We’ve recently fallen victim to a rash of malicious vandalism in targeted geographic areas. The vandals are super gluing the internal mechanism of our lock cores rendering them inoperable.
In most cases, all external cores were glued, and the facilities are unable to open for the day. Is there any way to remove the glue? How can we be proactive in combating vandalism?
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen this type of issue. A few years ago one of our customers was hosting a global conference. Lobbyists used superglue to disable the lock of every store (around 20) where the conference was held and surrounding areas. Unfortunately, once the damage is done it’s very hard to reverse.
The only hope of removing the glue is to use an industry strength spray (like lacquer thinner) in the core; however, there’s no guarantee that this will work. The core will never be restored to 100% operational, but chances are you’ll at least gain access to the facility until a locksmith can replace it. There’s also a chance that while the glue was at least moderately thinned by the lacquer thinner, enough blockage wasn’t removed to allow the key to work properly in which case a locksmith would need to drill the core.
Combating Vandalism Before it Strikes
Going forward you have a few options. You can either stay idle in hopes that the vandal won’t strike again, or you can install a magnetic key cover. These covers slide down over the core protecting it from any kind of tampering. Generally, facilities in high-risk areas will cover one external lock with this magnetic cover ensuring that, should the location be vandalized, at least one door remains accessible. This allows the store to start the day while waiting on a locksmith to replace the affected cores.
Lorraine Ellis – Account Administrator
(Note from Kaitlyn: Lorraine celebrates 17 years with LockNet in January!)