New Home Security First Day | What to Do Hour One

You've signed, you've collected the keys, and someone's already reversing a van onto the drive. Moving day is organised chaos, and security is the thing that slips to tomorrow. Don't let it.

The previous owner handed back keys. Fine. But how many copies exist? Estate agent set. Cleaner's spare. The neighbour who fed the cat. The ex-partner nobody mentioned. You have no idea, and you won't find out. What you can do is make all of those copies useless before tonight.

This is a working guide for the first hour. Not the first week. The hour that actually matters.

---

Before the Van Unloads: A Five-Minute Walk-Round

Do this while the removal lorry is still being organised outside. Walk the entire perimeter with your phone and a notepad. You're counting entry points, not admiring the garden.

Front door. What cylinder is fitted? Look for a brand stamp. An old Yale oval cylinder, a cheap euro without any anti-snap feature, or a completely blank face with no branding means it's almost certainly going on your list today. If it's already a Ultion, an Avocet ABS, or a Mul-T-Lock and it looks recent, you may be replacing it anyway for key control reasons but at least the barrel itself isn't a physical weak point.

Back door. A lot of Richmond semis and terraces, particularly around North Sheen and the streets off Lower Richmond Road, have a secondary back door that's been fitted with whatever lock was cheapest at the time. Check whether it's a five-lever mortice deadlock, a basic nightlatch, or a multi-point uPVC lock. Note it down.

Side gate. If there's a gate between front and back, is it padlocked? Bolted? Wide open with a broken latch? This is the route most opportunist burglars use to reach the rear of the property. A side gate with no effective lock is the same as having no back door security at all.

Garage. Integral garage with an internal door into the house? That internal door needs to meet the same standard as your front door. Most don't. Note it.

Windows. Ground floor and any first-floor windows accessible from a flat roof or extension. Are key-operated window locks fitted? Do you have the keys for them? If the previous owner has taken the window lock keys, which happens more than you'd think, you'll need those barrels drilled or replaced today.

Garden outbuildings. Shed, bike store, log store with power tools inside. Not your security priority for hour one, but note whether there's anything worth stealing that could also be used to attack the house itself. A crowbar left in an unlocked shed is not your friend.

---

The Lock Change Decision

You're going to get one of two pieces of advice from different directions. Some people will say change every lock on day one. Others will say check condition first and only change what needs it.

Honest answer: change the front door cylinder today, full stop. The cost is modest, around £80 to £130 fitted depending on the grade of cylinder you choose, and it removes the unknown-copies problem entirely. Everything else you can triage.

What standard should you hit?

For an insured property, your policy almost certainly requires a British Standard mortice deadlock to BS3621 on any timber door with a deadlock, or a BS8621 if you want a cylinder-operated version. For the cylinder itself, you're looking at TS007 3-star rated or SS312 Diamond accredited. Those ratings combine anti-snap, anti-pick, and anti-drill resistance in a single tested package.

Brands worth fitting: Ultion 3-star, Avocet ABS Ultimate, Mul-T-Lock MT5+. All three are available next-day from trade suppliers and any decent locksmith carries them as stock. A standard Yale 1-star cylinder, by contrast, will fail an attack in under a minute with nothing more sophisticated than a pair of pliers and a snap technique that's on YouTube.

For a uPVC door with a multi-point locking mechanism, the cylinder is the weak point not the door. The multipoint lock body (GU, Fuhr, Maco, Roto, Winkhaus are all common on Richmond terraces) is usually fine and rarely needs replacing. The cylinder screws out and a TS007-rated one screws in. Thirty minutes' work.

Timber door with a nightlatch and nothing else?

Change the nightlatch cylinder but also fit a BS3621 five-lever mortice deadlock if there isn't one. A nightlatch alone is not insurance-compliant and will not stop a kick. If the door is solid timber in good condition, adding a proper deadlock is straightforward and far cheaper than replacing the door. Budget around £150 to £200 fitted for a good quality mortice plus labour.

---

The Order of Priority

Here's the sequence, not a vague list but an actual order:

1. Front door cylinder, today. Non-negotiable. Book this in the morning, have it done before the removal team leaves so you've got witnesses to the new keys being cut.

2. Back door. If it's a uPVC multi-point with a cheap cylinder, swap the cylinder. Same cost, same rationale as the front. If it's a timber door with a five-lever mortice that looks original and is in good condition, the lock body is probably fine, just note it for a service in the next few weeks.

3. Side gate padlock. A decent padlock costs £25 to £60. An Abus 37/55 or a Squire SS50 will do the job for a side gate. Don't spend £150 on a Sold Secure Gold padlock for a wooden gate whose hinges you could lift off with a screwdriver. Match the lock to the strength of what it's protecting.

4. Garage internal door. If your integral garage connects to the house, that door should be FD30 fire door standard and fitted with a five-lever mortice. Builders frequently cut corners on this. If it's a hollow-core door with a spring latch, that's a problem worth dealing with this week, not this decade.

5. Window locks. Spend ten minutes going room to room. Key-operated locks on every openable ground-floor window, and on any first-floor window accessible by climbing. If the keys are missing, a locksmith can drill the old barrel and fit a new one. If the windows have no locks at all, cheap retrofit window restrictors and key-operated sash locks are an afternoon job.

6. Any outbuildings. Once the house itself is secure, come back to sheds and stores. Closed shackle padlock on a steel hasp, properly fixed with coach bolts through the door frame not wood screws, is what you want. Shed security is out of scope for hour one but put it on the list for week one.

---

The Bits People Actually Forget

Key safes from the previous occupant

If a key safe is mounted outside, you don't know the code the previous owner used, and you don't know who else does. Change the code today or remove the safe entirely. Wall-mounted key safes aren't hard to reset if you have the instructions, but if the original instructions are gone, a locksmith can open most models without damage.

Window handle locks on tilt-and-turn windows

Common on newer builds around Richmond Hill and the developments near Richmond station. The handle itself has a key lock mechanism. Without the key, the handle won't move. Many buyers get moved in and discover the keys are missing weeks later when they try to open a window. Find them on day one.

Patio doors

Sliding patio doors frequently have a secondary locking pin or anti-lift block in addition to the main handle lock. The main lock may work fine. The secondary pins may be missing or broken. Lift the door in its frame and see if it moves. If it lifts more than a few millimetres, the anti-lift blocks need adjusting. A glass and glazing specialist or a locksmith with uPVC experience can sort this in twenty minutes.

Letterboxes with internal flap access

A letterbox without an internal cage or restrictor plate allows someone to push a hook tool through and manipulate door handles or even reach a key left in the lock. Fit an internal letter cage, available from any DIY merchant for under £15, or replace the letterbox with one that has a separate internal flap. If the front door has a handle on the inside that's reachable through the slot, this matters.

Door chains and door viewers

Not glamorous. Both cost under £15 combined. Both get forgotten. A door chain on the front door means you can answer without fully opening, which matters when you're in a new neighbourhood and you don't yet know who's who. A wide-angle door viewer means you can see who's there without opening at all. Fit them today while you have a drill out for everything else.

Security lighting

Not a locksmith's core territory but worth mentioning. If the previous owner has taken the PIR sensor light from the back garden, or if there never was one, getting a basic motion-activated light up before your first night in the property is worth the thirty minutes. A dark side return on a Richmond terrace is an invitation.

---

What If the Locks Are Already Good?

Sometimes you buy a place and the previous owner was security-conscious. You walk in and find Ultion cylinders, solid five-lever mortice deadlocks, window locks with keys all labelled, and a properly padlocked gate. Good for them.

You're still changing the cylinders. Not because the hardware is inadequate, it isn't, but because key control is the issue not lock quality. A TS007-rated Ultion with unknown key copies in circulation is less secure than the same Ultion with a fresh set of keys you cut yourself from a blank. The lock body stays. The cylinder comes out.

A like-for-like Ultion swap runs roughly £80 to £110 fitted. If you've got that quality of lock on the front and back door, that's around £200 total. Do it.

---

A Note on Costs

People sometimes hold off on the first-day lock change because moving costs have already been painful. Understandable. But break-ins in the first days after a move are not rare. Burglars do watch for removal vans. They know the occupants are distracted, that boxes are stacked against walls, and that the alarm (if there is one) hasn't been programmed by the new owners yet.

Front door cylinder replacement: £80 to £130 fitted, depending on grade. Back door cylinder: same. Mortice deadlock supply and fit: £130 to £200 depending on lock specified. Side gate padlock and hasp: £40 to £80 parts, £30 to £50 labour if you need it fitted. Window barrel replacements: £25 to £50 per window for straightforward swaps.

For most Richmond properties, the realistic day-one spend to get everything to a reasonable standard is £200 to £400. Less than the excess on most home insurance policies. Much less than replacing the laptop and the watches if someone walks in through the back on your first week.

---

Rented Property: A Word for Landlords

If you're a landlord handing over a property in TW9, TW10, or the surrounding postcodes, the same logic applies in reverse. Between tenancies, you change the cylinders. Every time. Not just when you think a previous tenant might have been a risk. Every time.

It's a brief conversation with your locksmith, a standard job, and it means you're handing over genuine key exclusivity to your new tenants. The liability picture is much cleaner if something goes wrong and you can show you changed the locks before the new tenancy started.

---

If you're moving into a property in Richmond or anywhere in the TW postcode area and you want the front and back door cylinders changed on the day, Rapid Response covers the whole area and can usually be with you in under thirty minutes. Pricing is honest and confirmed on the call before anyone drives out. No obligation to book until you know the number.

Get the cylinders changed before the removal van leaves. Everything else can follow in the right order.