Teens left the back door wide open all night!

[TheDoorsOpen]

Came down at 8am to find the dog was in the living room with the light on and door not shut, she's always locked in the room.

Thought it was unusually cold downstairs and go to the kitchen to find the back door wide open!

Ran upstairs to check my younger 2 were in bed, they're high-school age but still panicked.

DH had locked up at about 10pm, took dog out, put her to bed.

The teens (17 and 19) are up and down all night and I suspect let the dog out again.

I'm absolutely livid. We live in a densely populated terraced street. We could easily have been robbed or bloody murdered in our beds (a little dramatic, I know)

How the fuck do you just wander off to bed in the middle of the night without shutting the door??

I'm seriously pissed off at them and both are denying it was them.

I have chronic anxiety/OCD and I can just see this is going to be my new thing to lay in bed worrying about now.

How would you feel if something did happen?

My teenaged son went out during the school holidays whilst I was at work and left the back door and back gate wide open.

Luckily the dog just sat in the sofa and didn't plan her escape and nobody came in and robbed us but I was so angry when I got home and found it all wide open.

Son got a bollocking and I made a big point of telling him that his Xbox and tv and laptop would have been the first things to be stolen.

He's 20 now and never did it again.

Absolutely this. My friend's daughter left their door open when she got in: someone had obviously spotted this; came in, took the car keys, and stole the car.

It's all very well saying nothing happened but it absolutely could have. It's a near-miss rather than a non-event!

What, such as the whole family being randomly murdered in their beds?

🤣🤣🤣

Terrible advice, I’d like to know that all of my family had the best chance of leaving the house in the event of a fire.

Give them a good telling off and hopefully they will learn their lesson. I’ve also inadvertently left the back door open overnight and someone did enter. It was the police, my neighbour having alerted them to the open door!

I disagree, I would have been hopping mad, if my children had left the door open.

We live in a nice area, but locally houses have been targeted by burglars dressed for the endeavour, caught on peoples cameras, very frequently

Where do you live?

And if anything had happened your insurance wouldn't pay out

Why? Calmly asking people on the house to please male sure they lock up is calm and rational your posting style is not, ocd or not

If they were all murdered there would be nobody left to claim.

Such as coming down to find the television, laptop, and car missing. Or at least that the dog has escaped. It's really not that outlandish a concern.

No, like being burgled while you sleep - which is infinitely more likely. Waking up to find a stranger has been in your house and rifling through your stuff is an absolutely awful feeling - believe me. You feel violated.

Yeah, it's really hilarious to wake up to that.

I think this is typical teenage behaviour.
mid just remind the the importance of home security and move on.

OP is right be annoyed with her kids and I can see why she'd be anxious (OCD or not). There are so many threads on Mumsnet about "would you leave your 16 year old home alone whilst you went on holiday?" OP can't even leave a 17 year old and a 19 year old to close the door at night!

She's regularly had criminals break into her property, of course this will impact on her response, it's her experience.

Even in sleepy villages, few people are "playing the odds" and leaving their doors unlocked because CCTV footage shows randoms trying car doors and back doors in the middle of the night. Police are advising they sleep with their car keys in Faraday cages. Of course, it's not every house, every night but expecting your grown up kids to take sensible precautions is not unreasonable.

They're 17 and 19 - adults who should know better.

I was the last one to leave the house every morning from the age of 12 - I never once left the doors unlocked. It's not a difficult thing to remember.

I live in Moss Side, Manchester.

I'm very confused by your maths. People would "100%" walk in if the door was left open - except it was left open and they didn't. Also, you're "1000%" sure that it wasn't your DH who left it open, but only 100% sure that people would walk in if the door was open, so in fact you're only 10% as sure that people would walk in as you are about who left the door open, which is actually quite low.

I would 100% recommend that once you've told your DCs not to do it again you try to calm down and forget about it.

This did happen to us. If they want to get in, they will even if you lock all doors.

https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/26/mum-followed-home-dog-walk-raped-front-children-12611270/amp/p/

https://www.northwales.police.uk/news/north-wales/news/news/2024/july/intruder-jailed-for-10-years-for-sexual-assault-whilst-woman-slept/

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-62634349.amp

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/intruder-who-raped-woman-84-faces-life-sentence-nq5m62btq

Not necessarily - some are genuine opportunists who go around trying doors and will only bother entering if the building is already unlocked.

When it happened to us, people's doorbells showed these men trying other doors and walking away when they found them locked.

Yes, some burglars will break in regardless of what security you have, but why on earth would you make it easier for them? There's also the issue that insurance is unlikely to pay out if if you're found to have left your doors wide open all night, if nothing else.

Not really as it’s very difficult to get into our garden. I don’t leave my front door open. When we weee actually broken into many years ago, our door was left open (we had a door at the front of the house then), but the burglars didn’t realise and went to a lot of trouble breaking in through some windows…

I was talking about the people who hang around my garden in the middle of the night robbing my shed or trying to steal our chained up bikes would 100% walk in the house if the back door was open if they happened to be on the prowl last night

It's likely they thought they had closed the door properly but hadn't. I have known that to happen.

No it's a huge heavy old fire door. It doesn't move. If it's 2mm open it will stay that way. If it's all the way open it stays that way. It's doesn't swing or move on its own at all

It was opened fully then left

You’re right to be angry with them. At their ages locking a door they’ve presumably unlocked isn’t rocket science. They were irresponsible.
I’d just tell them you’re surprised at them being so irresponsible and in future once the doors have been locked they are not to open them. You can get contact alarms to fit on them. ( the doors, not the teenagers)

Sorry but this is a disingenuous and somewhat wanky response to OP's concerns.