Why do some people not use their front doors?

[FlowersAndShit]

Why do some people only ever use their back doors? I just don't see the point in having a front door and walking all the way round the back to use the back door. Is there some sort of logic to this?

we used to use the back door when we moved into this house as there was a cream carpet at the front door. Since we put down more practical flooring, it has been front door all the way.

You can't get to the back of our house except through the locked garage. Previous owners built the garage along the side of the house, taking up the width of the entire drive to the boundary, so we always use the front door. Back door simply leads to the garden.

Never did this as a child but now we always use the back door, reason is that the front door opens directly onto a busy through street, and passing cars drive at quite a speed, and we don't want toddler DD to get in the habit of using the front door until she is bigger and better able to understand about road safety. She is a wily and fast one, and can open the door if it's not on the chain, so for safety's sake we keep the front door locked all the time in order to reduce the risk of one of us accidentally leaving it off the chain so DD could get out.

Between our back door and the road we have an electric gate which DD can't operate, so even if she bolts out of the back door she can't get to the street.

Rofl, Pocketsaviour! I can totally imagine that.

We use the front door at my house, because you can't get to the back door from the street. But at my holiday house everyone uses the back door because it comes in to the living/kitchen area and is right next to the back patio which is usually where we're hanging out if we're there. Everyone tends to leave their back doors open because someone might drop something off to you when you're out (we often come home to some eggs/fruit/jam/etc sitting on the kitchen bench).

Back door leads into kitchen and is alongside driveway. Makes more sense than the front door!

I used to know someone who normally used her back door - in her case I think it was because the back door was in the direction of most of the places she needed to go to (there was a back alley behind the row of houses so she didn't need to go round to the front when she was outside). Her son was very little at the time and I suspect it was a case of anything to save a bit of time and keep things simple. She also had somewhere to keep his pushchair at the back. They moved away when he was still quite young so I'll never know if they would have used the front door eventually.

Because the car is parked by the garden door. It's a very old house and the 'front' door is for show only really, like it would have been when it was built I suppose, only opened for funerals etc.

We've got 2 more doors to the outside as well. The layout is a bit nutty, as you'd expect with a house that's been cobbled together over all those years.

Because we are often using bicycles and they go in the shed in the back garden, meaning the back door is nearest.

Because there's far more room for shoes in the conservatory at the back than in the front hallway.

In the days of small DCs we kept the pushchair in the conservatory. It didn't even fit through the front door.

Because we keep a key in the lock inside the front door to let visitors in so unless you think to remove that before you go out you can't get in from outside.

I rarely use the front door.

We always use the back door. There's a tiny front hall with nowhere to store shoes or coats so it makes sense to come in the back door. No shoes are worn around the house so it makes sense to go in the back so shoes can be kicked off.

Plus it just seems natural to use the back door as that's what we did when growing up. Front door is for the postie and people who don't know you well.

We keep the front door locked but the back door unlocked - so if you know us properly you can just let yourself in.

Use front door now (terraced) but growing up in North Notts it was always the back door at parents, grandparents and most friends. Agree with ovo front door locked and is for postie / strangers, everyone else down Jennel at side of house to unlocked back door into kitchen.

Our back door goes straight to the utility room where shoes and coats go. The front door leads to the nice, clean, posh hallway. No space for shoes and no mud wanted.

We keep the front door locked but the back door unlocked

we had quite a few examples of burglaries because of that (I am South East).

Unlocked if people home - locked if out, at night or if everyone upstairs...that how works at my parents :)

our front door is just strangers and post really.....it's furthest from the drive so hopeless for bring shopping in, plus you have to trail through the entire house to get to the kitchen

At the back (actually the side) we have a walled courtyardy effort, with a gate that has the house number on, so that confuses people, as they then imagine that our actual front door belongs to someone else.
Inside the yard is the back door...into the dumping ground that is the back porch, and then directly to the kitchen

Front door is usually shut in the winter, but propped open in the summer for some fresh air....we have a small vestibule and a nice inner hall door.

I forget we have a front door, it only gets opened for the dcs parties. We hid a birthday bike for DS in the front door lobby for a month!

No vehicular access to front of house (unless you get the chauffeur to bring the car round and stop in the road outside the front gate - chap who built house had staff and did!) You walk past the back door to get to it, so...

As a child living in Yorkshire many moons ago, we had a small detached house with a front door and side door to the kitchen. We had no back door as that was the large coal bunker, accessible by a door in the kitchen.

Some years later we moved to north London where we could afford only a terraced house with detached coal bunker but with front and back door. A key was needed for the front door but the back door was only locked at night.

Now, I am in a semi with front door which leads straight through to kitchen and archway at the side to the dining room. The side door is now enclosed with a lean to and there is a patio door at the back with no access from outside. So only way back inside is through the front door.

Most neighbours enter through their side door which is sheltered by the house next door and their garage. Is also unoverlooked by the other neighbours so I can't see what they are up to

The general consensus seems to be 'business in the front, party round the back'.....
Couldn't agree more.

I don't get it. I grew up in a town where it was the norm and never really understood why it wasn't a clean/practical thing it was just what people did?

Ps meant to say my mum always found it weird as she was new to the area and middle class for the area but from a working class area that didn't do this, although more houses were terraced

My DF lost the key to the front door in about 1969: luckily, their back door is the one you're most likely to come across if you're coming down from where cars are parked, or through the gate from the road!

Front door leads into tiny hall (maybe 3ft sq) and straight up stairs. No room for coats/shoes etc. Back door (actually at side) leads into giant kitchen with coat/shoe cupboard.

Front door is only ever used by delivery drivers - we've even got a doorbell at back door.

I live mid-terrace so can only use front door .

PIL use back door only. If you are driving then you end up right next to back door when you go up the drive. If you are walking, you can leave your muddy wellies in the outhouse. They live on a lane in the middle of nowhere, they never have strangers knocking on the front door that would cause hours worth of gossip in the village and everyone else knows to use the back door.