If you use your back door instead of your front door, why?

[Fizzylemonade]

I live in Yorkshire and it seems that despite back doors being on the side of the property right at the back of the house and the drive leading straight to the front door many people choose to use their back door.

My alarm keypad is even in my kitchen so because I use my front door and walk into my hall where I hang my coat and take off my shoes I have to walk all the way to the back of the house to turn my alarm off.

My supermarket delivers my groceries to my back door which I would also use if I had been shopping but what I want to know is if you do use your back door, why? I am curious.

don't know.

Perhaps it's a Yorkshire thing. I use my front door because it is more convenient and... well, it's my front door.

But I think I am the only one in the village that does. When I moved in, I had to tell all the delivery men (postman, coal, tescos, etc) to use the front door as they were used to being sent round the back by the previous occupant.

Some houses in our village even have furniture up against the front door because they are never used.

Having to walk to the back door to switch off the alarm would irritate me.

we do at mums - always have really, think it's mostly cos it's always open and people know they can knock and walk on it (or just walk in and shout hello.

I do in this house as the dogs are kept in the kitchen when i'm out, so I can let them out straight away and also trying to keep my carpets relatively clean (not really working atm thou)

we don't have a place for jackets and shoes at the front door. so it means all the junk piles up at the back door and when people come over they use the front door which is lovely and tidy.

Where my friend grew up in Donegal only police and priests use the front door.

At my parents' house everybody uses the back door, but the house is side-on to the road so it isn't really clear which is the front and which is the back from the outside. The back door is closer to where the cars are parked, plus they put a patio enclosed by a wind-break fence outside the front door which obscures it a bit to people who don't know the house.

We use our front door mainly, partly because the alarm pad is there, the coat stand is there etc. If we are going for a walk in wellies or playing out we might use the backdoor.

When I lived at my Mum and Dad's we generally used the back door because there were only 8 steps up as opposed to about 20 down at the front.

We keep wellies, old trainers, old coats etc on the back of the utility room door. I am actually sounding quite organised here...

At my parents' house we use back door most of the time, especially if we're dirty, i.e. if we've been for a walk, out in the garden etc, because it gives directly onto the utility/boot room.
We then normally unlock the front door from the inside, and use that if visitors are coming etc.
Just to confuse matters, the postman and delivery men use a third door, the garden door, because it's right by the pedestrian gate into the garden.

I live in a flat with one door only so it's immaterial!

less chance of having a baby that way.

sorry!

its deffo a northern thing- i lived in sheffield for 2 years and i was the only one on my whole road who seems to use the front door.
People used to look at me like i was weird!

now back down south, my next door neighbour is from leeds and yes, she and all her family use her back door, and love to stare at us all through our kitchen windows/lean to.

OMG allgonebelly up, this is what drives me mad, my neighbour uses her back door and so walks past one of my kitchen windows which is on the side so she stares in!!!

She also has lots of visitors so they also look in. I think I make a conscious effort not to look in people's windows, at my friends house you have to walk past her lounge window to get to her front door and I actually look the other way. When I am in her lounge it un-nerves me when the post man walks right past the window!!

If I had a boot room or if my utility actually had a door to the outside I would use that door if I returned muddy or wet but there is a hall in my house, as there are in the houses where the people all use their back doors.

I lived down south previously and NO-ONE used their back door. (this is obviously where someone says "I do" )

lol flossish. I had to check what topic this was posted under too!

Wasn't the front door like the parlour - "for best"?

We did when I was growing up in the north. We use our front door now, but my in-laws use their back door always - we're all in the south-west so it's not just a northern thing!

I miss having a back door. The house we have now can only be accessed from the front, unless you are able to climb an 8 ft fence. It's a pain having to drag all the shopping through the hall to the kitchen.

My parents (in Yorkshire) always use their back door. Reason? Their garage is at the back of the house, next to the gate for the back garden. Makes more sense to enter house from there, rather than walking right round the corner to the front.

I am also in Yorkshire but we use our front door; so do PILs.

I never use my front door, we have a door by the side of the house straight into the kitchen so it makes more sense if you have shopping/muddy feet to come in through the kitchen. Tesco delivers straight into the kitchen and anyone who knows me knows we never use the front door so will ring the bell then come round the side. The front door/hall currently has two scooters and prams by it anyway. We have patio doors in the dining room and they are open in the Summer.

Only during the winter because the front door is jammed shut from about november till april.

OP- is yours a terraced house? The one my Gran lived in (in the south) was the same - everyone in the street used back doors all the time despite having to walk further to get to them. The front door opened straight into the living room which was only used on sunday afternoons and at christmas (honestly). I have since pondered about this, given that she had three kids in quite a small house - why not use all the space? Think it was due to heating - she only had coal fires and it was probably too expensive to have more than one lit at a time so everyone lived in the back room, which was always the only warm room.

(I'm not talking about hundreds of years ago - she still lived like this during my childhood which is not quite that long ago!)

I am a southerner living up north and have too noticed how people use their back doors a lot up here.

In one of my houses I used the back door all the time as it was where the car was parked. Friends and neighbours used to come to the back door and the postman and strangers to the front.

Very wierd but quite good to know if the knock was friend or foe so to speak.