Delivery driver let himself into my house

[Wineatfiveisfine]

I WFH. A delivery driver knocked quite loudly on my door a few days ago. I got to my hallway within 10 seconds to find a very tall man in my hallway setting the delivery down on a table and taking a photo, as proof of delivery.

He said “hello, delivery”. I was too shocked to form a cordial response and just said “erm, why are you in my house?” He said “delivery, thanks bye” and off he went.

We’ve raised a complaint with said company - but they’ve said this is a common occurrence (!) and that they will speak to the driver, but it won’t be taken any further.

i was terrified to find a stranger in my house - but having googled, this seems to be a common occurrence!!!! How?!?!?

OP, we don't lock doors here as we also have no crime. Delivery guys don't come into our house because of the 4 boisterous farm dogs who are often inside taking a break from doing whatever they do outside.

We don't lock our vehicles either. We leave the keys inside the rigs. It's always funny to see someone visiting our house, locking their vehicle while it's parked in our driveway and putting the keys in their pocket.

Our driveway is about 1/4 mile long and off a rural road. Sometimes I have driven 50 miles before I see another vehicle on the road. We always wave. The nearest traffic light is 80 miles away. I suppose criminals don't find the journey worth the risk of what will happen if they caught by the property owner. Stealing farm equipment or cattle would be difficult as they could easily be spotted as they haul them off along a pretty much empty road.

I agree that the delivery man should not have entered your home uninvited but if your door had been locked he wouldn’t have been able to. I have read your posts OP and I don’t fully understand why you are so keen not to lock your door. It only takes a minute. Is it because you might not be able to get out quickly in a fire or other emergency? I can’t think of any other reason not to lock it.

Not locking your door is just ridiculously silly.

We live in a pretty safe village. Our doors are always locked even when we are in.

Of course the delivery driver shouldn't have entered your home, nor should anyone you haven't personally invited. Why make life easier for potentially unscrupulous people though? That's just crazy.

I keep mine locked have to with autistic kids. If I'm expecting a delivery then I leave it unlocked. Unless I t has to be signed for they usually just leave it in the porch.

There are no trespass laws in England ! If you leave your door unlocked and i decide to walk in and sit on your settee as long as I don’t touch you I can sit there as long as I want.You can ask me too leave but I don’t have to.The police can only do the same.Madness I know !. I had my daughters ex came in my house to try and see his son(another story) the police said as long as he doesn’t touch anyone they can only ask him to leave,he did luckily.I’m not sure what would of happened if he didn’t.Lock your bloody doors !

No, it's not 'bizarre'

I like the fresh air and light coming in.

By not locking your door don't you invalidate your insurance if you do get burgled? If doesn't matter where you live, you need to take adequate precautions to prevent a burglary. Locking the door is a simple way to do this as opportunistic thieves want a quick win. You need to make it harder and more time consuming do they don't bother with you home.

I live in zone 2 and we frequently leave the door on the latch if one of us pops out to the shop or for a run. lock up if we all go out though. We only double lock if away for the night. Lots of our neighbours do the same. Have even left unlocked bikes out the front by accident and they’ve never been stolen! Might be in a false sense of security but oddly we feel really safe despite being in London

Are you serious? Years ago we had a neighbour who didn’t bother locking his back door. Someone walked in and threatened him with a screwdriver and robbed him. The police said it was probably opportunistic rather than targeted, but he never forgot to lock his door after that.

More recently we had a coat stolen from our porch because we used to only lock the outer porch door at night. We learned that lesson. Doors need to be locked at all times.

And we try to remember to lock the back French doors if there is no one in the back room on hot days when they’re open - but we have a tall, locked side gate in any case.

My gran left the front door closed but not locked forty years ago when my deaf grandpa was in, just to nip next door. A burglar walked in, got upstairs and took her jewellery probably in three minutes.

But she was more upset about what he might have done to my frail grandpa if they had met.

Of course you should, if anything that's even more reason to lock your door. Someone could be walking in with a knife. Or walking in on you in the shower if you have an ensuite without a lock, because they're a perv.

Oh so I'll just leave all my doors and windows open then? Because I could still easily be robbed/attacked with them all closed and locked?!

Seriously there is not a word invented yet to describe how ludicrously bonkers and batshit and utterly dumb that statement is.

God help you in the real world. 😱

Some people on this thread HAVE to be taking the piss. Come on!!!!!!!! 😂

Honestly the idea of leaving my front door unlocked when I'm inside the house gives me the willies! What if someone comes in while I'm on the loo, or in the shower, or I'm just involved in something in a far room and they make me jump? No thank you.

Oh but according to @Hermyknee it could just as easily happen if you lock all your doors! (Hint; if you lock all your doors, the chances of burglary and attack are reduced massively! Anyone who has a brain can figure that one out.) THAT is why insurance WILL NOT PAY OUT if you are robbed because you've been dumb enough to leave your door unlocked/open!!!

This happens where I live and I'm happy with it. I'd far rather get my parcels. I never lock my house or car doors but I live in a very safe area.

I also have Ring cams everywhere so if anything bad DID happen, I'd capture it.

Neither our front door nor our back door have automatic locking devices. I keep the front door locked with a key as there is easy access from the road, but the back door is always wide open / unlocked (depending on the weather) until we go to bed at night. Mind, any intruder would have to get past two dogs and a cat (and the cat is way more vicious than the dogs!) so I feel safe.

“We never thought this kind of thing could happen here…”

Lock your doors!

We don't keep our door locked - the kids run in and out playing with friends on the estate and they don't carry a key. We live on the outskirts of a city. But we've never found a delivery driver inside of the house, they mostly just chuck the deliveries in some random corner of the garden and run off. Might prefer them to be left more safely sometimes (one Evri driver insists on leaving parcels IN THE BIN and I lost something once as I hadn't noticed on bin day)

But obviously that would be frightening and I wouldn't actually like to find random people in the house. I'm pretty twitchy about shoes inside too.

Sounds like no one is bothered by this though from the company so you can keep your door locked or get a place to leave things outside - my neighbours have a box on their doorstep with a sign to leave deliveries there and that works out (we should do this actually)

I was attacked by a man with a knife inside my house. The door was locked. He smashed it partly down and then got in through smashing a window. Covering himself and my house in his blood in the process. Actually the door still being locked was hampering my escape as I didn’t fancy cutting myself on the blood covered shards. I was chased as I tried to get the key.

I wasn’t living in the middle of nowhere when my incident happened. The neighbours took no notice of the noise of him entering until I showed up. The police thought it was a crank call at first and it took a lot of persuading as I lived in a nice area. I didn’t scream - I tried but nothing came out.

I have a very big dog with a very low loud bark now. I sometimes leave my doors unlocked when I am in the house with the dog.

It was years ago that this incident happened. He was in the wrong house - he was very intent in looking to kill someone else. He got caught with bits of my window still imbedded in him. 5 months in prison.

When I had the new door fitted, the locksmith said they don’t normally go through glass as they cut themselves and leave DNA. So I suppose that’s worth thinking about. He said doors they can take their time drilling the lock through. And most people don’t bother if they hear a house alarm.

Anyway, as I said, if you live in the middle of nowhere and someone is intent on getting in, they will do it. I suppose if it’s noisy and you are in, it gives you time to get a weapon? I have realised I am useless at defending myself in that situation - at least I could run when I got the door open.

Huh! This doesn't compute with me, why aren't you locking your doors?

Nope.
Where are you all living that you need to lock yourselves in??

In a village where, unfortunately, some scrotes think they are above the law. It's a low crime area, but not completely crime free.

The issue about locked doors and emergency egress.
If it is a door that needs a key to unlock it even from the inside sim0ly leave the key in the lock.
On the inside of course.
Give it a quarter turn to prevent it being pushed through from outside.
I've known some older men who refuse to do this arguing that a burglar could break the door and reach in for the key.
But emergency services say that is much more unlikely than needing to get out quickly in case of fire.
Also if an intruder has got in
I'd prefer him and or me to be able to get out unimpeded.

I live in a small town where crime is low, but our elderly next door neighbour got broken into a few years back, they didn't take anything but whoever it was scared the whitts out of her, and went into her room when she was asleep with a torch. She screamed and then they scarperd. She's never been the same since! So we still lock doors as we won't want to take any chances! I mainly do it to stop my husbands family, one in particular, from letting herself in! She's awful for it!