For those that know me, you’ll know I’ve been having some issues in my shared house with my housemate that hasn’t paid rent for half the year. It’s got to the stage now whereby the entire flat has been issued individual Section 21 notices. I’ve been feeling particularly uneasy about the whole thing as I’m the only girl in the flat and I have over £2k of electrical goods. After speaking to my father, who amongst other things is a locksmith, I decided to replace the mortis lock without keys, for one with keys so I can at least lock my room when I’m away.
I thought it might be nice to give a few step by step instructions for anyone else wanting to do the same. This isn’t just a man thing to do, afterall I’m a 24 year old woman.
- First take off both door handles using a screwdriver. To undo screws remember, righty tighty, lefty loosey.
- Unscrew the mortis lock. This is the bit that’s inside the door, once unscrewing it you will need to remove the rectangular piece of metal that the handles use and poke your screwdriver through the hole to push the lock out.
- Take the lock mechanism down to your local B&Q or hardware store and in their door aisles you’ll find handles, and locks.
- Measure the old lock case against the ones in B&Q. If you get a lock case bigger than the old one you may need to chisel out the inside of the door to get it to fit.
- Choose the right type of lock. There are several types of mortis lock. My Dad says he can break into a 2 lever one within 10 seconds, a 3 lever takes slightly longer and a 5 lever longer still. The reason for this is that inside the lock there are plates, either 2, 3, or 5 that need to be moved by the key before the lock will be released. To break in you would need to lift each latch individually and keep them all lifted for the lock to pop. The levers are all spring loaded, therefore the more spring loaded levers to lift and hold, the trickier it will be to break-in.
- Purchase lock. I chose to use the self-service, it was quicker and I only had one item.
- Fit lock. Put the new lock mechanism into the side of the door and check the latch is the correct way around. If it’s not then you’re going to have to remove the lid, fiddle around and get it the right way around. The lock mechanism should have come with instructions for doing this. The instructions in mine weren’t clear so in the end I took the latch off the old lock and placed that in the new one. I will get my Dad to fit my new one into the old one for me when I see him next weekend.
- Screw it all back into place. Screw the lock mechanism back into the door frame, you might have needed to chisel some more space first if your lock mechanism is too big.
- Screw one handle back onto the door and then insert the rectangular rod that works the handle. Check that when you now move the handle that the latch moves.
- Screw the other handle back into place.
- Test lock. Using the keys provided test the lock works.
NOTES:
You will likely need a flat head screwdriver and a cross head screwdriver.
You may also need a chisel if the new lock mechanism is bigger than your current one.
Check with your landlord before fitting locks into rented property.
The Antoinette Collection 