is this normal? landlords won't open your apartment for you if you get locked out?

Next time tell them you think you left the stove on.

Pretty normal around me.

Source: I have broken into at least 5 neighbor's apartments for them.

Here in India that would be pretty much illegal ! Even if the lock was yours , a locksmith would be skeptical !

Reading these comments I realize I actually have a decent property manager at my place and awesome maintenance guys. While landlords need to be abolished, I think there is justification for a property manager type role for medium to large apartment buildings.

They probably don't want the potential liability of letting the wrong person into the wrong unit. If they wrote it into their policy, they might have gotten a small discount on their insurance.

I'm not endorsing this, but this might be why.

"left the water running and I'm locked out. The longer we discuss this, the more property damage you will incur. I cannot afford a locksmith and you can arrive and open this door faster anyhow."

Depends on the size of the building. Small landlords will tell you to fuck off, big landlords typically have a maintenance guy that will do it at an exorbitant fee from like 0800-2200.

Just want to point out that, depending on your state, you may have the right to change the lock, especially if it gets broken as a result of needing the door opened. Even if you don’t have that as a legally secured right, your landlord might let you do it if you’re upgrading to something with a key code or a smart lock, since it’s basically free for them. If nothing else, some smart locks can work with existing locks without having to change them out. If it’s a big company rather than just a landlord, you might need to investigate your rights or go with one of the ones that works with existing locks, but I wanted to throw this out there for anyone who runs into or worries about this problem.

Idk, I was a maintenance man for some apartments and I would have done it. We had spares for the apartments so we could get in if there was work to be done when the tenant wasn't home.

But most of the work went straight to me, my boss didn't really tell me what jobs to work and which not. If you haven't broken in already, maybe call the maintenance guy yourself if you have the number.

Mine charge $50 each time you need to borrow their spare key

Uh yeah its normal, in hawaii at least

When I lived in the uk mine charged 30 quid for the pleasure. Wouldn’t put it past them to just leave someone out cause they didn’t feel like getting off their ass

It’s greed. Here’s how these ghouls see it:

Case 1: they open it. Have to pay potential off work employee to do it or take employee’s valuable labor while on the clock

Case 2: renter has locksmith open it. Free. Or if they damage the door, charge the renter and make money!

Am landlord. I change the locks cylinders and specifically tell them this is their home now and I won't have a spare. I do this because it's a liability for me if they get robbed, they can't blame me.

Send them the bill for the locksmith