How does a Rotherham locksmith know it’s your house?

Have we all caught up with Happy Valley then? That third series became quite the sensation, and the exploits of the no-nonsense Sergeant Catherine Cawood taking on the dastardly Tommy Lee Royce made dark Sunday nights interesting for a few weeks at the beginning of the year. And kept the Monday fear at bay for at least an hour.

Utilising detective skills in locksmith job

Now, I’m not Catherine Cawood – there are a lot of subtle clues giving that away, most notably the blonde hair and her, well, being a woman. Also I’m not a member of the West Yorkshire Police force. However, I do find that in my job as a locksmith, I have to think a bit like a police detective at times, utilising similar skills to those used by Cawood to bring down Tommy Lee Royce, albeit on a much lesser scale. And I’m also not broadcast to millions of viewers on primetime television, despite my repeated pitches to the BBC.

The detective skills I use are twofold. Most obviously there is the deduction needed to work out what’s causing the problem with a lock or door when I’m called out to a job. Whilst this is sometimes obvious and straightforward, at times the issue is not immediately obvious and it’s then a process of elimination, testing and questioning before pinpointing the problem and then being able to remedy it. Think of me as a locksmith Sherlock Holmes if you will (or won’t).

Deductive reasoning in locksmithing

The second way I use detective-like skills is perhaps not as obvious but, if anything, even more important than the first. I have to judge people’s intentions on a daily basis, using intuition and evidence to decide if they really are the customer they say they are, or rather if they’re trying to use me as an accomplice to assist them in their nefarious deeds. Nefarious – a good detective word there too, feel free to use it.

“What on earth are you talking about?” I hear you saying. Or that might just be the dog looking at me. But let me give you an example of a fairly regular callout where I have to use this judgement. Say someone has called me to say that they’ve mislaid their keys and have locked themselves out their house. There is no spare set around, no-one that can help them, and maybe there is an urgency to getting in – an iron left on, a sleeping baby etc. Obviously I attend as soon as I can, and in the vast majority of cases the situation will be as described and I can immediately help resolve the situation.

Assessing the situation

But wait a minute, and employ your inner Catherine Cawood scepticism. Is everything as it seems? Instead of rushing in, I always take a few moments to let my eyes take in the scene and assess the situation. Because it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the panicking customer is not the householder at all, and instead is a burglar, or someone with a grudge against the actual householder. And if that is the case, it wouldn’t be a good idea for me to force entry to the house. I’d quickly find myself without a business and quite possibly up in front of the magistrates.

Like Catherine Cawood, I’m experienced in my role, having done this job for over two decades. Over that time, I think I’ve developed a pretty good radar to sense when things are not quite as they seem. I also make use of simple things on the scene – is the person who claims to be the householder at relative ease (taking into consideration the situation of course), and happy to make eye contact with neighbours, perhaps a postman, or passers-by and exchange a few words with them? Seeing them have a quick chat with a neighbour is a good sign that they are who they say they are. If in doubt, I’ll sometimes speak to the neighbour myself, just to put my own mind at rest.

Walking away from a job

Through speaking to the customer I’ll also get a good idea of how the land lies. Does anything in their story not make sense? If I’m unsure I’ll ask a few more questions before going ahead and gaining access to the house. The ultimate step, if I’m not happy about the situation, is to walk away from it. The number of times I’ve done this in my career are so few in number that I’m able to remember them all individually. But better to lose the pay for one job than a whole reputation.

Thankfully, as I say, the instances of this happening are very rare. It also wouldn’t really make sense from the criminal’s point of view. It’s quite a ballsy move to call a locksmith and get them to force entry, thus opening oneself up to easy identification when the police arrive and question the locksmith. Not forgetting the contact details being in the locksmith’s possession too. Most burglars are one-man (or woman) bands, and tend not to outsource their breaking and entering.

Making a cuppa to verify house ownership

A regular feature of Happy Valley was the amount of tea drunk, as if to emphasise the Yorkshire setting. I think Catherine Cawood would approve of another of my methods to reassure myself that the customer is the actual householder. When access to the house is gained, a natural thing to do is to make a cuppa. You can tell a lot by how someone goes about this. If they immediately know where the kettle is, as well as the mugs, spoons, sugar etc, then it’s evident they know the layout of the property, and it’s pretty certain that it’s their house. If they’re floundering, opening cupboards to get mugs only to find boxes of cereal, it might be time to reassess matters. This isn’t just a sneaky way of getting a free cuppa, honestly (okay, it slightly is). But it is a seemingly minor point that I’ve learnt over the years to use to back up my initial assessment of honesty.

Although it’s very rare that I’m not happy about the intentions of a customer, I do have to stay vigilant at all times, as I’m conscious of the responsibility on my shoulders, being a locksmith and gaining access to people’s houses. So whilst I may not have the physical attributes of DS Cawood, I maybe share a bit of her no-nonsense approach and her scepticism which always has to be present on every job. Happily, in almost all cases that disappears within the first few minutes.