To think you don't just walk in

Very normal for me and my family. Also normal for us to have a rummage in the cupboard for a biscuit to go with the tea/coffee we are making ourselves.
Only family though, if a friend or someone I didn't have that relationship with did it I'd definitely be irked.

Totally normal for us - friends and family in the know would just walk in - but we do have a trigger (DH's boy's toys!) that sounds with three beeps so if we are in the house then we hear them as they enter. If we are in the garden we do lock the door and the gate is accessible for the back garden.
But we are all different - if you don't like people walking straight in then lock your door.

It’s perhaps area dependent but car key one and then car taken later pops up regularly around here. Lots of estates with new lease cars on drive and easy access to a dual carriageway. People don’t notice key gone or assume somewhere in house.

Someone broke into my daughters house through the back door last year, while she was in bed, ruffled her handbag, got her car keys and drove her car off. We have constantly banged on about her lack of security awareness, but she now has upgraded locks, and cctv. She lives alone, and was lucky it wasn't someone with more than car theft in mind. Was this recirded asburglary or car theft? I don't know but will ask when I see her next.
We live in a village that us fairly safe, but even here, Facebook regularly has posts from people being robbed by opportunist thieves.

I live on a new build estate and a small child randomly opened our door and ran inside (she thought it was correct house she was visiting they must look same, her mum was mortified) - usually do lock door.
I also remember my mum taking us around a ‘show house’ as kids and a bloke sitting on sofa. Show house had been sold and door unlocked and we all trooped in.

I dont understand why everyone doesn't keep their doors locked at all times. You nip out to the grade for a minute for the bins, get distracted by chatting to neighbour, or you go upstairs to change the bedding, or go to the loo and anyone could just walk into your house. We leave the key in the lock during the day, but the door is always locked.

Was exactly how I was brought up- in Scotland.

Yeah fair enough. But OP mentioned it was her aunt - of course an aunt can be the same age as you (or even younger!) but I’m making an assumption (perhaps wrongly) that her aunt was the generation before. Also OP specifically states she didn’t have her door locked as DH was in and out - which would have solved the “problem”.

So I was simply offering the viewpoint that it was perhaps a generational thing rather than being rude.

My own opinion is that I completely wouldn’t mind a friend or family member knocking and entering. In fact, I’d positively welcome it as I could have been in the middle of something - say, washing up - and it would save me having to stop and go answer the door.

It also allows the MNetters who, gasp, don’t answer the door, to know it’s not a salesperson or religious nut.

My FIL used to just walk into our house all the time, fucking wound me up! One day I was on the sofa breastfeeding and he just walked in (he didn't do it after that I dint think)

Not for my generation it's not

Doors were locked and people knocked

Lots of people lock their doors 100% of the time. Lots of people only do when the are out or overnight.

Both are very common and neither are weird AF.

Used to live in London, in multiple places, now in a village. Never thought about locking the door if I'm in and awake.

Yeah. My grown up kids all have keys to mine and let themselves in . Just suddenly appear lol. I had a key to my mums house also as did my brothers. In fact in the couple of years before mum died it was better for her as saved her having to get up to answer door

I've said YABU because it's as wierd AF not to have your front door (and any other accessible from the road/drive door) locked all the time.

No-one can burst into my house because the front door is locked, and access to the garden is via the locked garage or the locked gate. In what bonkers world do people leave all their doors unlocked?

We are a open door shout ‘hello’ or ‘only me’ family- just how it was growing up and it’s stuck,

If I was your in-law, I’d think you were ‘stuck up’ if you did this because you’re effectively saying (to FIL) that your cultural norms are better than his by ignoring his request to knock and enter.

I knock and wait with new friends but if they say ‘just come right in next time’ then that’s what I’ll do.

You can’t open our front door from the outside without a key. It’s always been like that.

I wouldn’t want anyone but very close family just walking in, so it’s just as well they can’t.

It might be that she assumes that the unlocked door means that you're cool with people just walking in.

Lock the door maybe?
I lock my doors every time I come in;
but yes it’s weird to just barrel in and I’d be pissed too.

Ask her to please ring the bell in future and wait to be invited in.

And see her less until she complies.

OMG OP do you live in one of those American soap opera style homes where everyone just barges on in through an unlocked front door?

Just lock the bloody thing and have one of those instant cameras that alert you to whoever is standing there. Your choice then to answer the door and let them in or not.

Statistically though, there is still a burglary taking place in the UK every 173 seconds.

Burglary rates have declined because more people lock their doors and have better home security. Break ins still happen to thousands of people every year.

My own family always knock and wait for the door to be answered - l’m disabled so they’re aware that l need privacy at times, so they don’t just walk in on us. However when I met my partner and moved closer to his relatives some years ago I found out very quickly that they were used to just tapping the door and walking in. Despite asking several times for them not to do this and explaining why, it continued. The door is now locked.

Did you tell her you didn’t like it?

My mum does this. I find it incredibly rude/invasive – started locking the door as a result!