About Tiger Locksmith

The trade changed under everyone's feet in the last fifteen years. A house key is still a house key, but a car key is a small computer that has to be introduced to the vehicle before it will do anything, and a front door is increasingly a keypad with a mechanical override nobody has tested. Half of what we do now did not exist as a job when this business started.

What has not changed is that most calls come from a door that has been quietly getting worse for months. A latch that catches in warm weather, a key that needs a wiggle, a handle that has started to droop. Those are all warnings, and answering them on a Tuesday afternoon beats answering them once the door has already locked you out.

Pennsylvania does not license this trade, so nobody can show you a state card and nobody should pretend to. What you can ask is what the job involves, what hardware goes in and what it will change. We answer all three before the van leaves.

We turn up in a van with the parts on board, which is the point of working this way: a cylinder that has been forced is no use to anyone if the replacement is a day away. What we cannot carry, we say so on the phone rather than after we arrive.

The week runs Sunday to Thursday with long days, Friday finishes early, and Saturday we do not go out at all. A message left on a Saturday is answered on Sunday morning, not lost.