New Apartment - Change The Locks?

Hi

I'm due to move into a newly built apartment within the next couple of weeks. I've heard from plenty of people that it's a necessity to change the lock on the main door for security reasons before moving stuff in, especially while there may be some unscrupulous people on the site who may have a copy of my key.

I was wondering two things. Firstly, have people in similar situations changed their lock? And second, the lock on the door facing out is opened with a key, but on the inside it is locked by turning a knob. Is it easy to replace locks such as that?

Thanks!

Another option is to add an additional lock to the door if it only has a single lock on it. We added a basta lock, as have many other apartments.

I have always found it a bit odd that we have a three point locking mechanism on our fifth floor balcony doors yet only the single point locking on the front door that is more accessible to the criminally minded.

Definitely add a second chubb lock to the door. There are three other apartments in my common area and all three of them were burgled as they didn't have anything beyond the basic yale lock. I installed a chubb from the start and have escaped being burgled so far (6.5years).

This week I found someone going through a bunch of keys trying to get into my neighbour's apartment. They claimed they were from the letting agent and were probably genuine. They failed to get in. There's too many keys floating around not to take the basic prudence measure of changing and adding additional locks.

Thanks for the advice. It seems that anyone I know who has bought a new apartment has strongly advised me to change the lock. Anyone know around how much it would cost to get a decent Chubb lock fitted by a locksmith?

It cost me < £50 for the locksmith to install it.

Hi Starbright, I can reccomend someone in South County Dublin who can install chubb locks, they cost around 150 or so but the guy was nice, reliable and tidy... something I can't say about many of the workers who finished our apartment's bits.

PM me if you're interested.

addob