Is your house always locked?

[momtoboys]

A previous thread got me thinking. Our house doors are never locked during the day because of the steady stream of comings and goings and no one being able to keep a key. We do lock them at night when we are in bed but will frequently leave them unlocked until a child gets home after we have gone down.

Is this unreasonable? Are your doors always locked?

Yes! Live in London and am approaching 40. Doors always been locked. My mum says theirs were growing up too, 50s/60s, but my Dad lived in the same era in a "nobody locked their doors" kind of place. But as he always says, it was a severely deprived area, no one had anything to nick! my Mum's area was a bit more middle class.

I’m personally more worried about getting out of the house in an emergency than someone getting in. Trapped in a house in flames scares the shit out of me, particularly if if I couldn’t find the key to the door.

But if you have a Yale lock, you don’t need a key to get out. No worries if there is a fire, the door opens when you turn the knob. But nobody can get in from the outside!

I live in a sleepy private estate in a village bordering a larger town, my doors are always locked, mainly to keep the kids in but I also don't feel safe unless I know they're locked. Over the last few years a few high end cars (usually Range Rovers like mine) have been stolen in the village by criminals taking the keys from unlocked houses. Keyless theft is still a concern but we don't seem to have had much of that luckily.