The locksmith experience ranges from family dramas to curiosities

“There is one way to lock and a million ways to unlock,” says Arūnas Mordas from Gargžd, an experienced locksmith who has been developing his business for thirty-three years. Having started with repairing umbrellas, the man also repairs bicycles and not only makes copies of keys, but is invited to unlock apartment, house, garage door locks, car locks, when the owners are no longer able to do it themselves. There is no boredom and monotony in his work.
There are many copies of keys
It is warm, cozy and clean in the kiosk next to the Gargžda market, in the key workshop where A. Mordas works. On one wall, there are many key blanks, which turn into a copy of the key brought by the customer within a couple of minutes. Keys are lost, sometimes broken, sometimes they are needed more than what is included with the purchased lock, so the services of a locksmith are in demand. “Now my clients are both children and their parents. They bring to make school wardrobe keys. According to them, I can tell in which school which child studies”, A. Mordas smiled.
There are customers who bring keys from antique sideboards and ask to make an outdated copy, but usually the locksmith has to sell unsophisticated keys to apartment and house door locks. According to Arūnas, Chinese locks are still the most popular, followed by Scandinavian locks (their keys are also more expensive), German, Czech. The services of the Gargždiškis locksmith are also used by compatriots who have returned from abroad on vacation, because the production of keys in Norway is very expensive, and in Denmark, a permit is required for copies of keys.
In Gargždais, in February and March, customers rarely open the doors of key workshops. “They come in January with the keys thrown away during the holidays, then two months later – a low tide, and in April, when the gardeners start to move, they look around to see that they can’t find the keys to the garden or garage, the number of customers increases again,” Arūnas shared his observations. However, key production is only one of the services provided by a locksmith.
It started with umbrellas
“When I was young, standing in line at a locksmith in Klaipėda, I thought it was a good job, but I became a locksmith by accident. I bought a Japanese umbrella, and after going on an excursion in Sochi, it broke. When I brought it home, I couldn’t find anyone to repair the umbrella either in Gargždai or Klaipėda, so I repaired it myself,” A. Mordas recalled how he became an umbrella craftsman. Umbrellas were expensive and in short supply back then, so there were so many customers that Arūnas could no longer repair them. We also undertook bicycle repair. Although he had obtained the specialty of communications electrician in Klaipėda, he only worked for it for a year. He learned the work of a locksmith on his own.
“More than 30 years ago, I bought a machine from Šiauliai and started making keys in a kiosk behind the Culture Center. Back then, there were 3-4 types of keys and that was enough, now – across the entire wall and it’s still not enough,” Arūnas compared the needs of customers. His key workshop now has 5 machines (he promises to buy one more), a machine for making machine keys, an electric sharpener and many different screwdrivers, hammers, but some tools are not visible to customers.
Some are alive, some are dead
There are no spells to unlock the locks, but there are tools that Mordas knows well. “Everything can be opened, but each lock requires a different tool and they are very expensive. One can cost several hundred euros, so it is impossible to buy as many different locks as there are. The most difficult thing is to unlock the top lock of an armored door without a key,” said the resident of Gargždi, who is often called in emergency cases. According to Arūnas, the most uncomfortable thing is when a dead person is found when the door is opened in front of relatives. “Then people are screaming, crying, shouting, and it’s very unpleasant that in such a situation I still have to ask them to pay me for unlocking.” I live from misfortunes like a robber”, compared the man.
However, not every emergency unlock ends in a confrontation with death. It happens that sick and elderly people leave the key in the lock and are no longer able to unlock it. Arūnas advises to take the key out of the lock after locking it, so that in the event of an accident, relatives would have less worries – they could unlock the door themselves with spare keys.
If someone locks himself in the balcony and doesn’t have a phone nearby, he can’t call anyone, he just has to wait for someone to come home. Thus, parents are sometimes imprisoned by young children on balconies, not out of malice. Adults should be alert, because not always such a situation can end only in fright. “It can be a matter of life and death,” Arūnas says. If something is being cooked in the kitchen, the child remaining in the room may not know how to turn off the stove, so a fire may occur.
Called to unlock the door in an emergency, Arūnas asks the owners for property ownership documents. Sometimes there are also curious situations: one week a man calls, the next week a woman, because they change the door locks in anger. “Both submit property documents, but after the second time I suggest that you figure out your own affairs, I don’t want to participate in them,” Arūnas admitted.
He also assists police officers when they have to enter an apartment under arrest with bailiffs.
The payment for emergency unlocking depends on the complexity of the work, wooden or armored doors, what kind of lock. According to Arūnas, it usually costs from 20 euros.
Many times in the stairwells of apartment buildings, the locksmith from Gargždi meets people who, seeing that he is locking other people’s doors, pass by indifferently, without asking what he is doing here. Such indifference surprises Arūnas – is the real neighborhood ending up disappearing?
Distraction comes at a cost
Distracted people often lose not only house keys, but also car keys, or lock them in the trunk or car compartment with children or animals. Emergency unlocking of cars attracts curious people who teach how to unlock, commenting that a thief can do such a job in seconds. “I don’t need helpers and commentators. And the price also depends on how far I have to drive to the car. The worst thing is when people lose their car keys. Then I not only have to unlock, remove the lock from the door, make a new key based on it, call a car electrician, etc. It cost about two and a half hundred for one customer”, A. Mordas did not hide. Compared to other keys, the production of car keys with embedded electronic codes is several times more expensive – about 60 euros. It has happened to Arūns that the customer did not pay, because he unlocked the car too easily.
Sent by medics
Less often, the foreman is invited to unlock the safes where the permit holders keep weapons and ammunition, but when he opened it, he found a bottle of drink and many election ballots, and when the priest was asked to open two donation boxes in the church, which had not been locked for a long time, he made sure that people donate very little .
Although he still brings umbrellas to Arūns to repair, he no longer undertakes this work because of the price that a person should pay for an inexpensive repaired item. However, in the turnkey workshop, you can also see repaired hair dryers from hairdressers, sharpening knives from cafes, old high-quality scissors from homes.
If the finger on which the ring is worn becomes swollen or suppurates, it must be amputated or amputated. Several times Arūns had to do this in his workshop when doctors sent him. “One had an abscessed finger, the other had a broken finger. It had to be plastered, but the ring had to be cut first. Gold is a soft metal, it wasn’t difficult, but I had trouble cutting platinum. The client came accordingly “prepared”, apparently due to stress”, – the only locksmith in Gargždais remembered the exceptional case.
Laima ŠVEISTRYTĖ