Aſter several apologies and some lock changing by the management, everyone thought that the matter was settled. How- ever, Steve wasn’t idle with the explana- tion that the caretaker gave about the locks. So, late at night and at every op- portunity, Steve went from unit to unit testing his key to see if it would work. Surprisingly, it wasn’t just a few or even a dozen, but almost half the suites in the building. He kept this fact a secret and spent the next few months taking advantage of this unauthorized freedom. He would steal items here and there to sell them and quickly began to fall deeper into sub- stance abuse. Steve also began to act more brazenly in his acts of thievery. He didn’t set any boundaries on what he took and when he took it. On September 6th , he was under the influence of alcohol and narcotics. He entered a suite shortly aſter midnight, knowing who lived in the unit. It was occupied by a single mother and her 14-year-old daughter. He was aroused, and his intention was to find the mother, but she was working a late shiſt that night. Instead, he found the teenager, brutally raped her and then, as a final measure, cut her throat. She didn’t die that night, but the loss of so much blood caused per- manent brain damage. It was only when another neighbor came home as Steve Watts was leaving that the situation was brought to light. Preventing a Crisis How could this have been averted? First, let me state that the above scenario is strictly fictional. Steve Watts is actual- ly a friend and police officer. Unfortu- nately, it’s very likely that these circum- stances may exist among large residential settings, regardless of locale. The con- dition that allowed our “perp” to enter many units was called unintentional WWW.ALOA.ORG “Fear-mongering is not a sales tactic that I like to employ. I prefer to use education to sway the clients to make intelligent decisions for their properties.” master keying. The particular cuts of his key mixed with the way the suites were keyed up, allowing for illicit opera- tion of the locks. This was the result of poor key management and lock-changing procedures. I won’t get into the mechanics of in- cidental master keys. If you’re a novice in master keying, I recommend taking a class in system design and writing. Or, at the very least, study up on the sub- ject before committing yourself to a large master key project. If you don’t have a basic understanding of master keying, you may be liable for creating the situa- tion described above. Needless to say, it’s very possible for this situation to arise for other reasons. One factor could be the use of different vendors. They have no idea which key has been used and where. When you’re invit- ed into a facility to rekey a lock and set it to the master system, do you take the time to inform the client of the risks that could happen without the use of proper record keeping? Quite honestly, you may inad- vertently set the storage room to match the same key as the staff washroom. We all want profitable work, but how would you look if you had to explain to the client how a loss happened, especially if you never took time to explain the risk? Worse yet, how would you feel explaining in court how that awful situation men- tioned above happened? The point is very simple. Master keys are powerful tools, and managing a sys- tem requires constant care and mainte- nance. This generally happens in the in- stitutional, commercial and government environments. However, it’s oſten over- looked in the residential setting. Educate the Client Previous articles have explained how dif- ferent clients will have varying security needs. It may be oversimplifying things, but residential keying has one main goal: provide the tenant a unique change key. Most large-scale residential projects re- quire the tenant units to fall under the convenience of a master key for mainte- nance and safety reasons. It’s imperative to consider the living spaces first in the system design. It’s important to incorpo- rate many extra changes for future lock changes. Clients should also be made aware that every system has a shelf life. If you have a setting with high client turnover, you’ll likely have to change the locks between each tenant. Many jurisdictions will have regulations or by-laws that govern such actions. With excessive lock changing, you will experience a shortened life span of your keying system. Rule number 1: Never reuse an old change key, ever! You really don’t know the who, where, when and what of that change key’s history, so it would be improper to use that key a second time, regardless of what manage- ment has told you. When the list of pos- sible keys has been exhausted, the only choice is to rekey and start again. Another factor that customers should be made aware of is the potential for li- ability if the master key falls into the wrong hands. I have witnessed all too SEPTEMBER 2015 KEYNOTES 23
