The buildings and the hardware
The housing stock here means we see a lot of mixed hardware. Older single-family homes and smaller multiunit buildings tend to have mortise locks, rim cylinders, and thicker door edges that call for different strike plates and longer screws. Newer apartments and storefronts are more likely to use cylindrical locks, panic hardware, and commercial-grade exit devices that need precise alignment and occasional latch-bolt adjustment. That variety changes the work: sometimes it’s adapting a modern deadbolt to an old door, other times it’s swapping a mortise lock for a compatible unit, or shimming and reinforcing strikes so a new lock actually works and lasts.
