to be paranoid about sleeping with the windows open?

[tortoisefairy]

So because it's so hot we are sleeping with the windows wide open but am I acting paranoid to worry about being burgled? Do you think someone would risk it? Or worse ds1 or 2 being kidnapped? I know thats probably taking things a bit far...I am 8 months preggers with ds3 so really feeling the heat....

FYI if it makes a difference we live in a 'good' area in a large detached house in the centre of a middle class town...

Our neighbour was burgled a year ago but they only took the car keys to their porsche which was on the drive and we have a ford fiesta on ours that I never lock!!!

Just honestly wondered if other people sleep with windows open in this heat and consequently worry?

I sleep with the windows open in the summer and worry less about burglaries & kidnappings etc. than I do about being woken up by some random racket going on outside. Car/house alarms (what is the point?), sirens, people chatting too loudly on their way home, railways you forgot were there... ain't double glazing marvellous?

Considering that I have slept in a tent in the garden I would not have any qualms about having my windows open. Have done lots of camping in all sorts of places, you take risks.

And btw I did once sleep in a room when two burglars entered (other country, thoughand not at home- kipping in the office). Not very scary though, they were young blokes and clearly got the fright of their lives when I sat up behind them in the dark

Oh I would hate that Cory. I am not very brave!!!

keeping your windows closed wont stop somebody breaking into your house when you are asleep (sorry). Somebody I work with was broken into through their back door, and my SIL was broken into while she, her husband and child were asleep. She didn't even know until the police arrived to say they'd found somebody driving the car that had been taken from the drive (using the keys from the kitchen). They had come through the back door in the winter, windows closed.
So, if you are sleeping with your windows closed and panting in the heat for fear of being burgled - just open the windows.
However, if you keep the windows closed because moths freak you out when they flap in your bedroom... keep 'em closed

I had a person entering my hotel room on holiday once....his key worked on our door (wrong floor)...very scary....I threw him out while DH did nothing.The hotel said I imagined it (despite receiving an apology from the bloke who entered the room the following day (after I had hounded him down and challenged him).

They wont be getting in via my doors - got good locks on both so they would have to take an axe to the door which should wake up up!

The only way in would be down the chimney or in through an open window!

I always sleep with the windows open. Even in winter - with the exception of that extreme cold snap we had over Xmas.

Even when we lived in a bungalow I slept with our windows open. Although because the kids were still small (under 4) when we were there I never left their windows open at night but I did in the day even when they went for their naps.

I cant bear to sleep with the windows closed. Makes me feel claustophobic.

Actually Elf I have been told that many burglars are opportunists and actually look for open windows. Avoids having to actually break in.

The back doors on your SIL and work colleague must have been pretty poor to be so easy to get into - unless they forgot to lock them.

We always sleep with the windows open, even in winter.

However, we behind the wire on a military base and have two Rottweilers. I'd say the chances of anyone breaking in are relatively small...

OP, even before we lived here, or had the dogs, it wouldn't have occured to me to close windows in this heat.

When DS first went into his own room DP insisted windows styed open as he'd read about the dangers of babies overheating.

I make a [bad] joke about trading that for the dangers of someone climing up on the porch roof and kidnapping him.

Big mistake.

DP's face was like this and now refuses to let him sleep with the window open (he has a fan instead.) I managed to terrify a normally sensive and practical man.

I always have a bedroom window open year round, in ours and the children's rooms. Mind you we have smaller top opening windows - I wouldn't leave their larger windows open.

I think my children are more at risk from overheating and thus sleeping poorly in this weather than being snatched, or us being burgled. I shut all the downstairs windows but couldn't bear to be baking in bed upstairs.

tut!

sensive=sensible

frogetyfrog - been broken into twice. The second time, when the back door wouldn't budge, the removed the bloody door frame and left it propped against my fridge .

I dont open DD's window much, only during the day while we're downstairs, not because I fear somebody will take her, but because I'm scared she'll do something dangerous and fall out the window!

Elf - you seem to cope well. I have been broken into a few times in my life and hated it. It really upset and scared me. One of the times was pretty violent too, although fortunately we didnt get hurt but the place got smashed up with us in it.

I would not beable to leave a window open that was large enough to get through or large enough to reach into and open another that wasnt locked. Fortunately we have the safety catches that lock window partially open.

I sleep with the windows open though it means the sound of the train often wakes me. I am not frightened of getting burgled but that's because it's a small terrace with no real access to the back yard.

YANBU. i really get nervous about this too. particularly annoying in the hot weather as i find it hard to sleep in my stuffy room. don't know what the solution is

I used to live in a ground floor apartment, as a single female with nothing but 2 cats for company. I always had my windows wide open, all through the night until 1 evening I came home from a late shift at the pub, jumped in the shower and when I walked into the lounge 2 of my very good (male) friends were standing there!

They had come out late at night specifically to climb through my open windows and show me how risky it was! I nearly died of fright!

I did then close my windows!

Now, some 15 years later, and with a DH in tow I always have the bedroom windows open at night, have never given it a 2nd thought.

i leave dc small window open at night but tend to once im in bed have my big ones open to and i live in a bungalow

but at back of my place is truck yard and since they have CCtv up and it covers the front of mine I tend to be bit blase

The first time wasn't too bad; as we disturbed them. The back door glass had been smashed (ironically we'd been eyeing it and saying we should replace the door as it seemed a weakness), a laptop / xbox, a bit of my stuff and a mobile phone got taken. Kids stuff really.
The second time PISSED me off. I got home with DD and the house had been ransacked. Sofa cushions all thrown off, every cupboard in the kitchen open and emptied was horrible. They got 2 xboxes, our wii, the games, my laptop (with everything backed up on it, luckily I had my memory stick with me for most of it), Dh and DD's ds consoles (DD's we'd only just gotten from a carboot, bless her), my camera (including all my picutres on the memory card), the video camera (complete with a video of DD in it), a lot of my jewerley (oddly, they left the pearls DH had gotten for me?!), the television from the bedroom (which we are still paying for) and various other bits and pieces. Oh, and my bedding to help carry stuff out, and ALL my Tesco "bag for life" bags to make it easier for them. Bag for life my arse.
I was pissed as DD was old enough to understand what was happening. The following week, she wrote her name in felt tip on her door (she has NEVER written on walls/doors) "so people knew it was her room". She cried on her way home as she was worried something bad had happened in the house during the day. Took me days to get the house tidy again, and it took two months to sort everything with the insurance company.
The police came to search around my garden one day while I was in the house, they had popped around toe back garden to view the "escape path" but pissed themselves laughing when they saw the note I have pinned to my kitchen window which states "we have already been burgled. nothing left to take. next time you decide to break in you tossers, make yourself useful and do my fecking ironing and clean up after yourselves".

Relax, it's fine.

i do understand the burgalr fear while was living at my mums with dc got broke into while ds1 and ds2 were sleeping in the lounge i am so glad they never woke up .

Took me long time before i felt safe here

I live on the second and third floor of a block so have every window wide open all day and night. Any burglar would have to scale the windows below me first so guessing someone would notice. The joys of flats

I live in inner London zone 2 as well, a supposedly notorious area, but I sleep with windows open even in winter! We are mid-terrace though, and DD's bedroom has a safety thing on the window as she is on the attic floor, so I do understand any safety issues, but you cannot be seriously worried that anyone will steal your children, can you?
I mean, does this happen?

YANBU. We only leave the upstairs windows open. I too would be afraid of someone breaking in.