Home › Emergency lockout
We open it. We don't wreck it.
House, car, or storefront. Almost every lockout in this town opens without a drill bit ever leaving the bag — picked, shimmed, or bypassed, and the lock still works when we drive away.
32569 and the US-98 corridor · The line rings a person here
Standing outside right now?
Don't fill out a form. The phone is faster.
- Child or pet in a hot car? Call 911 before anyone else.
- Walk the building. Sixty seconds — see below.
- Then call us. The door, the lock, and where you are on 98.
🚨 Child or pet locked in a car — call 911 first
This is not a locksmith call. It is a medical emergency. A closed car in a Mary Esther parking lot on an August afternoon passes a hundred and thirty degrees inside in minutes — windows cracked, in the shade, it still does it.
Call 911. Okaloosa County fire and EMS are staged around this town. They will beat any locksmith to you, they carry entry tools, and they will not charge you.
Call us second, or not at all. That is the honest answer even though it costs us the job.
The five minutes before you call
Plenty of people who call us are not locked out of a house. They are locked out of one door.
- Every door, not the front one. People lock the front from habit and leave the side and the garage service door alone.
- The slider. Sound-side houses live through it, and it is often the one nobody threw.
- The Florida room. That screen-porch latch is a courtesy, not a lock — and it is how people here usually get back in.
- The spare. Neighbor, landlord, whoever else is on the lease.
If that comes up empty, stop. Don't pry, and don't break "just the little window." Call us.
How we actually get the door open
Every locksmith site says "non-destructive entry." Here is what it means in the driveway.
Picking and raking
Most cylinders here are standard pin tumbler. Light tension on the plug, then a rake — or single-pin picking each stack to the shear line on a security-pinned lock. A spool pin gives a false set; a good tech feels it.
Shimming and bypass
A spring latch with no deadbolt thrown gets shimmed; padlocks shim at the shackle. If a mechanism can be walked around rather than defeated, we walk around it.
Under-door tools
Slides under the slab and loops the interior lever from the other side. Common on rental doors with lever handles, and this town is full of rentals.
Cars: wedge and probe
An inflatable air wedge opens a controlled gap at the top corner of the frame, and a long-reach probe hits the interior unlock. Nothing enters the door skin.
When we drill — and how you'll know
Two things make a drill the right tool. First, a lock that is already destroyed: a key snapped off in a corroded plug, a latch salt-seized so hard it won't turn with the correct key in it. That lock was dead before we arrived — drilling it is disposal, not damage. Second, a true high-security cylinder that will not open by manipulation in any reasonable time — rare on a house, more common on a commercial door.
Either way you hear it before the drill touches the lock, never after. Open first and explain later is the tell of an outfit that isn't coming back.
The slim jim is a myth
That trick worked on a 1988 sedan with a bare lock rod and an empty door cavity. Nothing built this century is that car. A modern door skin holds the window regulator, the lock actuator wiring, and on most vehicles the side-curtain airbag circuit. A steel strip fished down blind shears wiring and nicks circuits you find out about weeks later.
It usually won't even open the car. Deadlocking is standard now: lock with the fob and the interior handle is mechanically disconnected, so reaching in and pulling the lever does nothing. A wedge and a probe work with the car instead. Need a key cut rather than a door opened? That is car key replacement.
Three lockouts, three different jobs
Houses on the Sound side
Salt air off Santa Rosa Sound attacks the latch and the deadbolt from the inside. The homeowner says the key "stopped working"; really the bolt stiffened for six months and today it quit. Exterior deadbolts corrode in the cylinder and sliders seize in the track. So a Sound-side lockout is often two jobs: get you in, then deal with hardware on its way out. A corroded cylinder can't be saved by re-pinning — and a rekey is usually the same visit.
Cars, including the running one
Push-button start invented a call that didn't used to exist: keys locked in a running car. Somebody hops out, bumps the lock, and the engine idles with the fob on the seat. Same wedge, same probe. No reason to break glass.
Storefronts on 98 and the Santa Rosa Mall
The aluminum-and-glass doors on Miracle Strip Parkway and through the mall run Adams Rite style latches in a narrow stile, driven by a small mortise cylinder with a thin cam. The stile is barely an inch wide and the glass is right there. We pick the mortise cylinder or work the latch — and the fault often isn't the lock but a cam backed off its screws, so the key turns and nothing happens. That hardware is commercial locksmith territory.
How long we actually take
Mary Esther is about two and a half square miles. That is the whole city — if we are in it when you call, we are minutes from you.
Coming from Fort Walton Beach or out toward Navarre takes longer, and US 98 decides how much longer. Anyone promising a flat fifteen minutes without asking where they are coming from is reading a script. Service area.
The number you call matters
National dispatch call centers quote a small figure on the phone to lock in the job, then auction it to whichever subcontractor bites. The person who shows up never made that quote and does not honor it — so the number goes up on your doorstep, at night, while you stand outside with no leverage.
(850) 949-0053 rings a person here. Whoever answers is who comes. More about us.
Lockout questions, answered straight
My child is locked in the car. What do I do?
Call 911 immediately, before any locksmith including us. Fire and EMS are staged around Okaloosa County, they beat a locksmith there, they carry entry tools, and they do not charge you. Same for a pet.
Will you have to drill my lock?
Almost certainly not. Most lockouts open non-destructively and the lock keeps working. We drill only when it is already destroyed or is a true high-security cylinder — and you hear it before the drill comes out.
Can't I just use a slim jim on my car?
No. A modern door skin holds the window regulator, the lock actuator wiring, and on most vehicles the side-curtain airbag circuit. It fails anyway — deadlocking disconnects the interior handle when you lock with the fob.
The key turns but the deadbolt won't move.
On the Sound side that is usually corrosion. Salt gets into the cylinder and the bolt, it stiffens for months, then quits. We can get you in, but a corroded cylinder can't be saved by re-pinning.
Can you open a storefront door on 98 or at the mall?
Yes. Those doors run an Adams Rite style latch in a narrow stile driven by a small mortise cylinder. We pick the cylinder or work the latch — often the real fault is a loose cam.
Locked out in Mary Esther?
Child or pet in a hot car — 911 first. Anything else, call the local line.
(850) 949-0053