks on the invoice. An original knob set above B Street can be taken apart, cleaned and repinned far more often than it needs replacing, and the brass that matches the rest of the house stays where it is.
Some jobs get turned down on the call, which a tenant or an owner deserves to hear before a van is dispatched and not after it has parked. A few makes hand key programming to a dealer tool, and nothing riding in this van changes that. Safes with a relocker, high-security cylinders whose keys are cut only against a registered card, and anything where the manufacturer is genuinely the right road all get named for what they are. So does a lobby door that turns out to be a wiring fault behind the panel rather than a lock at all, which is an electrician's bill and not ours.
Where we work
Hayward & the unincorporated strip beside it, any hour
Pick your area for its own arrival time and the jobs we run there most.
FAQ
Questions about the outfit, not the bill
Is this an independent locksmith or a call center that resells the job?+
Independent, and Hayward is the only city it works from. The 510 number on this site rings this business, the technician sent out is paid by it, and no address is handed on to a third van. The distinction is worth a minute of your time, because a large share of the national listings sitting above the map results are brokers: they take the call, take a cut and pass the address to whoever bids for it, which is exactly why a phone quote and a doorstep price so often fail to match.
How many years have you been on Hayward doors?+
Since 2013, on the same kind of work the whole time: lockouts, rekeys between tenancies, deadbolts and strikes, buzzer-door hardware, storefront and warehouse doors, safes and car keys. Thirteen years in one city buys pattern recognition more than anything else, which is why a settled frame on a tract street, a tired entry panel along Tennyson Road or a fifty-year-old mortise set above downtown usually gets named on the phone rather than discovered at the door.
Is there a counter I can walk a lock into?+
No, and that is a choice rather than something missing. A storefront means rent, opening hours and a drive across town at the worst moment of your day, and all three of those land on the customer. The van works out of Jackson Street instead, which puts the citywide average at 24 minutes, downtown and B Street at about 16, and Hayward Highlands and Fairway Park at about 31, the longest run on this map. Key cutting, repinning, cylinder work and fob programming all happen at your curb, off the bench that rides in the van.
Who exactly will show up at my door?+
You will already have the name. The text that goes out before the van moves carries the technician name, what the van looks like and the window, and holding that text up against the person in front of you takes two seconds and is worth doing every time. If what pulls up does not match what the text said, you are entitled to send it away and ring the 510 number back. That works the same way whether you own the house or rent the unit.
What if the lock will not open without being damaged?+
You hear about it before a tool touches the door. Apartment cylinders, builder deadbolts, aluminum storefront latches, most car doors and most safes open without damage and keep working afterwards. When a cylinder is seized, already smashed around a snapped blade, or high-security to the point where picking is not going to happen, you are told what a drill costs the lock, what would go back in its place and what that hardware runs, and nothing starts until you say so. The figure fixed on the call covers that conversation whichever way you decide.
Open 24 hours, 7 days
The van is already in town, and the number comes before it moves
Hayward, San Lorenzo, Cherryland and Ashland, San Leandro, Castro Valley and Union City, 24/7, holidays included. Describe the door, hear one number with the $89 visit inside it, and the lock gets opened without damage wherever it can be. The receipt says what the call said. It runs the same way whether the lease is in your name or the deed is.