It is eight in the morning on one of Aspe’s industrial estates — Tres Hermanas, the Avenida de Navarra strip or the Alicante road. The workers are outside, the van with the morning’s deliveries is waiting, and the person with the keys is ill, abroad or no longer with the company.
Most naves have two ways in: the large roller door for goods, and a smaller pedestrian door beside it or at the front. Which one you have opened makes a real difference.
Start with the pedestrian door
The side door is built to be opened with a key, and usually has an ordinary lock with a euro cylinder or a mortice lock. That means:
- it can usually be opened through the lock, without damage;
- its cylinder can be changed in the same visit, so the old keys stop working;
- once inside, the roller door can normally be opened from its own controls.
Why not the roller door?
A roller door is locked in ways that are hard to deal with from outside: a padlock on the bottom rail, bolts on the inside, or simply the motor holding it down. Forcing it can bend the slats or the guides, and that is a job for a roller-door company, not a locksmith. If the only way in is a padlock on the roller door, that padlock can be opened or removed; the motor, slats and springs are not touched.
Have these to hand before you ring
- Proof that the business is yours, or that you may authorise the work: a company document, the lease, or the owner on the phone.
- The name of the estate and the unit number, and a location pin if the unit is hard to spot.
- A photo of the lock on the side door.
- A decision about the old keys. If they were lost or have left with someone, plan to change the cylinder now rather than open the door twice.
Afterwards
Count the new keys and write down who has each one. If there is any sign that someone tried the door before you arrived, read scratches round the cylinder. And if the unit has an office safe whose code left with the same person as the keys, see a safe with a dead battery and no override key.