Locksmith in Wauwatosa, WI

Locksmith in Wauwatosa, from Mayfair Road to the Village

A locksmith in Wauwatosa gets calls from three very different places: quiet streets of family homes, the parking lots along Mayfair Road, and the garages of a large medical campus. We are a mobile locksmith, so we come to the house, the lot, or the garage level. Opening a house or a car usually takes a few minutes once we are there, and a rekey, a lock repair, or a new car key takes 15 to 60 minutes. Wauwatosa is about 5 miles west of downtown Milwaukee, in Milwaukee County. A house lockout starts at $69 (house lockout).

How Tosa became a city

Wauwatosa became a village in 1892, when about 2,248 people lived here, and a city on May 27, 1897, with Emerson Hoyt as its first mayor. Between those two dates, a fire destroyed much of the business district. Today the city has about 48,000 residents, and almost everyone calls it Tosa. The name is traced to a Potawatomi word for the firefly. Wauwatosa also has a building that architecture fans drive in to see: the Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church, one of the late designs of Frank Lloyd Wright.

A city of homes, and a ring of old keys

Wauwatosa likes to call itself a city of homes, and the numbers support it: most houses here are single-family homes lived in by their owners. Many of those houses have passed through several owners, and each owner left something on the doors. A front door may still have an old mortise lock, the side door a deadbolt added later, and the back door a knob from a hardware store. The result is a key ring with three or four keys that look alike.

A mixed set of house keys can be sorted out in one visit. A rekey sets all the cylinders to one new key without changing the hardware, starting at $59 for the first lock and $20 for each additional lock (rekeying). When an old lock sticks, binds, or turns only with a trick, we take it apart, clean it, and replace worn parts; lock repair starts at $79 (lock repair). When a door needs a stronger lock, we install a new deadbolt from $119.

Car lockouts at Mayfair Mall and the Mayfair Collection

Mayfair Mall opened in 1958 on Mayfair Road, which is Highway 100, between North Avenue and Center Street. The Mayfair Collection later added about 69 acres of stores and restaurants nearby. Together they have some of the largest parking lots in the county, and a lot of keys end up locked inside cars there. Tell us which entrance or which store you parked near, and we drive to the car. A car lockout starts at $69 (car lockout).

When the key is gone for good, we cut and program a new one at the car. A key for a car with no key left starts at $119, and a push-to-start smart key starts at $159 (lost car keys). Shopping bags, a stroller, and a cart full of groceries make it easy to set the fob down for a second, so we hear about a lot of fobs left on a cart or a bench.

Night shifts at the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center

The Milwaukee Regional Medical Center covers about 250 acres near 87th Street and Wisconsin Avenue. Froedtert Hospital, Children's Wisconsin, and the Medical College of Wisconsin share the campus, and the campus runs around the clock. A nurse who finishes at 3 a.m. and sees the keys on the car seat, or a parent who rushed a child to the emergency room and left the fob inside, needs help at that hour and not the next morning. We work 24/7. In a parking structure, tell us the level and the row, and keep your phone on so we can find you.

Shops and offices in the Village and on North Avenue

The Village is the historic center of Wauwatosa, with brick buildings more than a century old and shops, cafes, and offices on the ground floors. North Avenue has its own business areas, including MidTown Tosa. Old buildings come with old doors: worn storefront cylinders, closers that slam, and back doors that do not latch. We rekey a business after an employee leaves, from $79 for the first lock, replace storefront locks from $129, and repair door closers from $99 (storefront locks). A business lockout starts at $89.

Driving to Wauwatosa

Wauwatosa borders the city of Milwaukee on the east and West Allis on the south. Brookfield is to the west, across the line in Waukesha County, and Menomonee Falls is a short drive to the north. We cover all of them at the same prices.