Sprayed it again, made sure the spray went all the way in. If you have any other ideas please let me know.Īlso, my friend had said that he thought that maybe the tip of the key had broken off (as suggested here above) but after looking closely at the tip of the key the tip is very even (no rough pointed edges) indicating that the tip did not break off and we also compared it to the key for the other dryer and noticed it is the same length etc so highly unlikely the tip broke off in the keyhole. Thank you all for your ideas and comments. We have since secured that room with a lock on the door. I would have to assume it is someone that knows that the keys are kept in that room and someone that lives close by as why would they make it a point to "return to the scene of the crime" for a second time to get the coins from the machines.
These units are in a fairly crime free area and something like this is not normal. I will try as suggested to insert the key and turn 90 degrees back and forth gently trying to realign the tumblers. So maybe the first attempt was to gain access to the dryer coin boxes which failed several weeks ago and then they tried again to open the key box hoping to get all the keys to the washers and dryers. There is a lot of things in that room worth money and they left them there but only attempted to open the key box. After discussing this with my friend we came to think that the only reason why someone would want the keys in there would be for the keys to the washers and dryers to get the coins out. They were not able to open the door all the way but quite obvious someone attempted to gain access to it. Then I noticed that the door had been pried open and the locking mechanism messed up.
I attempted to enter the code and had a problem with opening the door but finally was able to. I think it was Thursday morning I went to open the key box and found that the door was half open (I thought he may have been there the night before and just did not close it all the way). Each time I return the key I specifically close the door and reset the code to zero with the push button and turn the knob to the horizontal position. Each day I go to that lock box and get the key for the unit I am painting for him. I have been helping him by painting one of his recently vacated units in that building. Simply a combination push button safe which when opened gives us access to all the keys of the units in that building and others along with the washer and dryer coin keys. Since then in the next room over (breaker panel room where the individual unit electrical panels are which is left unlocked so that tenants may reset tripped breakers) he keeps a "lock box key holder" which is mounted to the wall. We found that this lock would not accept the key about 2 or more weeks ago.