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What to Do With Old Locks

Mansfield LocksmithAre you the type of person who moves a lot? Do you have a lot of keys sitting around? Do you own rentals properties? These are all situations that will find you with a lot of left over keys. Even when you need to have locks changed, this means you will be left with old locks. These situations will also leave you with locks and keys. Now what do you do with all these left over keys and locks when they begin piling up? People have brought us there old keys at Mansfield Locksmith in Mansfield, Ohio to find out if we wanted to buy them and use them for anything. We don’t buy keys but we are happy to advise our customers of some creative ways they might use their old keys.

When Your Change Locks

Consider all the types of buildings you see every day, office complexes, houses, high-rise housing, restaurants, retail stores, hotels, dorms, universities and more. These places all have doors and locks. These doors need a key to open them and to close them to protect the contents of what is inside. Have you seen maintenance engineers and all the keys they carry around with you? If you have you are the manager of building, you’ll have new occupants, which means you’ll need to rekey the locks or completely install new locks. This means you’ll require new locks either way.

Unknown Keys

You may open up that junk drawer every now and then and notice a bunch of keys in the drawer, not even knowing where they come from or what they go to. You don’t have to let these mystery keys clutter up your house or your junk drawer. There are keys sitting there that you are likely afraid to throw out for fear that as soon as you do, you will realize what they go to. Wait! those were the keys to the safe deposit box that I still have something in or wait, that belongs to the file cabinet in the basement. The truth of the matter is that if you haven’t used the key in a long time, you really don’t need it. There are those rare occasions when you’ll throw away a key that you actually needed, but again that is very ‘rare’.

Not Adding to Landfills

There are plenty of reasons why you might be sitting with a bunch of keys. How you acquired them is not the question. The question at this point is what do you do with them? Do you just throw them in the trash? This doesn’t solve the problem; it only contributes to the problem. When you toss keys, you contribute to the already over-run landfills. There are plenty of ways to use these keys, although you may not be aware of it. We’re here to tell you exactly what you can do with these keys.

Recycle – Key are recyclable. You can collect them all and take them to a recycling facility. They are usually melted down when given to a recycling facility. Take all anything on the keys, tags, rubber, holders or stickers. Your recycling center might even have a mixed metals bin that you can contribute to. This should give some since of accomplishment knowing that your old keys will be put to good use.

Rekeying – Some locksmiths will repurpose your keys for you. Contact some of your local locksmiths and find out if your keys can be remade into something else. You just might be surprised with some of the suggestions they have to offer to you.

Weights – We have even heard of people sewing them into the bottom of their curtains or tablecloths to keep them in place. They just need to be sewn into the hem so that you can keep your curtains from flying all over the place. This is what tends to happen if you decide to leave a door or window open and you have light-weight curtains. We thought this idea was very practical.

Fishing Weights – You can use them on the end of your hook as a weight.

Hold Down Shower Curtains – While this is similar to weight you do to keep curtains and tablecloths from flying away, you can also use magnets in this project. You simply attach the key to a magnet with glue to hold the curtain in place and keep it from flying up when you are using the shower.

Paper Weight – Fill a jar with all of your old keys and use them as paperweights

A screwdriver – If you are really crafty, you can fill down the end of old keys and make a mini-screwdriver.

Create a shim – When you have a table that is uneven, you can simply place key underneath it to even it out.

Hammer Aid – When you have to hammer a nail into something but are afraid to hold the nail. You can use the hole of the key to hold it steady.

Design Wine Glass Charms – They make great wine glass charms. Use a little dental floss, possible some paint and labels to create these types of charms.

Personalize Gifts – Put a key on something that you can then attach to the gift, placing the persons name on the gift to further personalize it.

Zipper Pulley – You can place a key on the zipper of your child’s backpack or jacket to make it easier for them to open.

Create a Baby Mobile – A mobile is a great idea. You can paint the keys and secure them before hanging them above your baby’s crib.

Design a Wind Chime – This enables you to really be creative. Create the base and then place the keys on a fishing line to create a wind chime.

These are just some of the ideas that some of our locksmiths and their families have come up with. Surely, if you think hard enough, you’ll probably be able to come up with something just as interesting as the aforementioned ideas.


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