New Home Security First Day | What to Change First

You've got the keys. The removal van is blocking the road. Someone's already asking where the kettle is.

Nobody is thinking about security right now. That's exactly the problem.

The hour after you collect keys from an estate agent is the highest-risk window of your entire tenure in that property. You don't know who else has a copy of those keys. The previous owners might. Their cleaner might. Their teenage son who moved out two years ago and never handed his back might. The estate agent's office has had a copy on a hook since the property went on the market. Some of those offices in Luton town centre run dozens of viewings a month. That's a lot of people walking through your new front door.

This post is a working order for that first day. Not theory. A sequence.

Start at the front door

Before you carry a single box in, try the existing lock. Feel how the key turns. Does it drag? Is the cylinder worn smooth? Does the door drop on the latch so you have to lift the handle to engage the deadlock? Note all of it, because these are the things you'll be dealing with for years if you don't sort them today.

Then look at what you've actually got.

On most Luton semis and terraces built before 2005, you'll find a Yale-type nightlatch on the upper half of the door and a five-lever mortice deadlock lower down. The mortice is the one that counts for your home insurance. Check it for a BS3621 kite mark. It'll be stamped into the faceplate on the edge of the door, or on the lock body itself. No kite mark means your insurer may not pay out after a forced entry. That's not a technicality they'll overlook.

If the door has a uPVC or composite frame with a multipoint lock, you're looking for a Euro cylinder. Pull the key out and examine the cylinder. If there's more than 3mm of cylinder protruding beyond the door furniture on either side, it's a snap target. If there's no anti-snap line scored around the cylinder at the shear point, it's a snap target. In Bury Park, Farley Hill and Leagrave, snap attacks are still the method of choice when someone wants a quiet entry. Change it today, not next week.

What to fit on a uPVC or composite door:

• A TS007 3-star rated cylinder, or a combination that achieves 3-star (such as a 1-star cylinder with a 2-star handle). Ultion, Avocet ABS and Mul-T-Lock are worth the price. An Ultion 3-star will cost you around £45 to £60 supply-only. A budget snap-proof clone from a DIY shed at £12 is not the same thing, regardless of what the packaging claims.
• Alternatively, SS312 Diamond accredited products go through independent forced-entry testing. If your insurer specifies it, that's the standard to meet.
• For timber doors with a mortice, a BS3621 five-lever deadlock is the baseline. If it's already fitted but was installed before 2010, consider replacing it. Lock tolerances wear, and a tired mortice is easier to pick or bump than a new one.

The garage

Everyone forgets the garage. I've never done a new-home security check where the homeowner has already thought about it.

If your new property in Wigmore, Stopsley or out towards Harpenden has an integral garage, that connecting door between the garage and the house is your biggest vulnerability. It's nearly always a lightweight internal door with a basic privacy lock or, worse, just a latch. Burglars know that getting into a garage is far easier than the front door, and once they're in the garage they're out of sight of the street. They can work on that connecting door for ten minutes without anyone noticing.

Day one tasks for the garage:

• The connecting internal door should be upgraded to at minimum a BS3621 five-lever mortice, and ideally treated like an external door: solid core, proper hinges, hinge bolts if it opens outward. A half-hour job for a locksmith. Not cheap to ignore if someone strips your kitchen.
• The up-and-over or sectional door itself. Check the lock mechanism on the handle. Many have a simple T-handle with a basic wafer lock that can be bypassed in seconds with a flat-head screwdriver. If the manufacturer lock is poor, a ground anchor or secondary hasp and padlock, something Sold Secure rated, is the fix.
• If there's a side door into the garage, treat it as an external door. That means a five-lever mortice or, if it's a uPVC panel door, a decent cylinder.

Side gates and outbuildings

A wooden side gate on a Luton semi in Limbury or Round Green is often the only thing between the street and your rear garden. Test it. Push it hard from the outside. If it flexes open at the top, the hinges are failing. The standard fit is a throw-over ring latch that can be opened from the outside by reaching over. That's fine during the day. It's not fine at 2am.

For the gate:

• A proper gate bolt or locking bar on the inside is the minimum. If you need it to lock from both sides, a padlock hasp fitted correctly with coach bolts through the post (not just wood screws into the surface) will hold. A Squire SS50CS or similar closed-shackle padlock rated Sold Secure Gold will resist crop attacks. Expect to pay around £25 to £40 for a decent padlock. The £6 brass padlock from a hardware shop on Dunstable Road will not.
• Check the gate hinges. A gate hanging on two small screwed hinges is removed with a screwdriver. Coach bolts or through-bolts are what you want.

Shed and outbuildings get the same treatment. A £6 padlock on a shed full of bikes and power tools is an invitation. Hasp quality matters as much as padlock quality: a good padlock on a flimsy hasp held by four short screws is pointless. Both need to be substantial.

Window locks

On a first visit to a property in LU2 or LU3, I'd say roughly half the houses I go into have window locks that are either broken, missing the key, or were never there to start with. Sellers don't always replace them before they leave.

The window lock key situation is particularly odd on moving day. Quite often the estate agent hands over a bunch of keys and nobody is entirely sure which one is the window key. Or there isn't one. Or there are three identical keys and nobody tested them before completion.

Work through each room:

• Casement windows (the hinged type): should have a cockspur handle that locks, plus ideally a separate key-operated locking bolt, particularly on ground floor and easily reached first floor windows. ERA, Mila and Winkhaus all make decent replacement hardware. Snap-lock mechanisms that operate without a key are not window locks.
• Tilt-and-turn windows common on newer builds and flats: these use espagnolette locks driven by GU, Fuhr or Roto hardware in the frame. If the handle spins freely without resistance, the gearbox inside the frame has failed. The lock isn't engaging. This is a common fault and not obvious until you test it properly.
• Sash windows on older properties in the Bury Park Victorian terraces or around the edge of Luton town centre: sash stops and sash locks. Without them, the window can be slid open quietly from outside. Sash stops screw into the inner frame and cost a few pounds each. They're genuinely effective. Fit them.
• Ground floor windows: if they open wide enough to climb through, a window restrictor keeps them ventilatable without being accessible. Particularly relevant if there are young children, but from a security standpoint it also limits what a burglar can do with a window that's been left ajar overnight.

Test every lock with its key before you accept that it works. 'It looks fine' is not a test.

The back door

Back doors on UK properties are almost always the weakest point. They're often older, fitted with lower-grade locks than the front, and less visible from the street so any attack on them is less likely to be seen.

On a mid-terrace in Stopsley or Houghton Regis, the back door often opens onto a shared alley. That alley is your neighbour's access too, which means there are multiple people with legitimate reasons to be in it, which makes it harder for residents to spot when someone isn't legitimate.

For the back door:

• Same BS3621 standard applies as the front. If it's got a low-grade two-lever lock or a basic latch, replace it.
• Patio or French doors are a separate issue. The multi-point locks on these are usually driven by Fuhr, GU or Maco hardware. The cylinder in the handle barrel is often a cheap own-brand fitted by the door manufacturer. Check it for anti-snap features. If it's smooth with no visible line, it's a standard cylinder and worth swapping.
• Door chains or door bars on the back door: less common but useful if you have a door that opens directly from the garden into the kitchen. A door bar, the type that braces against the floor, is more effective than a chain.

Porch doors and secondary entrances

A lot of properties around Dunstable and Caddington have porches, either original Victorian tiled porches or uPVC additions. The inner front door through the porch is usually solid and well-locked. The outer porch door often has a simple latch. That's fine as a weather barrier. It's not fine if someone can loiter in your porch unobserved while they work on the inner door. A lock on the outer porch door, even a basic key-operated latch, at least means they have to break something to get into the porch and that's visible damage.

Any secondary or utility entrance gets the same treatment as the back door.

The order of priority if you can't do everything today

Some people move in on a budget and can't change everything at once. That's real, and it's better to be honest about the order than to suggest someone spends money they don't have.

1. Change or rekey the front door cylinder first. Always. This directly addresses the unknown keyholders problem. Rekeying is cheaper than replacing the full cylinder if the lock is already good quality: a locksmith can rekey many euro cylinders and most five-lever mortices. Ask specifically. A cylinder rekey or replacement with a new Ultion or Avocet ABS for the front door, supply and fit, will typically run £80 to £150 in the LU postcodes depending on the lock specified.

1. The internal garage-to-house door, if you have one. This is the second most important job and it's almost always overlooked.

1. Back door locks if they're inadequate.

1. Side gate and outbuildings if there are bikes, tools, or a ladder stored there. A ladder stored in an accessible garden is a burglar's gift.

1. Windows across the property.

1. The porch and any secondary entrances last.

The things that take five minutes and cost nothing

Check every door and window actually closes and latches before you go to bed on day one. This sounds obvious. On moving day, with boxes everywhere and a dozen people coming in and out, it's genuinely easy for a back door to be left on the latch for hours.

Find the alarm panel if there is one. Try to get the previous owner's code from the estate agent before completion. If you can't, a locksmith or alarm engineer can usually reset a domestic panel in under an hour. Do not just ignore an existing alarm system because you don't know the code.

Ask the estate agent directly: how many sets of keys were cut, and who had them? They should know. You want everything back or accounted for.

If it's a new build, the developer's site team may still have a construction key that fits your door until you complete the change to your personal key profile. Some developers handle this automatically at handover. Some don't. Ask.

One more thing: the letterbox

Fishing attacks through letterboxes, where a rod with a hook is used to pull keys off a hall table or hook, still happen. In LU1 especially on properties with a straight hallway where the letterbox faces directly towards the kitchen door, it's a real method. A letterbox cage or letterbox draught excluder with an internal baffle costs about £15 to £25 and fits in five minutes. Do it if your letterbox is that type.

Also: don't leave keys in the lock overnight. Not on the inside of the front door, not on a hook in line of sight from the letterbox. If you need to be able to get out quickly in an emergency, keep keys on a hook beside the door, below the letterbox line and out of fishing reach.

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If you're moving into a property in Luton or anywhere in the LU postcodes and want the cylinder changed or a full first-day check done, Locks Local covers the area and tries to get to you in under 30 minutes. Pricing is given honestly when you call, before anyone comes out. No call-out fee quoted one thing and invoiced another. You can reach me on the number on this site.