Tenement buildings and locked doors?

[Ineedcoffeenow]

I’m posting here as I’ve no experience of tenement buildings. DD is a student and looking at a tenement flat in Edinburgh with friends. The door to the building itself (ie the main entrance) doesn’t have a lock. Is this normal for a tenement? It seems the perfect situation for burglars.

Not unheard of, but it can attract youngsters and addicts unfortunately looking for shelter. I found needles in my stair once :(

My Edinburgh DDs closes all had locks on main doors. I suspect the Morningside and Marchmont ones would have been okay without but not the Old Fishmarket one.

Yeah it's pretty usual unfortunately. Even if there is a lock on the door, most of the time people won't close it properly anyway. All you can really do is make sure the flat door is secure.

Round here they have locks but anyone can get in using the trade button before 1 o'clock. Is there a factor or are they council owned - I would see about getting a lock and a buzzer system for security. Building across us was burgled - they systematically checked all the doors for residents being out. See if there is a local Resident Group or Neighbourhood Watch that can help.

Unfortunately, it's pretty normal for communal doors on tenements to either not have locks at all or they get broken or or the door is deliberately wedged open so kids/friends/partners can come and go without having to press the buzzer. .

I’m very surprised by the replies here.

I have never heard of unlocked main doors on tenements. Growing up my aunt’s stair had a service button for the postie but other than that I’ve only ever encountered locked main doors. Where is she looking?

My gran lived in a tenement from 1981 to her death in 2015 and there was never a lock on the main door. She never had any bother and was in Haymarket.

I've always had locks on main doors in tenement flats in Edinburgh - and I've lived in a few different areas. DD now lives in an Edinburgh tenement and the main door is locked. These are all traditional, stone built Victorian tenements.

Totally normal but not ideal! Some places are worse than others though. My friend's didn't have a lock and it was fine in the 5 years she was there. But then a couple of streets along you quite regularly get people trying the doors in the middle of the night. Mine is locked but it was broken for ages and we didn't have any bother. I keep my bike in there too and it's never been touched (good bike- even better lock!)

I would want a secure lock. I used to live on a tenement stair on a main street in quite a smart area of Edinburgh where all the other flats were rented out and although there was an entryphone one flatful of tenants used to forget their keys and kick the front door open breaking the lock. We had homeless men camping in the back stair, you could tell they were there by the smell. It was one reason we moved off the main road. There wasn't the same problem on the side streets. Lock stays in place and we don't have people kipping in the stair.

our one in Dundee definitely didn't

Many thanks for the replies—they’re very helpful. They’ve decided to not take the flat for other reasons, but it’s helpful to know for the future.

Where and when was this? I can’t even imagine!