By mid-2024 the municipality of Orihuela had 5,760 tourist homes registered and around 1,300 more applications waiting, most of them on this coast. Residents’ representatives put the summer population at over 100,000, against about 60,000 in winter. In other words: from June to September, a holiday-let front door here is opened and shut by a different family every week, many of them arriving tired, late and carrying suitcases.
Locks are built for that, up to a point. September is when the point shows.
What a summer does
The key wears the cylinder, and the cylinder wears the key. A family of four can turn a key fifty times a day. Over a season, that is more use than many homes give their front door in a year. Add sand on hands and in pockets, and the pins inside start to wear unevenly.
Doors get slammed. In a hot apartment with the terrace open, the front door closes with a bang every time the breeze catches it. Repeated slamming loosens the keep on the frame and the screws holding the lock body.
Sliders get forced. Guests do not know that your terrace slider has to be lifted slightly to lock. They push, and the hook lock or the rollers take the strain.
Keys go missing. Taken home in a pocket, dropped on the beach, left in a hire car. You may have started the summer with four sets and finished it with three.
Smart locks run down. Keypads in full sun eat batteries faster than the manufacturer’s estimate. More on that in the smart lock went flat.
A September check, door by door
Do this once the last summer guests have gone, before the winter lets start:
- Count the keys. Every set, including the ones the cleaner and the manager hold. If you cannot account for one, change the cylinder before the next booking.
- Try each key in each lock. A key that needs jiggling is a key or a cylinder near the end of its life. Do not wait for it to snap in a guest’s hand at midnight.
- Watch the front door close. It should latch without being pushed. If it has to be slammed, the keep needs adjusting.
- Lift the multipoint handle. If it is noticeably stiffer than in spring, the gearbox is wearing.
- Run the slider. Vacuum the bottom track, then check the hook catches without lifting the door.
- Open and close the safe, if there is one, and replace the batteries.
What it costs to ignore
Most locks that fail in a holiday let fail at check-in: a tired family at the gate in August, a manager abroad and a phone that does not stop ringing. The guest side of that is in locked out by the communal pool. An end-of-season check is planned work, booked for a quiet day.
Who does what
Cleaning teams notice a lot. Ask yours to tell you whenever a key is stiff or a door does not latch, and write it down. A note that says “front door stiff since 12 August” tells a locksmith more than any description on the phone.
When something does need replacing, it is covered under holiday rental locksmith work in Orihuela Costa. Sliders and porch doors have a page of their own, and photos can be sent through the contact page.