Do you lock your doors?
 

On Saturday my wife and I had to be gone most of the day and since my son was also gone for the weekend and the wife's car was being repaired we had no vehicles in our driveway and I decided to lock the door.

I realized that we keep our front door locked all the time and the storm door in front of it but rarely lock the back door which is the one we always use. I think we lock it about half the time at night, the wife tends to let the dog out before bed so I think she locks it because it is usually locked when I let the dog out first thing in the morning. However we rarely lock it during the day. I come and go during week days as I run out to do errands and we do have a gate across the drive way that we keep shut. We live in a fairly upscale neighborhood where the crime rate isn't too bad. You read about the occasional break in but we just don't feel too vulnerable because of our big gate I guess. We also have a dog who barks but she is pretty friendly so I don't think she is much of a deterrent.

If I plan to be gone all day and especially if the public schools are out I tend to lock the door. I guess I just figure kids might be more apt to cause some mischief. But most of the time the door is unlocked.

The front door latches tighter when the deadbolt is locked, so in the winter we keep the door locked all the time to keep drafts out, even if we are home.

Year round, I check the doors to make sure they are locked when I go to bed.

We always lock the front door when we leave, but sometimes the back door (which goes out into the back yard, opposite the driveway) gets forgotten and stays unlocked all day.

I feel safe in this neighborhood, but lock out of habit.

We lock our door at nite, we have had small children just walk in, so if they are here we lock our door.

Our doors are pretty much locked all day and all night, regardless of whether we're home or not. Locked is just the default position for us. The only time I actively choose to leave it unlocked is when my mom is about to arrive for lunch, or my stepkids are about to arrive for the weekend, and I just want to make it convenient for them to come in.

where I grew up, I never locked a door... where I live now... I always lock them when I leave or sleep.

I lock the doors from the inside during the day when my parents are away.
I might be listening to music, in the shower, drying my hair, watching something online upstairs. So it makes me feel safer. Frm random visitors.

We always lock ourselves in at night, but with a key in the door, in case of a fire.
When I'm alone at night I not only lock myself in and keep the key in the door, but also put the chain on. This is to help me sleep, because there are a number of friends and family members who have a key, and I worry they might come snooping after me. Nonsense because firstly it's never happened and secondly because if the doors are locked and the key left in, no-one can use their keys to get in. But my sister regularly lets herself in when my parents are here, and I often wake up hearing various people say my name when I'm alone.

But weirdly, I'm actually much more cavalier about burglars.
I'll regularly "nip out" without locking the doors if I can't immediately put my hands on my keys. I've even been to work before without locking the back door, because I didn't want to make myself late. Then again, it's a right assault course getting to the back door from anywhere other than the front door.

And we're surrounded by houses, with neighbours who keep an eye on us, especially if they know Mum & Dad are away. So it's spookiness regarding friends and family and sanguine lack of worry regarding crime.

FTR I've been this way all my life.
The first house I lived in, I regularly climbed in the large, deliberately unlocked front window rather than search out my keys.
I never used to leave the deadlock on when I lived in London so I could reach through the letterbox and lift the latch.
And I pretty much never locked the front door of my flat in Leicester unless I was inside. I'd also always put the front door of the building on the latch if I knew I'd be out for less than an hour, and all day if I knew the old lady upstairs was away.

College students have broken into the loveshack when it sat unused, so it's always locked and alarmed.

In the house I grew up in, the small window over the kitchen sink had a broken lock that my parents never bothered to have repaired. It would have required a fair amount of gymnastics for an adult to climb through, but was no problem for a small child. I used it at least a dozen times when I'd forgotten my key. The hardest part was getting the screen back on after I'd come through the house, so my parents wouldn't know I'd done it.

It would have to be a hearty fellow that would walk thru 3-4 feet of snow 1/2 mile back to get in my house. Then they would have to not pee their pants when they heard the Belgians bark joined by the cattle dog and the Chihuahuas. ;)

My door handle broke a little while ago, and though I got it sorted and can close and lock the door again, it doesn't stay closed unless it is locked. So nowadays I lock the door when i am inside, so as to avoid mad draughts.

I also lock the door if I am taking Carrotchops for a walk now, whereas I never used to before.

With a fully working door, I lock at night and when out if likely to be gone for more than an hour or so. But during the day, if home it stays unlocked. And dog walks, shop trips etc it stays unlocked.

I shouldn't. Because whilst this is a fairly peaceful little neighbourhood, there are occasional spates of housebreaking. And one of my neighbours was burgled about 10 years ago.

Our doors are locked whenever we're asleep or gone. Always. Car/Jeep doors locked all the time, even in the driveway.

I wouldn't have a lock that required a key from inside. That's a good way to burn to death.

And besides, how embarrassing would it be to call the locksmith/cops/family member and have to say "Can you help me? I seem to have locked myself inside my house."

Also: If you were looking for easy targets...our doors are locked and we don't call 911.

I don't ever lock my house unless I'm going to be gone for more than 48 hours.

I live in a very rural area, with lots of nosy neighbors, few of whom have jobs. Everyone has a dog pack. Mine is the second-largest and the only one that is verified to be dangerous to humans.

That was then, of course. When I had a "normal" life. Now, things are different. I keep it locked at all times and the dogs are gone. So is the wife, for that matter.

We lock our doors but it's completely unnecessary IMO.

I'm up all night most of the time and sleep some of the day. My wife sleeps at night and is up during the day.

We have dogs that are such sissies that they could only be a security benefit by barking. If you pet them quickly they might not even bark at all.

There are very few "strangers" in this neighborhood and I've not heard of any thefts. Violent crime here is low but normally theft is high. But not here.

We have a working car but like most people here don't use it much. Sometimes I creep inside and get very quiet to act like we're not home when we are. :blush:

Even then the door is locked.

Nope.

Always, unless I'm working in the yard.

Only when I'm out of town for a few days.

Without fail.

I don't live in a particularly high crime area according to official statistics, but over the years more than half of the homes in the road have either been burgled or attempts thereto have been made.

The trouble is that dwellings are a mixture of houses and bungalows and most have fairly substantial hedges. The criminally disposed take advantage of not being overlooked whilst going about their business.
Throw into the mix some houses being empty all day, others being occupied by fairly elderly people who are perhaps not the most observant and also likely to succumb to distraction burglaries, and you can see why Burglar Bill does his worst from time to time.

A while back dad was awakened by a loud bang in the dead of night but thought no more of it. It turned out that it was the neighbours, who were away, being relieved of their TV and the felon dropping it on the patio.
They also, for reasons best known to themselves, left a tap running in the kitchen. Why?

Marking their territory like a common animal.

It's their signature. It's the guys from Home Alone, out of jail and at it all over again!

We never lock our house. We have a large and aggressive to strangers type dog. I figure if they're willing to try and get past cleo, or bait her, they probably wouldnt hesitate to smash a window if the doors were locked.

No, we dont lock up.

Funny thing is that when my wife and travel and plan to be away for more than a week or so I lock my garage which is detached from our home. My son is a resident of our home so I let him handle when he locks up when we are gone but I keep a lot of tools in the garage as well as what is left of my photo studio gear; sometimes I have shotguns waiting to be cleaned out there. I'm pretty sure someone walked into my garage and took a really nice Hitachi framing gun. Maybe the cable guys who have access to a hub behind our garage or maybe the guy who reads the gas meter. The dog wouldn't have been an issue if they went into the garage.

Our dogs are always outside, so everything is watched by them. Aside from that, i honestly dont even know where the keys are for all the doors. We have six entry points.

We have so much glass that alarms and locks are pretty much moot. Our dog died a few years ago. Still, I lock the doors, set the alarm, and hope for the best.

And keep my gun close at hand.

Yup. But we lived in Birmingham, England (Think slumville Detroit) for 10 years and were burgled. Mind you, doors were locked then too (kicked in), but insurance doesn't pay up if you leave 'em open.

True. That's another reason to keep the locks on, aside from the few seconds' warning.

Good thing you don't wear a chastity belt!

Maybe that should have gone in a clone thread ... "Do you lock your drawers?"

House, usually; car, rarely.

Car was burglarized Thursday night. Fuckers stole a new flashlight, tossed the interior. No broken windows this time, the main reason I leave it unlocked anyhow. Fuckers.

Yeah, when my Dad sold the house I grew up in, he had to run out and get new locks. He'd never locked them in 17 years, even when we'd go to Florida for two weeks, and no idea where the keys were.

I leave mine unlocked, hoping I'll be sexually molested.

And again last night.

I may start locking the doors just to keep my reading glasses off the floor. Really, addict/sociopath/criminal, there's nothing of value in there, stay the fuck out.

My buddy had $5-$10 in change stolen out of his car the same night.

Wonder if it was the same guy?

Almost definitely, given how close you live.

When I lived in Leicester I only locked my car as an afterthought.
Truth is, if you wanted to, you could open it with anything to hand - house key, screwdriver, different car key. A kindly person or people left my lights on once. Yeah, ta. Had to be jump started to get to my second job.

Other times it was just the seat in a different position and the radio on a different station, or my CDs rearranged. No-one bothered to steal it.

When SonofV and I got in the car today, he opened the passenger door before I got to the driver's door and the alarm started honking the horn, loudly. Hm. I'd forgotten about that. I have decided to leave all the doors unlocked, except the driver's door, thereby arming the alarm which will go off should someone open any of the doors before the driver's door is unlocked with the key.

Now, I hope to frighten the burglar, or at least startle them enough so that they smack their head on the doorframe. I realize this means a barefoot trip from bed to the car at some 0-dark-thirty in the future. Not looking forward to that part, but I am willing to try this plan.

It's an easy rifle shot from the front door. Just sayin'.