Do you lock your doors

[Scrambledegghead]

When you’re in the house? So you’ve come in, shut the door behind you and you’re going to be in for at least a few hours. Do you lock it behind you or leave it unlocked because you’re in? We leave ours unlocked and DM has made me promise never to do it again but I can’t get out of the habit! She locks hers when she gets in even if she’ll only be in for 5 minutes before going out again, whereas unless we’re going to bed, ours stayed unlocked.

should I be making more of a conscious effort to lock it, lest a murderer or a burglar comes in or am I in the majority?

We don't lock during the day as the children are in and out of the house. We have a Visitor Warning System in the form of a large black dog so it's still safe.

All doors are locked at night.

I don't understand the idea that living rurally makes you safe to leave doors unlocked. I am sure many burglars are able to drive, and aware that they are more likely to find unlocked doors and high value goods in nice rural areas.

Yes I always lock mine. I would never feel comfortable with it being unlocked, even if I am in the house

These threads always confuse me because I've never lived in a property where the front door doesn't have the type of lock that locks automatically as you close the door. And then a second deadlock that's key-operated to double lock it for the night (or when no one is home).

No never. My three children are in and out constantly. Most of the time the doors not even locked when no one's home and the back door is open for the cat.

Always lock it. It is surprising the number of times our door handle has been tried during the day by opportunists. Doesn’t matter how ‘safe’ you think your area is, always lock your door.

Most pvc/upvc front doors just have one yale lock

Doors always locked. A couple of weeks ago the Evri driver tried the front door to leave a parcel which would have been a disaster as we have house cats and they always dash to the door.

We do lock it as from the inside it locks with a thumb-turn, its complete auto-pilot to me. But I also lock the toilet doors when at home, so its more a habit than safety concern.

My front door has never been locked, unless we are on holiday.. Which seems silly saying it out loud lol on some occasions I have came down in the morning to find my front door lying wide open due to a teen coming home late and not closing the door fully. So far we have got away with it for over 20 years but I suppose you only have that attitude of "it would never happen to me" until it does.

Front door is always locked as we're normally at the back of the house and wouldn't hear anyone coming in. Dogs probably would but why take the chance?

We don't lock the front door during the day if we're in but we have a chain which is always on.Our main living area is at the back of the house so it's possible someone could sneak in and go upstairs without us knowing.

In my experience, most PVC/UPVC doors don't have yale locks and need to be locked with a key. Certainly in my area anyway.

My front door has two bolts that can only be opened from the inside, as well as the normal key, so that's always locked, never used and has to be kicked in even if unlocked because it doesn't fit properly

Backdoor has a yale lock so is almost always locked, unless I've deliberately flipped the latch because I'm in and out of the garden or I've left my keys in the door, which happens more often than it should!

I don't understand many of these posts. Are your front doors not automatically "locked" when you close the door, or do they just have a handle that can be used to open it from either side? Sorry I am puzzled a bit. May have already been answered, if so, sorry!

My front door can be opened with a handle from inside, but once I close it from inside or outside it must be opened with a key (from outside), or with the handle from inside. In other words no one can open it from outside without a key. I engage the thumbturn lock at night which engages four lever bars. Very safe I feel. I also have a porch that I rarely lock from outside, but engage the thumbturn at night and then needs a key from outside.

Back doors are locked (doors) even if I go upstairs. A friend's house was burgled whilst she was vacuuming upstairs, the thieves having got in through the unlocked back door.

I live alone, so it is just habit now, and I feel a bit more secure. Everyone has their own level of feeling secure I suppose.

Never used to lock the front door when I was in the house until my elderly mother had some guy come into her house and demand the keys to her car - around teatime in a small town where this sort of thing was unknown.

I also don't answer the door if I'm in the house alone if I'm not expecting someone or a delivery.

Front door, always. I lived in a rough area as a student and through my 20s, and the habit was ingrained. Back door not necessarily if we’re in. My mum lives on a main road with a bus route, and doesn’t keep hers locked. I’ve given up telling her. She thinks my stepdad would be able to fight off an intruder. He’s over 80 🙄

Not sure you could even fix a Yale lock to a uPVC door - they usually come with integrated lock linked to the door handle, meaning you have to lift the handle before you can lock it.

Pretty sure you need a flat door and flat door frame to fix a Yale lock, but most uPVC have curved/bevelled edges making it exceedingly difficult. Our alarm fitting guy had trouble putting magnetic sensors on our uPVC doors because of the curves edges.

My back door is unlocked and wide open from 6am, so that the dog can wander in and out as she pleases. I’m in all day though!

I don't even lock my front door at night.. I do tend to if my husband is away but not normally, although weirdly I lock the patio doors.

Very low crime rate area and quite honestly if someone drove into the village at night everyone's lights would be on within seconds to see who it was.

It is dependent on where I live, tbh.

My flat in the city in my 20s; yes every time.

Our current house in rural Highland Perthshire; no, only when going to bed.

I live alone in a flat. I lock the door. If I don't it can blow open when I have the balcony door open.
The balcony door is always unlocked but I'm 18 floors up and not worried about spiderman.

yale type lock. so always locked from the outside if you close the door.
in a previous house we had a bag (luckily just dc termly sports bag) taken in a quick grab type incident.

^^ This!

It's safe until it's not - all it takes is one wondering opportunist!

Never lock any doors, except the tack room as that can't be seen from the house. With six noisy dogs and motion sensor lights at night (and living in the middle of nowhere, at the end of a dead end road) it's not necessary.