Where do you all live that your doors aren't locked?!

[Danestress]

Whenever I watch shows about true crime stuff, or even on the news sometimes, it always bothers me when they say something like, "Detectives concluded that the victim knew the perpetrator, as there were no signs of forced entry." Even when I am trying to be extra safe, I forget to lock my doors all the time. When I am asleep, they are usually locked, especially if DH is away. But I never lock the doors when I am home during the day. It just seems so annoying to have to pay attention to that. Definitely most days, someone could just walk in my house.

 

However, most people are afraid of my dog, so that is some protection.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Danestress

[Julie in CA]

The closest town to us has about 7,000 residents. We live almost 10 miles out of town. Definitely a rural area.

 

We only lock the doors when we're sleeping, or when kids are home alone.

Otherwise, our house is unlocked. We have lots of big, nice vehicles, and the keys are always in them. Yep, come and git 'em if you want 'em. :tongue_smilie:

We do have neighbors, sort of. None of them are closer than 1/2 mile, but we are pretty free about entering & borrowing what we need even if no one's home.

 

On the other hand, we do have big dogs, and big guns. ;)

[Mommie_Jen]

Rural farming town of about 10k people in northern Indiana. We lock them at night consistently, rarely to never during the day. My car keys live in my car in the center console. Along with my wallet. I do usually lock them in and just use the keyless entry door code.

 

ETA: I do make sure the front door is deadbolted when we are home just because the w yr old escape artist can open that door.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Mommie_Jen

[VaKim]

Western Virginia. People here regularly leave their cars running to run into Walmart or the grocery store. DH has oodles of his tools and stuff sitting out in the yard half the time. (Not that I appreciate that or anything. Looks like Fred Sanford's place.)

[JessReplanted]

The middle of no where - western PA.

 

We only lock the door at night.

[scrappyhappymama]

We generally lock our doors. I was shocked when we moved to a tiny town in central TX and was renting a house and the landlord said the front door didn't lock and she wasn't sure where the keys were! :confused: I just stood looking at her waiting for the other shoe to drop, because *obviously* she did not expect for us to take possession of the house without keys!!! But yes, yes she did. I guess she thought we were silly big city folk since we were moving there from a Houston suburb. We insisted that she have a locksmith come replace the locks and give us keys. Unfortunately, even with a new lock, the front door never latched properly, so we ended up leaving the front door latched with a slide lock all the time and coming in through the back door.

 

We've lived in several different TX suburbs and we lock the front door when we leave and at night, but more often than not our back door is unlocked. I don't really care whether the doors are locked while we are home, although now I keep the front door deadlocked because otherwise my two year old will escape and wander the cul-de-sac alone. :glare: We've found him several times in the backyard by himself, but at least he is contained there. At our previous home, my neighbor found him in the street twice and brought him back- both times under my husband's watch. I was not amused, but this is our first Houdini child, so we've just gotten more conscientious about locking the front door at all times for his safety.

 

My mom would be mortified at our laxity. Growing up, even though it was a small town, all doors were locked ALWAYS and every single window had extra latches installed as well. My mom watched way too many Hallmark movies and Movies-of-the-Week.

[Halcyon]

I lock my doors when we leave for more than a couple of hours, but if I'm just going out to walk the dog for a half an hour, I don't.

 

We live in a small town about 30 minutes north of West Palm Beach, in Florida.

[caedmyn]

We live in Montana. Our doors are usually locked, but that's just because they don't get unlocked most days (we go in and out through the garage and not the front door most of the time). I don't have a problem leaving the doors unlocked all day, though I do try to remember to lock them if we go to town (though not if we go for a walk). And I do lock them at night. DH leaves his keys in his truck overnight quite often (I wish he wouldn't though).

[2squared]

We do have neighbors, sort of. None of them are closer than 1/2 mile, but we are pretty free about entering & borrowing what we need even if no one's home.

 

That's how life works around here too. If the neighbors aren't home, we still finish our errand at their house. If they don't answer the door, we have to open it and yell for them anyway. :D The mailman and UPS driver put our packages inside our house. I often find surprises from others in our vehicles or kitchen.

 

We all look out for each other. My kids have absolutely no possibility of getting away with anything in this community. :D

[The Girls' Mom]

When we lived in rural TN, we only locked them at night or when we left the house.

 

Now that we live in DFW, our front door usually stays locked...mostly because we don't use it. The back door gets locked when we are gone or at night. We do have a gated drive and fence though.

[Tarreymere]

I don't lock the doors or the car unless we drive into town. I have a daughter who lives in town who doesn't lock her house or her car and actually leaves her car key in her ignition. Never had a problem. I do lock the doors at night, but that is mostly to keep the younger kids from wandering outside before I wake up.

 

Mostly everyone here has dogs (not small ones, either) and shotguns. A thief would have to be suicidal.

[elfgivas]

I have always lived in Canada. Right now we only lock when home since the door has a problem staying shut if not locked.

 

When growing up as a kid in Manitoba we were taught to never lock because, a neighbor might need something. So why lock them out? All the houses on the street had only one bathroom so it was considered just fine to go into a neighbors house and use there bathroom if your bathroom was occupied.

 

When I was a older kid in Ontario sometimes if we were out and it was starting to rain a neighbor would come into your house, pick up a basket, take the clothes off your line and tuck the basket back into your house. We would also find garden food in our fridge since sometimes our neighbors grew to many cucumbers.

 

Where we lived two years ago we didn't lock. Once I came home from a walk and found the van missing from our driveway. The neighbor next door had a emergency come up and borrowed our van. She did leave a note - so no worries. I was happy that she was able to deal with her emergency with the help of our van.

 

:iagree:

 

i grew up in ontario, and it was like this for me as a child, and as an adult. when i moved to california i had to learn to lock my car...... it took months, and dh was Very Puzzled how i could be "so old" and not have developed the habit. sigh.....

 

ann

[Amber in AUS]

2 years ago we lived in a house in a VERY remote town on a road to nowhere, in Western Australia. There were about 20 houses and we didn't have a key to the lock on the door so we NEVER locked the house.

[RoughCollie]

The middle of no where - western PA. We only lock the door at night.

 

Same here. I lock the doors at night because I've read too many mysteries and my imagination runs wild.

 

We lived in a suburb of Boston that had practically no crime for 14 years, and we never locked our doors. The kids could leave any toy or bike in the front yard and no one would take it.

 

When we lived a mile from Boston, we kept the doors locked. This is because it was a very crowded urban area. No crimes occurred on our street, but that doesn't mean they couldn't have. A homeless transvestite drunk camped out in the building lobby a few times, which didn't thrill me. The police removed him after I cited the law to them; at first they said I shouldn't mind because it was "just a poor guy down on his luck".

[Soror]

How else would one feel secure?

 

We already do feel secure. For most around here if we felt we had to lock the doors then we wouldn't feel secure. If someone wanted to break in I don't think a locked door is much deterrent.

[amy g.]

We live on a dead end road. Not many people know we are back here. Dh locks doors at night and when we leave.

 

We never lock our cars here, and the kids and I forget to lock when we leave.

[Virg]

I grew up in the middle of nowhere in Oregon. We owned 55 acres and it was all fir trees so it isn't like people might be wandering through and take a shortcut up over the top of the forested mountain. We also had signs all the way up our private drive(1/2 mile WINDY gravel road). "Firearms in Use! Keep out!" LOL Most burglars aren't that stupid. We left our purses and keys in the car all the time. In fact if kids fell asleep on the way home during the day we left them in the car too. I lived there until just a few years ago and until the day we moved we never locked the doors. During the summer we just left them open for a cross-breeze. I constantly forget now and am really paranoid about people being able to see in my windows! I had never thought twice about changing in front of an open window.

[KidsHappen]

I only lock my doors at night. I live in a fairly small town an hour south of Nashville.

[Ellie]

Austin, Texas. I lock the doors because it seems like a good idea, but I'm not that worried about it.

 

And San Jose, California. Ditto there.

[ThisIsTheDay]

When we lived out in the woods in the country, we would still lock our doors, but there was no reason to. We didn't worry about locking everything, and we didn't lock them all the time.

 

If someone wanted to get in, they certainly could have broken a window. No neighbors would have been close enough to hear. The flip side of that is that no stranger probably ever would have chosen our house. They wouldn't have been able to find it unless they were wandering ini the woods and happened upon it.

 

I didn't have to worry about window coverings either. I had a giant (4'x4'?) window in my bathroom with no blinds, with a straight on view of my shower and vanity. If someone made it that far, they deserved whatever they saw (good or bad, lol).

[Audrey]

I sympathize with you. We live on a farm in the boonies and we lock our doors at night or when away. Dh never used to do that, and did actually have to install a new locking handle and deadbolt because I need to have them locked at night and when we're not home. Dh somewhat laughingly accomodates my need.

[Farmgirl70]

I live in San Francisco and only lock the doors when we leave and when we sleep. Our neighborhood isn't exactly what you'd call "good" either, but we've lived here 14 years and have never had anyone try to enter the house while we are home in the day. A friend who lives nearby leaves her door unlocked when she leaves in the day. I wouldn't do that, but she's never had a problem either.

[MamaT]

my dad doesn't lock his doors in western NC.

 

This is where we live, and we never lock our doors. We live in a rural area, way up on the side of a mountain.

 

When I was growing up in a small town in North Florida, we never locked our doors either.

[kathymuggle]

I don't usually lock the door - rural Ontario.

 

I don't lock the car either.

[Shellydon]

The great state of TEXAS

[creativish]

I'm in Iowa and I'm not even for sure if our front door can lock/unlock?? :confused:

 

I do lock our back door but only because my 1-yr old can open and escape from it :eek:

[imagine.more]

We never locked our doors and we've lived lots of places. Southern NH, Northern MA, suburbs in Florida, suburbs of Atlanta, Phoenix suburbs, St. Paul, MN (kind of cheating there as we lived on a seminary campus, lol!), and West Virginia (if someone is willing to make the 1 hour trek to steal our 15 year old tv they're more than welcome to take it off our hands). We lock our doors now as we live in a city in PA, and I locked my doors when I lived in downtown Atlanta. I mean, we'd usually remember to lock up at night but not during the day or when we were just running a couple errands. My parents house was broken into once in FLA and they came through the window (door was likely unlocked anyway, but they forced entry through the back window, lol!)

[annandatje]

Ok, clearly I have never seen the other side of this...

 

I grew up in Flint, MI. We always, ALWAYS had our doors locked. Come in, lock the door. It's like a reflex.

 

 

Now I live in the Detroit suburbs, and it's the same thing. It just isn't even a thought. We always lock the doors behind us, whether wer're coming or going. Always.

 

Cars too, fwiw.

 

So, enlighten me here, because I'd really like to believe there's a place where people live that they don't reflexively (yes, I made that up) lock up a door behind them.

 

:D

 

I'm not asking you to disclose your address, :tongue_smilie:, but I guess it's just that the idea is SO foreign to me, I *almost* don't believe people actuallly do it. Not lock their doors. Hunh.

 

It may have more to do with how one perceives their own safety than with physical location.

 

Houses and cars were not locked when I was growing up in isolated area, in small village, or in town of 25,000.

 

As an adult, I did not lock house or car doors in town of 200,000 with relatively low crime rate.

 

When we moved to a larger city and lived in one of highest violent crime rate zips in country, we did lock house and car doors most of time. However, we did not feel personally at risk and took regular long walks around neighborhood. Most residents were simply hard working people just getting by in life. We were never crime victims while living in this zip but we were only couple houses down from a drug house.

 

When we moved to outer edge of this city, we locked house, not cars. We were extensively burglarized in broad daylight at this house. Burglars locked my husband out of house. They had gained entry through back sliding glass door because my wild kids would take wooden bar out of door to use for play. Nothing was recovered although they were arrested THREE MONTHS later attempting to use stolen credit card. Two were juveniles and one was young adult. Kids had a bike and scooter stolen out of backyard.

 

Now that we are in a suburb, we try to keep house locked but now always. Cars are seldom locked. Overall, the residents of the suburb are vigilant about safety. I think we are an exception. Just a few blocks away, there was an unsolved execution style murder of a man who lived in house on main road. Mostly what we have out here are petty thieves who steal items from opened garages or porches and dimwitted bored youths who smash mailboxes and drive through yards leaving deep ruts. Generally this neighborhood is affluent, and the residents convince police to frequently and thoroughly patrol.

[8circles]

We only for sure lock them when we leave on vacation or go to bed.

 

It isn't something I worry about unless DH is away.

 

I often forget to lock the car door & don't ever worry about it.

[cassiemc]

We live in the suburbs of Atlanta. I make sure the doors are locked when DH isn't home, but we have 2 huge dogs that make themselves known:) We have mistakenly left a door unlocked or the garage door open and nothing has ever happened. I do feel safe in my neighborhood. I don't think I would live somewhere I didn't.

[Dustybug]

We already do feel secure. For most around here if we felt we had to lock the doors then we wouldn't feel secure. If someone wanted to break in I don't think a locked door is much deterrent.

 

:iagree:

[EmilyinND]

We live in a tiny (400-500 people, 80% elderly:D) town in ND. No one locks their doors (houses or cars) We do lock our house at night (not out of necessity, but because I grew up in larger cities) Other than that our doors are always unlocked. My kids can walk wherever they want in town. We don't have much crime around here, maybe some teen vandalism every once in awhile, but that's rare too because everyone knows everyone & we'd find out who did it. :lol: It's a friendly little town (kinda like Mayberry) & we all look out for each other. It's fantastic!

[missmoe]

About an hour North of Los Angeles. We have one key that we have to dig up when we are going out of town--so we can lock the house and give it to our pet sitter. :tongue_smilie: In fact when we moved into this house, the landlord left the key for us on the kitchen counter and the garage door unlocked so we could get in.

 

When we lived in Saint Louis, not only did we lock our doors, we had an alarm system, and our neighborhood association paid to have armed guards patrol the neighborhood! And that was considered a "good" neighborhood in the city. Most likely it was considered good because we could afford to hire someone! :confused:

 

When living in Long Beach, CA, we locked up. But didn't need to when we lived in a suburb of San Francisco!

[reign]

I also live in a detroit suburb! I am south of Detroit. We lock the doors if we leave the house. Since the kids can now escape I lock the doors when we are home. My husband forgets most of the time and the kids have escaped on his watch. If the girls and I take a walk I will admit to leaving the doors unlocked. Prior to kids I NEVER locked the doors. My grandfather is local too and never locks the doors.

Edited January 11, 2012 by reign

[mytwomonkeys]

We live in north florida now and although i often do lock the doors out of habit (from atlanta) i really dont need to lock them. We live in a rural area on acreage, and honestly eveyone owns a gun here and hunts. I imagine an intruder would have more to fear in these parts than the homeowner.

[Remudamom]

Kansas here. Out on a ranch, and no one with any sense would walk around our place uninvited.

[ereks mom]

We live in central Georgia in a semi-rural area.

 

We sometimes lock our doors, but not always, and we NEVER lock our cars when we're home. (I very rarely lock my car even when I go into town to do errands. If someone wants to get in badly enough, a locked door isn't going to stop them; they'd just break the window and get in anyway.) If I'm home alone or if dh is at work & it's just EK and me, I'll usually lock the front door because sometimes delivery people think our sunroom is actually a porch, and they'll come right in to drop off packages or mail. It's a bit startling to have someone walk right into your house. :)

 

We usually lock our doors when we go to bed, but not always. There have been plenty of times that dh lost his keys, and after searching everywhere else, we finally found them hanging in the lock on the front door. Once, we went out of town for a week and forgot to lock the back door, but everything was fine when we got back.

[Caitilin]

Small town (village really! ;)) South Dakota

 

We only lock the house if we will be gone for more than 24 hours; I will sometimes lock the doors at night if dh is gone for some reason, but otherwise I never lock the house, or my car at home. :D Dh locks his car at the house, and I lock mine out and about, but I feel very safe with 4 large loud dogs.:lol:

Edited January 11, 2012 by Caitilin

[Grover]

The house is totally locked up at night and when we're not here, but during the day the door is usually open (and at this time of year most of the front of the house is open).

[unsinkable]

Tragic story involving NOT locking the doors

 

A drunk man was at a party at an unfamiliar house and went outside for some reason. Fresh air, maybe? He went back into the wrong UNLOCKED house. The homeowner shot and killed him. This was in a super safe suburban neighborhood. Just crazy.

[Pamela H in Texas]

We have lived a couple places we'd lock our car/house doors. But most places we wouldn't/don't.

 

Where we are now, we:

 

1) leave the garage door open most of the time we are home (the garage also includes my hubby's mini-man-cave where he has his computer and such).

2) we do lock the cars (usually).

3) the house doors are regularly unlocked when we are home.

4) we lock the doors at night.

 

We have lived in homes we never would have dreamed of locking anything ever. My mom can't imagine, but she didn't live where we did either.

[Mommy22alyns]

My grandparents never used to lock their car doors, and I think they only locked the house at night. They lived in rural Michigan.

 

I lock everything, but we could probably get away with not having our doors locked all the time. We live in rural TN.

[catz]

We lock our doors at night, but when we're up and around the house our back door (which leads to a porch and a door that doesn't lock) is usually open during the day and I don't think anything of it. And we live in a larger urban center, but in a very nice and safe neighborhood (MN). I wouldn't dream of leaving a car unlocked around here though. Petty theft isn't uncommon. I had a hand full of coins stolen out of my mini van once. :tongue_smilie:

[SquirrellyMama]

We lock our doors at night but not always during the day when we go places. I have a bad habit of forgetting my purse in the car also.

 

Funny story...

 

We moved from IL to IA when I was 11. In IL we live just over the river from STL. It wasn't the best of towns.

 

My dad came home from his first day of work after we had moved to IA and told us this story. He had gone to lunch with his boss and as they were getting out of the car back at work my dad asked his boss if he was going to take his keys with him. His boss said, "No, if someone needs to use my car the keys will be here. They'll bring it back." My dad was stunned. We never did that.

 

Kelly

[LostSurprise]

We used to live in rural Wisconsin.

 

Not only did we not even know where the house key WAS, I used to leave my car sitting in the driveway.

 

Unlocked.

 

With the keys in the ignition.

 

And my wallet in the car.

 

I never had trouble.

 

:iagree:

 

Almost exactly. Minus the little girl.

 

Even when we lived in the Chicago suburbs we only locked at night. Used to scare my bf (who's from Chicago proper).

[Nakia]

Another Western NC resident here, and we only lock our doors at night. Lots of times I leave my van key in the ignition too. We are out in the country on a gravel road. I've never given it a second thought.

[Shellers]

I'm in Northern California, we live one mile from a rural highway, down a dead end road.

 

We don't lock our doors during the day. At night I try to remember to lock the doors but sometimes I forget. I've actually left a door wide open for days by accident (laundry room door to outside) and was lucky I didn't get critters in my laundry room.

 

We don't lock any of our trucks ever. I leave my purse in a vehicle about half the time. We have quads sitting outside. We don't shut our garage doors.

 

We have lots of outbuildings, two travel trailers, and a long house. Right now we have 9 vehicles at our house so I think if a robber did come to my house they wouldn't know if anyone was here or not. We also have six small dogs and they love barking at visitors.

[cathmom]

We already do feel secure. For most around here if we felt we had to lock the doors then we wouldn't feel secure. If someone wanted to break in I don't think a locked door is much deterrent.

 

Interesting reasoning. I'm happy to have a locked door between my children and me and whatever stranger decides today is the day to knock on my door. My dh is Mr. Security - spent years studying martial arts and the military and all that - and would FLIP if I left the doors unlocked.

[mom4him]

Western South Dakota.

I lock everything up at night when I go to bed but other than that our house is generally unlocked. We do lock them during a certain time of year when there are a LOT of people in town and it becomes a pretty big party time but still only if we are leaving, not when we are home.

[Word Nerd]

Rural Kansas. People in our little town sometimes even leave their cars unlocked and running to make a quick stop at the post office or the corner grocery.

 

I still lock my car, though, because I haven't always lived in a small town.

Edited January 11, 2012 by WordGirl