Calpe’s seafront is a line of apartment towers, and the newer ones along Arenal-Bol and around Las Salinas reach eighteen storeys and more. Being locked out of one is rarely about a single lock. Between the pavement and your sofa there are usually three barriers, and working out which one has beaten you is the first step to getting back in quickly.
The three doors
1. The street door of the building. A communal door with its own key, a keypad, or an electronic fob. It belongs to the community of owners, not to you.
2. The lift or the garage. Many blocks put the lift, the garage door and sometimes the floor landing on the same fob. Lose the fob and you may be inside the building but unable to go up.
3. Your own flat door. Often an armoured door with a security cylinder in newer blocks, sometimes a plain timber door with a latch in older ones.
A locksmith is needed for the third. The first two almost always have a faster answer.
Getting through the street door
Do not ask anyone to force a communal door. It is not yours, repairing it is expensive, and the community will send you the bill. Instead, in this order:
- Concierge. Some seafront towers have one, at least in the daytime and in season. They will know you, or can check with the administrator.
- A neighbour. Press a bell you know. At night, a neighbour you have spoken to in the lift is better than a stranger.
- Wait for someone to come in or out. In August, when Calpe hotels were 93.57% full in 2025, that rarely takes long.
The lift and the fob
If the lift needs a fob and you have none, take the stairs if the stairwell is open. If it is also fob-controlled, the concierge or the administrator is the answer, not a locksmith: electronic access systems are programmed by the company that installed them.
Your own door
Now it is a locksmith job. Before you call, look at the door and note two things:
- Did it close on the latch, or is it deadlocked? If you pulled it shut behind you, it is almost certainly on the latch, which is the quickest and cheapest kind of opening.
- Is there a key in the inside of the lock? If you left it in the keyhole on the inside, say so. It changes which tools can be used.
Then call, give the name of the building, the tower if there are several, and the floor. A WhatsApp location pin saves the locksmith walking around the block looking for the right entrance.
Waiting safely
- Do not climb from a neighbour’s terrace to yours. People are seriously hurt doing this.
- Do not try a credit card on an armoured door: it will not work, and it can damage the weather seal.
- If you are shut out in a swimsuit with nothing else, the concierge or a neighbour will usually let you wait somewhere shaded.
Afterwards
If the keys are simply inside, you do not need a new lock. If they are lost together with the building fob, which has the building name on it, it is worth changing the flat cylinder: whoever finds that fob knows exactly which door it opens.
How the opening itself is done, and when a cylinder has to be sacrificed, is explained on the door opening page.