AIBU to leave the house unlocked when my husband is out late?

[PurpleLovecats]

AIBU to go to bed and leave the house unlocked?

I always do this when DH is out late, figure the dog will bark if anyone enters but my friend is horrified!

Whoever comes in last locks up here. We have a Yale and Chubb though. I wouldn’t if we had one the doors that are open until you lock from inside (uPVC?)

But why would you risk it? It’s such strange, reckless behaviour. It takes nothing to lock your doors.

A friend was burgled when her son hadn’t locked the back door after a night out. She couldn’t claim on her insurance because the house wasn’t secure. It was also horrible for them, knowing someone was creeping around in their house, whilst they were asleep.

Chill everyone?

People are calmly and rationally explaining why it's dumb to leave your house unlocked. And instead of listening to the advice, advice that you asked for, you've decided to ignore it and patronisingly told people to chill.

Op: aibu?
Response: yes
Op: chill

Why bother in the first place.

A lock isn’t going to stop a group of armed men

But it may buy a few minutes, enough time for you to wake up and call the police

No obviously if one of us goes out and then the other one goes, the last one out would lock the door.

Does that not make life a bit complicated? Don’t you always have to grill each other on when you’ll be home? Otherwise the one who goes out first without a key might come home and find the other one’s gone out and locked up?

Isn’t it easier to just carry keys like everyone else?!

And wait half an hour or more for them to rock up

Whats the alternative don’t lock your door, have no time to ring for help? I’d much rather have time to ring for help even if it takes them half hour to get there someone will come

5 year olds can manage to carry their own house key.

But what if the first person to leave comes back first? Then they don’t have their key? I think it’s unusual and odd for adults not to always have their keys with them. Also, I am sorting through papers after my retired policeman Dad died recently and I found an article he wrote in the local newspaper in the 1980s telling people that they should always keep their doors locked as part of being security conscious. I’ve always lived my life like that. Why take the risk?!

You’re right to make a joke of this thing that never ever happens. What a laugh.

Eh yes that’s what they do. Same as they try car door handles. Are you totally oblivious to fairly regular and well publicised crime activities?!

This is madness. I wouldn’t be able to sleep with an unlocked door.

May as well not bother with insurance then. Or perhaps you already haven't bothered. House unlikely to burn down, and so on.

I would find it sad to live with a grown man who is incapable of carrying his own house key. Like dating a toddler.

I by which time you could be dead. It’s far better to have security that deters people from even stepping foot on your property than to have a door locked.

The dog wouldn’t bark if it was given something tasty to eat.

Of course it is better to have something that deters people but a door locked can also deter people.

Sorry for few replies. Mumsnet keeps freezing for me and I’m really struggling to load threads so I’m not really abreast of posts. But for clarity:

1. this was not made up
2. I was not alone in the house, a (adult) son was home too.
3. I’m not a typical well off mumsnetter. Our house is a bit of a state, it would be incredible if anyone chose this to burgle when 5 mins goes the road there are multimillion pound houses with dream cars etc.
4. our drive has gravel. The minute anyone steps on it, the dog barks. Nobody could sneak in.

OK. So that makes it alright then.

Did you lock the doors when your adult children were young?

Well slightly different as I was a child but the bloke who got in and sexually assaulted me at night when i was a child did it because he knew my parents were out, so he'd been watching. Well he didn't do it because of that - but he wouldn't have done it if my parents had been there. Statistically rare I am very sure.

But men don't only break in to burgle so I am not sure a delapidated house really helps all the time.

I lock mine at night when I go to bed, be easier for me not to as my adult son always wakes me up coming home putting his key in the door but we often used to leave it unlocked if I just popped out on the school run etc but now we lock it all the time as the other weekend the new next door neighbours had gotten the wrong house and just walked in 😳 and had scared my daughter so whilst I know it wasn’t deliberate as they had only moved in 2 days earlier it just made us think (especially as these are kind of “rough” neighbours as the landlord keeps letting it out as temporary accommodation- I sound judgmental but if you saw them you would know what I mean…) so now it’s locked for the school run too. I used to leave it unlocked as sometimes I am dropping 1 child off home and going somewhere else so it saves me getting out of the car to let them in but you just never know!
I don’t have a lot of valuables tbh but do have 2 pedigree cats that I would be devastated if they were accidentally let outside