tenant is locked out refuses to call locksmith. how do I handle?

[Kyle Hipp]

I have some tenants who live in the upper of a duplex. The basement is shared with a separate outside enterance. I asked the lower tenant (daughter of upper tenants) to move out at the end of August which did. I just finished 10 days of completely rehauling the lower unit.

At 7pm tonight upstairs tenant calls and says they blew a breaker, which they also did yesterday as it has been hot. They apparently lost the basement key a while ago and have just been leaving the basement door unlocked. When the tenant called today I explained that I am at work until 10:30pm and can't come over until then. He explains that his wife needs it on as she has asthma and cannot wait that long. I tell them they then need to call a locksmith per the lease. Then the tenant hung up on me and has not responded since.

The next door neighbor calls to tell me that someone is trying to break in the basement door. I contact the local authorities and they said they would have the fire department come out and use a spreader on the door to unlock if the tenants call and request it. What is my recourse here. They have been problem tenants to begin with, drinking and neighborhood issues ( both in there mid to late 50s). They already have a health code violation that they remedied in the 7 days, so by damaging the door instead of calling a locksmith should be grounds for termination. There is many more stories so this snapshot may sound hard but what is your take on ny position and options here?