Do you keep your doors locked when you are at home during the day?

[FrannyandZooey]

if so, why?

littlebella, my door doesnt lock automatically. its a PITA, as if i forget to put the safety catch on, then anyone can walk in.

I don't lock it but you can't get in from outside without a key... I put the latch down though so DS can't undo it and double lock it at night; I mean, the normal lock and a higher security yale type as it is an old rickety door and I live opposite a pub with rowdy drunks leaving in the middle of the night!

I quite like the idea of it not locking automatically, I suppose then you can't lock yourself out by accident

oh gosh car doors always locked. It does it automatically when you drive off, but, if I'm on my own somewhere quiet I'll get in and lock the doors immediately.

Front door is locked during the day because if we are upstairs playing noisily or in our long garden we would not hear if anyone came in.

Yes, I am paranoid and fairly certain that if I ever do leave the door open a burglar-rapist-kidnapper will get in.

YES YES YES, always, we don't live in a dodgy area and we have the conservatory door open if we are playing in the garden but never the front door or back door.

We also take our car/house keys upstairs with us at night too.

Firstly, people do get burgled and then they get their cars nicked because they leave their car keys (it happened across the road from us)

Secondly surely if you leave your house unlocked and pop to the shops and you do get burgled, if you can't prove forced entry then you did not ensure your property is left secure and your insurance company won't pay out.

We have recently been leafleted by the police to tell us to lock the doors as burglers are just walking into properties whilst people are in during the day.

My car doors are always locked, there was an incident near to my son's school whereby an angry male car driver OPENED a door of another car to have a go at the female driver!!! It would scare the pants off me.

No,unless I want to stop my family barging in,then again they all have keys so

O.M.G is this a questionaire for local theives to check out Have we just all let them know which doors we do and don't lock?

Front door is automatically locked if shut, so yes. I would lock it even if it meant locking it with the key every time though. Back door is the same - we don't need a key to lock it, so keep it locked and the back gate is always locked. We're a terrace with an 8 foot fence and door at the back, so I feel pretty secure.
When we own a house, we will have more locks though. Even though I've never been burgled personally, I just don't want to take the risk.

We live in the countryside and never lock the front door during the day (unless we're all out) - I just tend to lock it as I go up to bed at night.

However our house is (ironically) fitted with an alarm (generally unused) that has a great little device connected to the front door whereby the door beeps when it's opened. Which means that we'd hear if ds was trying to escape (or if someone else had opened the door).

"Secondly surely if you leave your house unlocked and pop to the shops and you do get burgled, if you can't prove forced entry then you did not ensure your property is left secure and your insurance company won't pay out."

I don't get this bit, I didn't think anyone left their house unlocked while they went out?
(well i expect some might people do, but don't tell us on here please!)

No not all doors lock when you shut them
it varies a lot
It is handy having the sort that don't, if you are prone to getting locked out

We lock our doors at all times, even when in the house. This is to prevent people getting in.

Where my parents live the police advise locking doors. There have been a spate of people entering houses through unlocked doors, when the owers are home. They enter the house, grab keys, etc (often left near doors) and take off with cars or return later, complete with house keys, etc. Or they grab what they can from the roomt hey enter.

Our doors do not lock automatically when shut. We have a key which we have to turn to lock the door. This locks the door from both the inside and outside adnd you'd need a key to enter the house or leave the house.

If emergency services needed to enter the house and we couldn't get to the door, they could enter by breaking glass in the back door, front door or patio doors.

We live in a 3 storey house and spend longthy periods of time without going downstairs in a day, so people could easily be in that floor and us not know. But we have always locked doors, even more this house.

Almost everyone I know have their doors locked.

I do. Locked up tight like fort knox. Not to keep folks out but to keep my 2 in! External doors and windows locked and keys in my pocket at all times. - we've made progress though, because it is only in the last 2 years, that we have been able to take the locks off the internal doors. [thrilled] I no longer feel so much like a jailor!

Yes, I lock the doors and remove the keys as DS1 can turn them and open the front door.

And, one evening, I left the door unlocked (as DH was due home from work any minute) but I had to go upstairs and feed DS1; next thing I knew the milkman had let himself in and was shouting that I owed him money! He scared the life out of me.

Front door always locked - we don;t actually use it to go in and out of the house, so only open it to get the milk in and for visitors. Also, it faces onto a busyish road where I would not want DS to be going unaccompanied.

Back door not locked during the day, when we are in, obv.

WE stayed ina village in Cyprus once where no-one ever locks their doors. We were in an apartment and each time we left, we locked the door, and each time we retunred, the cleaner had been in and left the doors unlocked. When we queried it with somone in the village they laughed and said no-one ever locks their doors here.

So we stopped bothering

Yes - to keep the children in - busy ish road{ I once forgot and found my 3 yr old about to step into the road chasing a feather) and because neighbours have been robbed in the day whilst the were in the house - burgalars just walk in and that's a common experience in this area. Mind you I live in a suburb, but friends in a country village near us had a horifying experience of having to barricade themselves in a room against a knife wielding burgalar who stabbed the door!!

When we lived rurally on the outskirts of a sleepy Dorset village, I would leave 2 double sets of french doors leading to the back garden open all night on very hot summer nights. This was before we had children and there is no way on earth I would do that now and with hindsight it probably wasn't terribly wise back then butthe cooling breeze running through the house was divine.

Our front door can not be opened from outside unless with a key but both ds's (5 & 7)could lift the catch and go out if the had to in an emergency. I would not feel comfortable leaving the catches up so as anyone could let themsleves in through the front door even though it is a quiet area.

we also take car keys, handbags, mobile phones, cameras etc now at night time. we got burgled whilst we were all in bed once (luckily burglars only stayed downstairs) and if we had done that we would have had a lot less stolen.

I have also been known to leave the door unlocked when I pop out to the shop or to pick the DCs up from school (because I've lost my keys ). Supposedly there is a lot of petty crime here but I've never experienced any and we've also got a lot of nosey neighbours.

I left my front door wide open for about 3 hours once when the children were small and was rather alarmed when I got home, but no one had been in!

I thought advice was to leave all the keys/phones/handbags downstairs at night, so that if burglers aaaarrree in your house, they will get what they need, and have no need to come up the stairs.

Frustrated burglers, getting nothing in the living room/kitchen, might start looking elsewhere....

Well, this is what I heard anyway.

Oh, and garden door unlocked, front door locked. Happy for DS1 to escape out the back cos that's as far as he can go.

I always take my bag etc upstairs
Replacing it all is a total pain
Usually if they hear you get up then they leave anyway

when we got burgled the police told us to take stuff like that upstairs. they will still find plenty of other stuff to steal (ours stole dvds, computer games, expensive ornaments, collectible dolls - luckily they didn't find the car keys which were in my dad's coat pocket)

Yes front and back doors always locked usually windows too, we live in a nice suburb but buglaries and robberies are rife in this city no matter where you live.

most happen in the day as well and a lot happen when people are in, if a thief was to come in through the back door whilst me and dd are in during the day they would probably just threaten me with a knife/gun until they got what they wanted so not worth the risk.

Have been put off going to the local entertainments complex because of recent gang related activity there, armed robberies at nandos/frankie and bennies. It's such a shame really does make me consider moving out to the countryside