Shameless but do you leave your house open?

[JustJam4Tea]

When you are in it?

If you leave but other people are in it?

At night? .

All day?

Or is it always locked up right?

I only lock the doors when I go out why bother if your home?

Live in a nice area but big housing area and nice neighbours but we always have front door locked when home. Back door is locked unless we are outside. Side gate too.

@Missey85

I only lock the doors when I go out why bother if your home?

Because people try their luck with door handles and enter houses…. Many people robbed this way when upstairs or at the back of the house etc.

Also if your house isn’t secure and locked is your insurance still valid? Especially at night?

Shameless thread about a thread. If you have any friends who are farmers then ask them rather than doubt the OP on the thread.

Only lock it at night. Our doorbell doesn't work and can rarely hear people knocking on the outer door so visitors come in through the outer door to knock on the porch door (pretty much all the houses on my road have the same system), or just open the door and shout... so outer door has to stay unlocked and I don't like locking the porch door until bedtime because I'll forget its locked (yale lock so can open it from inside when its locked) and go out to take the bin out or whatever and lock myself out.

I've never lived in a house that didn't have a Yale lock on the front door, so no, we never leave the door unlocked while we are in the house.

My doors (front, back and side), are all locked unless someone is actually walking through them! I don't leave windows open downstairs unless someone is in the room. We have alarms on the front windows, and on the doors, so we can hear if someone comes through them.

I also close all windows if everyone is going out. I think it is sensible, my DP thinks I'm a little paranoid. I've always been like this. 2 years ago someone tried to break in the house by smashing the patio windows at 6pm one weekday eve whilst we were in the front room. Luckily he must have heard us and scarpered. That made me a little more paranoid.

Always locked. My Aunt was woken by a police officer returning her handbag which had been on the back of a kitchen chair. Two 14 year olds had walked in her back door and stolen the bag and a bottle of whisky whilst she and her husband were in the next room watching TV, earlier in the evening. Luckily they still had everything in a holdall they'd stolen from another neighbour.

Almost always open. Unlocked if we're home and usually overnight too. I will lock the front door when I leave, but the back door is usually unlocked, so could still get in without a key. The battery in my car key also ran out a couple of months ago, and I've not got round to changing it yet, so that's been left unlocked aswell, both at home and in car parks.

Weirdly nothing bad has happened, to be honest its kind of refreshing to live with faith in humanity, after previously living with people who believe everyone is a threat or will try and steal from you constantly. I prefer to have this outlook.

@Missey85

I only lock the doors when I go out why bother if your home?

Because I watched a Crime Watch stoey where a woman left her back door open for her cat to come in and out and she was raped by a random entering her house cia that open door.

For the 'why would we lock our doors when we're in, we live in a nice area' posters, I have several colleagues who live in a nice MN approved leafy suburb who've had cars, phones, laptops, handbags, money etc stolen by people who've just walked through unlocked doors and grabbed what they could in seconds while they were in the house in the daytime or early evening.

Always locked, but when I go to my grandparents' house, they live in a village, we put the on the door so everyone can come in and out as they please, kids, visitors etc. But it's a very safe place, everyone knows everyone etc.

My house is always unlocked and my car has the keys in the ignition often overnight.

We are south west rural and crime rates are very low here.

I do lock up at night but we don't have dogs so I need to.

Same here @BarbaraofSeville.

I have just checked the crime statistics on Police.UK for our area. It has a relatively low crime rate compared to the large town 5 miles away - 63 crimes locally compared to 425 crimes in town, during the month of February, but that is till 63 crimes too many (19 violence and sexual offences, 10 vehicle crime, 9 anti-social behavior and 25 other crimes).

This is why we lock doors.

@wonkygorgeous why do you leave the keys in the ignition overnight (or at all)

Both doors unlocked until we are going to bed when we usually lock them.

I prefer it to be always fully locked. However we live in quiet little village now so I allow my husbands bad habits of leaving doors open to go uncommented on.

Still pisses me off though.

Keys left in the ignition? WTF? Is this the new version of MN competitive undereating? Let's see how cool and un- safety conscious I am

If we are in the doors are not locked. Although if the front door is closed you would need a key to get in.

Often the dcs are playing outside so the front door is usually wide open as they are in and out.

If we go out but older dcs are in we don't lock the door.

If we are all out we lock the back door but only double lock the front door at night.

We live in a small village. We feel safe here although I realise burglaries can happen anywhere.

@lameasahorse

It used to be common for people to leave their keys in the ignition of the car.

Until more cars got stolen and insurance companies refused to pay out.

In an ideal world there would be no crime, but we don't live in an ideal world, and we have to be realistic, and take steps to protect ourselves and our property accordingly.

Front door is always locked and the back door has a keypad lock so is usually locked.

High crime area and we've had a couple of instances where people have tried to get in. Our car automatically locks itself now but previous cars had been ransacked when DH had forgotten to lock the car. We never lost anything important but that was pure luck.

I grew up rural, house was locked only at night. I would do the same if I lived there now but I live in a city so lock the house up