I started to investigate having it repaired/replaced by a locksmith. A guy came out and said, "Well, it's broken," which I (ahem) had suspected, and said he would "research the options." A week later I hadn't heard back from him. I went to the locksmith shop itself and had a comically frustrating experience that ended with "We'll get back to you." I did learn rather definitively, however, that replacing our lock would not be a simple matter. They don't make that kind of lock anymore (it's a "mortise lock"), so we'd have to replace the whole latch-doorknob-etc assembly. That in itself is three or four hundred dollars, and then you have to get it into the door. Six hundred dollars to fix a broken latch? We had our whole yard done for that. Crazy.
So while the locksmith was not getting back to me, I called Sergio. He came out the next day and took the lock apart and determined that the latch piece was not broken after all, only worn flat from 67 years of use. He went out to his car for a minute, then came back and reassembled the latch. "Works fine now, and I think it'll last a while," he said. When I asked what he did, he said, "I just made that piece a little longer." How? He banged on it with a hammer, like a blacksmith. It's iron or steel or something. Fantastic. It took him twenty minutes, most of which was taking apart and reassembling the hardware.
Sergio also said he'd be happy to take care of the properties once we're gone, keep the yard trimmed and keep an eye on things in storms or whatever else might come up. Thank goodness for Sergio.
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