Left garage door open overnight. Do I need to re-key today (Sunday)?
April 18, 2021 1:00 PM   Subscribe

I'm a new homeowner in a pretty safe town (Louisville, CO). Last night one of us left the garage door open (i think...) and things were messy in the morning. Should I rekey asap? Or can I wait till tomorrow (Monday). Details below

This morning I found it open, and a few boxes upset, and candy wrappers all over the floor and other random stuff. Our garage is full of boxed up stuff from the move still, and it doesn't look like anything was taken (some nice yard tools, nice tent and sleeping bags, etc). Most of the boxes are my kid's old toys, old kids art, clothes to go to Goodwill, etc.

It's possible it was an animal -- we have coyotes and rabbits and other animals about, and I could imagine them getting into boxes if they smelled food.

Here's my question -- I am certainly going to change the garage door code and re-key our locks just in case it was a person. But do I need to call the locksmith today (Sunday)? I have a feeling it will be an exorbitant charge. If it was a person, is there any way they could have gotten key information from the door that goes from the garage into the house?

What would you do, MeFi??
posted by betsbillabong to Home & Garden (14 answers total)
 
I think I’m missing something.. why would you need to rekey if they didn’t use a key to get in?
posted by dianeF at 1:07 PM on April 18, 2021 [37 favorites]


Yeah if it were me I would close the garage and do nothing else. I am unclear from your question if the candy wrappers were stuff that animals might have found in one of the boxes or if they were definitely discarded by humans who were in your garage.
posted by jessamyn at 1:10 PM on April 18, 2021 [8 favorites]


I seriously doubt you need to re-key anything. Change the door code, if it makes you feel at ease. The mess you describe sounds almost certainly like an animal foraging. If it had been a person, chances are pretty good there would be more valuable stuff gone from the garage and possibly inside the house as well (I’m assuming the garage is attached to the house.)
posted by Thorzdad at 1:13 PM on April 18, 2021 [5 favorites]


Response by poster: Thank you all! You are putting my mind at ease.

Jessamyn, I am also unclear whether it was animals or humans! That's what concerns me.

I've been meaning to re-key the door since I never did it when we moved in, but it sounds like it should be fine if I wait. I'll change the code to the garage -- why not?
posted by betsbillabong at 1:18 PM on April 18, 2021


I wouldn’t bother changing anything but I will add this anecdote. When I moved into my house 2 years ago I kept finding the garage door open. Accusations were flung, arguments were had (my son was living with me at the time) until the evening we were both in the living room and heard the garage door open itself. I have figured out since then that I have to unplug it or it will open itself. I don’t know why. Apparently this is a Thing that happens occasionally. Unplugging it is an easy fix but I’m sure there’s a better way to address it. So anyway, if it happens again, look for the plug or breaker switch to keep it closed.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:19 PM on April 18, 2021 [3 favorites]


You should re-key your locks if you haven't already just because it's a new house and you don't know who had duplicate keys from the previous owners (or the builders). But if you'd already done that, no need to do it again.
posted by The corpse in the library at 2:00 PM on April 18, 2021 [17 favorites]


In our neighborhood recently there’s been a woman with a combination of mental health issues and drug problems who does things like sleep in people’s yards and mess with stuff. She recently went into someone’s home (which is very scary) and made a sandwich and tried to take a nap. While this is scary and violating, this person is not a threat. Hopefully that is what happened here if anything happened. I agree to rekey if you haven’t yet for the new home.
posted by amanda at 4:43 PM on April 18, 2021


Unless I'm missing something, if people could make kept copies *just* from access to the outside of a lock, then no front door would ever be secure.
posted by augustimagination at 5:07 PM on April 18, 2021 [7 favorites]


Rekey your new home quickly (because who knows who has old sets), but I don't think it's an emergency. Before calling a locksmith, check if you have Kwikset Smartkey locks. With the cheap tool, you can do it yourself in a couple minutes.

I would change your garage door code, if you have a keypad, asap. That seems like an easy step to protect garage contents at least.
posted by rawralphadawg at 6:59 PM on April 18, 2021 [1 favorite]


We left our garage door open at night a couple of times and finally bought a MyQ smart garage door opener. You can set it to automatically close at a certain time in case you forget, and it can send you notifications on the app if it is left open for a certain length of time. It only cost about $30 and was easy to install. Something to consider.
posted by impishoptimist at 7:46 PM on April 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


I would make big book that this was an animal. I had a cabin in upstate NY. I left a candy bar and an empty bag of McDonald's (thanks kids) in the car overnight the first weekend we were there. A bear broke into the car and got the candy and made a mess of the interior. Animals smell food. Heck, if I could smell a Kit Kat, I would chase it too. Also, I have left my garage door open a few times in my NY suburban neighborhood. It happens. If you are not sure if you left it open or it was someone war driving for garage codes (it wasn't), change the code for the garage door. Also, if you are worried, after closing the door for the night, there are usually some levers on each side of the door you can slide into the track to "lock" it.

As for re-keying the house, sure you should do it, but know that I kept on meaning to change my locks after I moved into my house. Never did change them for the 18 years I lived there. Even if someone has a copy of the key, they would have to be statistically a really bad egg to use it.

PUt one of those alarm system signs in the front yard and sleep well.
posted by AugustWest at 9:27 PM on April 18, 2021


I'm betting raccoons. One once found an old tin of Lyle's Golden Syrup in my recycling bin and left behind sticky trash panda prints.

I wouldn't fuss too much. Put the rekeying on the to-do list. If it's not a Smartkey-type lock and you're at all handy, you could potentially replace the entire thing for less than it would cost to call out a locksmith, or alternatively unscrew it from the door and take the side with the cylinder in to be rekeyed while someone's at home.
posted by holgate at 10:44 PM on April 18, 2021 [2 favorites]


candy wrappers all over the floor
In what condition were the candy wrappers and the boxes whence, I'm assuming, anyway, the candy wrappers came? What was the "other random stuff?" Specifically, were things gnawed into and shredded all over the place in the manner you'd expect if an animal without opposable thumbs accessed the food? Or did the disturbed items bear the telltale signs of predation by an animal or animals with opposable thumbs? It's hard to tell from the forensic report, but I'm assuming the candy was in the garage before the crime occurred and was opened and consumed in the garage by the criminals? Did you have food other than candy in the garage as well? If the boxes and the candy weren't shredded and destroyed looking and if other food besides candy was left pristine, then the culprit is human. Likely a juvenile. If there was no candy in the garage and the candy wrappers were brought in from outside, then it was a pair or small group of tweens who snuck out of their houses to skateboard around the neighborhood, noticed the open garage and thought, "clubhouse!"
posted by Don Pepino at 8:10 AM on April 19, 2021 [2 favorites]


Response by poster: A belated thank you to all!

Sadly I'm so currently disorganized that I have no idea if the candy was there or not. However, nothing else has happened, and I haven't re-keyed yet.

I'm thinking it was animals -- but even if it was tweens, I'm cool with that. (Sort of). I just felt like it was an intruder but I think that was my fear talking.

I'm planning on re-keying the locks and redoing the alarm and sleeping well at night. I do want to figure out an alarm system, too.


Thank you, MeFi, for putting my mind at ease!
posted by betsbillabong at 4:42 PM on April 21, 2021 [2 favorites]


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