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.

Absolutely, I live in a fairly high crime area and it's just habit to lock the door as soon as I shut it. I work in a much nicer area but still always lock the door as the two year old can open the door and I don't want her escaping.

I'm in a very low crime area and can get away without locking the door, and other people in our area do leave their doors and cars unlocked. However, for me its not worth the risk. One night an old lady walked into our house looking for someone else, I was feeding the baby to sleep upstairs and dh was asleep as on nights, our eldest dd, 5 at the time, was downstairs watching tv and was very frightened after that experience so we always lock it now. Plus Im used to having toddlers in the house who like to escape whenever possible, plus it stops unwanted visitors!

Always locked!! I'm super paranoid about break ins

Ours is a Yale lock so locks as you shut it and the chain goes on at night. We have Chubb locks on both the inner and outer doors too but those are only locked if we are out - there is a balance to be had between nefarious types getting in and you being able to get out in a hurry in case of fire or similar.

Always locked! Always! And not a particularly rough area.

More fool you.

Our door is locked 100% of the time! Home insurance is invalid if doors aren't locked, not to mention my families safety!

Yup live in block of flats and every so often people come along and try front door handles. You have lock as doesn’t automatically.

I do, to stop my autistic son from opening it and leaving the house, but I don't think I would otherwise

I live in n a very low crime area but I’m from London so I lock it. DH is from round here and may leave it unlocked if in the garden/shower/loft which concerns me

Usually locked. Sometimes it’s open for half an hour ready for when dc get back from school. I am more careful since my car was broken into on my driveway.

I always lock the front door but will leave the back door open when the kids are in and out of the garden playing. We might be in a safe area but I'll always keep all the doors locked if I'm the only one in. Prevention is better than cure and all that.

My door is always locked. I live in a fairly quiet safe area but there are still burglars/MILs about.

Always locked. Back door not so much as to get to that any wannabe burglar has to bypass my geese and apart from the sheer noise they would make they're very vicious with those beaks!

Mines always unlocked I also live in a high crime area, not very far from where the OP on the other threads from.
Infact it's one of the worst places in se london, however I feel very safe and only usually lock it when I'm going to bed.

I do if I'm upstairs in the shower.
I dont if I'm downstairs

I lock every door, DH leaves them all unlocked!

I hate being in and knowing someone sinister could walk into my home and do me harm.

Growing up our doors were always unlocked and friends and relatives just walked in and it didn’t bother me, I’ve just got more scared as I’ve got older. DM still leaves all her doors unlocked.

Our door is always locked, it's a habit and I find it strange when people don't lock their doors.
House alarm is put on when we go to bed too or out obviously!

We do but only because toddlers are now able to open the front door so we have to lock it.

Always, always locked.

Imagine how you’d feel is something awful happened because you hadn’t locked the door. Madness.

Lucky you if you live in a place with no or very little crime.. most of us aren’t so lucky. My flat is behind two very strong electronic doors and on the third floor but I still wouldn’t leave the front door unlocked.

!! Our house is like fort Knox!! We have a porch. The front door self locks when it closes, and then porch has (I kid you not) 4 locks on it! And a chain thing.

Personally I would leave the porch unlocked all day so post people can leave parcels etc.. but my husband insists on locking at least 2 of the porch locks when we r out!! Drives me crazy! And trying to get out in the morning past 4 porch locks and the chain is bloody annoying!! But I love DH none the less!!!! (To be fair to him, the locks were here when we moved in! Makes me laugh though because the porch is mainly old fashioned glass that you'd simply need to put a brick through and walk right in, don't think the multiple locks do much if anyone was determined to break in!!) We also have two back doors with only one lock, so if someone wanted to break in, they could get in round the back fairly easily!! Anyway, DH insists we still need the multiple.porch locks, so there we go!

We have just got a new front door that we have to lock ,after having one for 22 years that we didn't it's taking some getting used to . My fil just walked in today which really took me by surprise 😫

We live in a very quiet area and I keep mine unlocked unless I'm going upstairs for any length of time. We occasionally forget to lock the door before we go to bed too.

Once I was laying on the sofa watching TV and the door opened and the local GP came strolling in. We both looked at each other like ... He was making a home call next door and got the wrong house

When I lived in Scotland, door unlocked during the day, even when out.
Lived in Europe, door locked automatically when closed.
Now in America, doors and windows locked all the time.