Do you lock your door when you’re in the house?

[patienceandprudence]

Inspired by another thread (no prizes for guessing which).

I was surprised that people lock their doors sheen inside the house. Granted, we live in a small house, but it’s in a ‘bad’ area. We never lock our door when someone’s in, except at night if someone remembers. I’d say we leave it unlocked while out a good 30% of the time so if the kids come back or someone drops by to visit they don’t have to wait outside.

In my area this is the norm, and most of the time if you knock you’ll just be called in and told to walk right in next time. We tell anyone the same, even the regular delivery-people know that they can open the door and put the parcel in if it’s open.

@Oblomov21

No. Make sure patio doors are locked before going to bed. When home I'm constantly in and out: out the front door to my car, to the garage, putting recycling in bin etc. out the back patio doors into the garden, to get something from the back shed. I couldn't keep the doors locked.

That's why we have the latches. They were installed on the doors when we move in but they're so useful and if we ever get the door replaced, we'll get the same again.

We just come home and twist the latch without thinking about it. Only downside is if one of us is in and the other out, you need to undo the latch to let them in. So I normally use the latch until I know DP is likely to be home soon, and then lock the door so he can get in with his key. Because he's a grown up, who always takes a key when he goes out, unlike the man in the other thread.

We always lock our door, better safe than sorry and to be covered by home insurance etc.

Our house is never locked unless we are actually away for a while. In our community it would be very rude to lock your doors, you are implying your neighbours are not to be trusted and in an emergency wasting precious time getting in/out. We live extremely rurally and there is a minuscule amount of any crime. I know people who live in cities with every lock and camera going who have been burgled in broad daylight, I’d rather be in my community.

@WhereIsMumHiding3

To my mind It is irrelevant whether you've always left your doors unlocked and never been burgled or attacked in your home. Other people have been, more often in cities and high crime areas but also in quiet country areas. And it could happen. It only needs to happen once for you to deeply regret leaving those doors unlocked

It's like saying 'I always walk in the middle of the road, but haven't been run over (yet)'.

Lucky you but it's not really wise behaviour. And check small print of your house insurance as pretty sure you won't be covered due to failing to take reasonable precautions/ securing the doors.

I have a slightly different perspective on that. To me it's more like walking alone after dark. I know someone who was mugged once. I'm sure if I made a thread we'd get a bunch of similar stories. But that's not going to stop me walking around at night, even though I never need to do so. I assess the risk, I take some precautions, and I behave accordingly.

Other people have been, more often in cities and high crime areas but also in quiet country areas. And it could happen.

Anecdotes - stories about people's experiences, while interesting and maybe even dramatic - are not data.

'It could happen' doesn't mean 'it will happen'.

'It happened to my best friend's second cousin once removed' doesn't mean 'it will happen to me', nor does it mean 'it happens to a lot of people'.

Other people have been, more often in cities and high crime areas but also in quiet country areas.
99/100 homes will not be burgled in any given year.

Your risk is still miniscule, Waxon.
There are no hordes of strangers waiting to invade your home or attack you when you're out.

Just for a little perspective here, and a comparison of the level of fear and exhortations of caution in response, someone is killed or seriously injured on UK roads every 20 minutes, with about five deaths per day, and 25,000 serious injuries per year, or 70/day.

I live in the French countryside. The door is locked all the time. People from certain communities train their children to burgle in our area, before they move on to better off places.

They try doors, if it is unlocked they go in and if the room is empty they take all they can in a few seconds (usually handbags, car keys, phones, tablets...).

I was playing with the toddler once when the door opened and a 10-year-old jumped in. When he saw me he jumped back outside where a car was waiting for him. If I had been upstairs we would have been burgled.

We used to frequently forget to lock ours at night, until we got burgled!

‘... because we don’t have much to steal.’

What of your personal safety?

A neighbour left her front door open in the daytime, an intruder raped her.

We have always double locked the shared front door & locked the flat door. We’re third generation city dwellers. Open doors are open invitations to opportunists. Always lock your doors. Better safe than sorry.

I always lock the door when I am in. Mainly to stop my father in law from just walking in.

I am totally mystified by the current trend of front doors with door handles where anyone can walk in if it is not locked with a key. What on earth is that all about?

Front door locks automatically. Back door leads into a conservatory but I tend to keep that locked (when I remember) since having an opportunistic intruder one night.

@StarlightLady

I am totally mystified by the current trend of front doors with door handles where anyone can walk in if it is not locked with a key. What on earth is that all about?

Its not really a current trend. The house I grew up in didn't lock automatically and I'm heading towards my 50s.

Always, my dog can open the door if she really wanted to.

It's not anecdotes mathsanxiety it's facts, statistics, crime rates that show even quiet rural areas can have burglaries and home invasion assaults & on occasion rapes.

Your username suggests maths isn't your strong point. But statistics are facts not anecdotes.

And risk assessments that statutory agencies do, are calculated by probability x seriousness of consequence

I'd say a theft or assault/ rape in your own home, whilst may be lower probability in lower crime areas, but is still present, is certainly serious enough a consequence that it's worth turning a key in a lock for to prevent/ significantly reduce the risk.

We don’t in the day time but I have a warning dog who barks very loudly and runs towards the door.

At our old house we went on holiday for a week and on our return realised the patio door had been unlocked the whole time! We didn’t often use it so no one had checked before leaving.
Many times my dh has left the key in the lock on the outside.

Also mathsanxiety
It's irrelevant to compare that to accidents on the road being a higher risk.

Locking your door is a simple thing to do, and it drastically cuts the risk. The same way we look before we cross the road or pull out of a junction to reduce the risk

Back to basics l think. You can often tell if loo doors are locked just by looking. Couldn’t the interior of external doors have something similar so you could see at a glance? Maybe a green or red dot for example?

I'm genuinely shocked at the amount of people commenting that they leave their doors unlocked all the time. it baffles me that people won't turn a key in a lock to keep themselves and their family safe. I mean its possibly the most simple thing you can do to keep the household safe. I grew up in a tiny little village, barely even classed as a village, more like a hamlet or collection of houses around a church, and even then we were still encouraged to keep doors locked and that's 20 years ago. I dont mean to offend anyone but I'm genuinely shocked that everyone doesn't just keep their doors locked

We live in a small village and always leave the door unlocked when home. I often leave the back door unlocked when I do the school run (2 minute walk!). Back garage door is always unlocked. We are at a sort of dead end with no passing traffic or footfall. BUT if I lived in a bigger town or city I would probably lock it all!

Always. I grew up in an area where we left doors unlocked and that was nice as it was quiet and always kids coming in and out. Moved to the Midlands and have always locked them. Very weird not to now

@Purpleseaside

I lock the doors as soon as I get in the house. We live in a lovely area on a quiet estate but I don't think that would stop someone trying to burgle.

For example.. two months ago, our doorbell camera alerted us to someone at the door. It was a man delivering a charity clothing bag, and he stole our rainbow NHS hanging decoration off the front door! We then saw him looking through our windows and then he tried to open our neighbours front door ! We informed the charity that he delivered for and the police as he tried several of our neighbours doors. This really wobbled me and now we have several cameras around our house.

I'm home alone often and I'm always aware that wherever you live, there is always a chance someone could try and enter your home whether you're there or not, I feel very vulnerable in a house that isn't secure and even at friends homes I ask if they've locked the front door when we're inside. It gives me peace of mind that I can fully relax when I know the house is secured

That is really weird to ask your friends that. I have a really safety consciousness, anxious friend but even they wouldn't ask that when they're in other people's houses

You have no way of proving the assertion that there would be more burglaries if nobody locked their doors. It is based on an assumption that a large proportion of the UK population are criminals, just waiting for their chance. Can this assumption be verified?

Look at it this way- say there are 2 burglars in a county. Each devotes two hours a week to their burgling ways. One burglar, in Town A, tries 100 doors, but finds 95 are locked. He burgles five houses. The other tries 100 doors in Town B and finds that only 70 are locked. In which town do more burglaries occur?

I'm not saying that there are an unlimited number of burglars waiting to strike, but that the pre-existing burglars could strike more houses in the time available to them if more people helpfully left those houses unlocked.

@mathanxiety

I don't understand why anyone would just leave their doors unlocked? Anyone could just waltz in.

But they would have to try every door on the street to find the one that's unlocked.

How likely is this to happen?

I live on a street of 17 terraced houses. I was sat in my car on the opposite side of the street, finishing a phonecall, I watched a youngish lad walk along our street trying every door as he put a flyer through the letterbox, this was when we decided to get our RING doorbell so we would be notified who was doing what outside our house. I think we were very lucky that everyone had their doors locked that day. so yes it does happen!

I don’t lock it during the day when we’re home. We live in an incredibly safe area, and while I know nothing is foolproof it really doesn’t worry me.

I wear a seat belt - I follow the law. The law is informed by statistics on serious injury and deaths on the roads

So if it wasn't the law you wouldn't do it? After all, what are the chances of you being in a car accident on the day to day?

I keep my smoke and carbon monoxide alarms properly maintained. We have natural gas forced air heating here. Faulty furnaces cause deaths from CO poisoning, and victims are powerless to help themselves. I look to statistics when it comes to my approach to locking the door, as with everything else that could involve danger to life and limb or property.

What percentage of homes in your municipal area had a fire or gas explosion/ fatal leak in the last year? I think you'll find fires particularly are less common than burglary. We keep fire alarms around because although fires are very rare in this day and she, they are also very dangerous. Home invasion can also cause deaths, particularly if there's nothing to alert you to it- like the sound of breaking glass- because you've left the door unlocked.

I'm quite a fan of yours, math, I've seen you knocking around for years but on this occasion I think you're just arguing for the sake of it.