Journal
Notes from the van
Short pieces about the doors and locks of this particular municipality: the pedestrianised old town, the boom-era blocks, the coast, the airport, and what August does to all of it. Written to answer a question, not to sell you a call-out.
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Landing at midnight and the key safe will not open
The late flight into Alicante-Elche, the hire car, and a key safe that refuses on the one night you cannot wait until morning. What to try, in order.
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Sand off the Carabassí dunes, and what it does to a cylinder
Coastal locks here are not just dealing with salt. They are dealing with an abrasive that blows in off a dune system a few metres away, and it behaves completely differently.
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Locked out on the night the city turns its lights off
The Nit de l'Albà is the worst possible evening to be standing outside your own front door in Elche, and it is worth knowing why before the 13th of August.
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When the van cannot reach your door
Most of Elche's historic centre is pedestrianised. That changes how a call-out works, and there is one piece of information that saves everybody ten minutes.
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The gates on the palm orchard walls
Elche's huertos are bounded by walls with gates in them, and those gates get forgotten until the day one will not open. They are their own kind of lock problem.
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Boom-era blocks, and doors that stop lining up
Altabix went up fast during the last property boom. Twenty years on, a very particular fault is coming due across thousands of its front doors.
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The shutter that will not lift at seven in the morning
In a city built on footwear workshops, a stuck roller shutter is not a lock problem. It is a lost shift, and it almost always gave warning first.
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What a locksmith in Spain has to ask you first
Before any door gets opened there is a question about entitlement. It surprises people who have moved here, and it is the reason nobody can do the same to your door.
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Denuncia first, factura after
If a door has been forced in Spain, the order you do things in decides how the insurance claim goes. Most people get it wrong in the first twenty minutes.
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The wardrobe safe nobody has the code for
Almost every holiday apartment on this coast has one. Sooner or later somebody wants it open, and by then the person who set the code has long gone.
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Changing the lock between tenants, and when not to bother
Landlords are told to change the locks every time. That is not true, it is expensive, and the real triggers are easy to list.
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Your flight lands in Elche, not Alicante
The airport carries both names but sits inside one municipality, and which one it is turns out to matter when you are standing next to a locked hire car.
Rather just ask someone?
Reading around a problem is useful right up until it is two in the morning. Then the phone is quicker.
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