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

[DarlaS]

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.

 

 

Somewhere between Flint and Detroit. :D

 

I don't lock them during the day, but we do at night. Kids and dogs randomly run in and out. Trying to keep them locked would just drive me nuts.

 

I have sort of a security system though in the form of a German Shepherd who reacts suddenly and loudly to any sound at the door (Unless it's one of us. He seems to know what our cars sound like.).

[jewellsmommy]

I knew someone who lived in a very small town in Colorado. She woke up one morning and saw that her car was gone. Her first thought was that the neighborhood teens were playing a trick on her again and had driven it around the corner :001_huh:. My first thought would be "AH, someone stole my car." I asked how they could have gotten her keys for such a trick. She said that she leaves them in the car so that they are never lost! :001_huh: She really was not worried about her car missing, and it didn't dawn on her that it could actually be stolen until later that afternoon. It turned out to truly have been stolen. She commented that the whole event was enough to make her consider locking her house doors at night.

 

I was totally shocked that there were people this trusting and unconcerned. I started asking her to pleeeaase lock her doors so I didn't have to worry about her.

 

 

 

ETA: The only time my doors are unlocked is when a dc is outside. When they come in the door gets closed and locked. If I have the front door open then the screen door is locked. We live in the better part of the city as far as crime statistics go, but my daddy was a police officer for this city for over 20 years and I think that experience colors your perspective on safety. Overall, I think our city and the surrounding ones are probably pretty high crime wise given the volume of population. In the infamous east end of our city, there are special detectors installed to sense gunshots because it is so prevalent.

Edited January 11, 2012 by jewellsmommy

[Perogi]

We live in small town Ontario and generally keep the doors locked. The kids lock the door behind dh when he leaves for work in the morning and we definitely make sure the doors are locked if we go out. The front door isn't necessarily locked all day if the kids are going in and out.

Before this we lived on 10 acres in the boonies and we never locked our doors. Unless we were away overnight the doors were left unlocked - all day and all night, whether we were home or not. We also didn't lock the car doors though we did keep the keys on us.

[Amy in NH]

My parents in a rural town in New England. They only lock their doors if they will be gone for 2+ hours. I've told them that they really ought to do it more often. Yes, it's a safe area in general, but it's not Mayberry.

 

:iagree: We only lock ours if we'll be gone for more than a few hours.

[myfunnybunch]

We live in a mid-sized city in the PNW, in a nice but not fancy neighborhood.

 

I think it helps that...

 

there's a lot of foot traffic on the street. The good kind, neighbors walking dogs, kids walking to and from school, runners and walkers (probably neighbors again), mommas strolling their babies and following their littles on tiny bikes, that kind of thing.

 

We know our neighbors. We all kind of watch out for one another. A guy was kind of loitering around in our elderly neighbor's driveway, for example, so I walked over to take her some flowers (ostensibly) and I asked if he needed anything as I went. I noticed the young guy across the street was keeping an eye on the man too so I wasn't worried about anything happening.

 

We live across the river from the not-so-great neighborhoods in our city.

 

We have a loud dog who barks when people come to the door. He's a marshmallow, but he sounds scary.

 

And we're usually home. That's a huge deterrent right there. There are always cars in the driveway and my dh works at home.

 

I wouldn't leave my bike parked outside overnight, but I don't think anything of leaving the doors unlocked during the day, or if our students or my dd aren't home yet I will leave the door unlocked when I run to the grocery store.

 

Cat

[KathyBC]

I'm pretty sure nobody around here locks their doors except to go on vacation. Even at night. I know people who leave their keys in their vehicles, too.

[JennyD]

I live in Nashville and have been trying to get into the habit of locking our doors all the time, even when we're at home, as there seem to be an awful lot of burglaries here. In NYC we only locked the apartment door when going out for a while or at night.

[akmommy]

Until we moved a month ago the only time we locked up was if we were going to be gone overnight. The only time we locked the car was if there was something valuable in it. I probably would have locked up at night but with two large noisy dogs it just didn't seem necessary. We never had any problems with the house a cars. This was in south central Alaska.

 

Where we live now we're more more conscientious about locking the house when we are gone and at night, but not during the day when we are home . We also now keep the car locked at home and in town. Just a different more populated area.

 

One summer we did have a bicycle and half a jug of gas taken from the yard, but at the time we lived on a busy corner and our entire yard was visible from the street so anything of value left outside was in full view of anyone walking or driving by.

[mazakaal]

We live in rural Cornwall, England. When we moved in, the front door lock was messed up and a pain in the neck to work, so we only locked the doors if we went out all day long. We finally mentioned it to the landlord and he put in a new lock, so we do lock the door now, unless we're out and need to leave a door open for ds who doesn't have a key.

 

When we lived in a village, we locked the doors at night and when we went out, but never locked the doors behind us when we walked in the door.

[Laura Corin]

We don't lock our doors until we go to bed at night or all go out. I never have: inner-city UK, aging industrial city UK, apartment complex in Northern California, China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Paris and rural Scotland.

 

Laura

[Laura in CA]

We try to keep the doors locked, but sometimes we forget. We've accidentally left the front door unlocked all night or the garage door up all night. Once we even went off for the day to Berkeley leaving the garage door wide open (with all of our 5 or 6 bikes in full view of the street), and nothing was taken. We live in a pretty quiet neighborhood, though. When we moved back to the States from Europe we thought there'd be a lot more crime here, based on what gets reported over there ... We're slowly getting less paranoid :001_smile:

[Melissa in Australia]

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.

 

I live in an area where nobody locks their door, unless they are going shopping. We actually even leave our doors open on hot summer nights, just a fly-screen no lock. We are in a very rural area, in a secluded street with terrific neighbours, we have dogs and geese that make a racket if someone is just starting to come up our long driveway.

[stripe]

I know people (outside the US) who, as a cultural matter, generally have their front door wide open with a curtain there for visual privacy, so people can just pop in all day long, but in urban neighborhoods, people do come in to rob when no one is at home or at night (and even in rural areas, if a person is out of town). Most of the time having someone being obviously home is enough of a deterrent, and they will actually arrange so that someone is always home. But the front door will be wide open. At the same time, there are locks on interior doors, and frigs are sold with a place where one could put a lock.

 

I usually have the front door locked, but sometimes not, when I am at home. I prefer to have it locked when my husband is not home, unless my kids are playing outside. My neighborhood has occasional (not rare) property crime, but generally the "crawling through the window when someone was not home" type.

Edited January 11, 2012 by stripe

[Mimm]

My mother lives down a 1/4 mile driveway about a seven minute drive from a 2700 population town. I don't know if she even has working locks on her house. :)

 

I live in a neighborhood in a town around 180,000 people. It's relatively safe but we lock the door when we leave and when we sleep at night, but it's usually unlocked during the day when we are home.

[Laura Corin]

I knew someone who lived in a very small town in Colorado. She woke up one morning and saw that her car was gone. Her first thought was that the neighborhood teens were playing a trick on her again and had driven it around the corner :001_huh:. My first thought would be "AH, someone stole my car." I asked how they could have gotten her keys for such a trick. She said that she leaves them in the car so that they are never lost! .

 

.. if the car is unlocked when it is stolen. I think that is a common clause here. This is also the case if the house is burgled when the doors are unlocked.

 

Laura

[edelweiss]

I cannot even imagine!! I had no idea that people left their doors unlocked all day and night anymore.

 

Our doors are locked all of the time. The only exceptions would be if DH is doing work in the yard or if the kids are playing outside. Once the kids or DH come in though, the doors are locked. Our cars are unlocked, but they are in the locked garage, and I never leave the keys in the car... just in case. If we leave the house, the doors are locked and the alarm is on. I can't imagine doing it any differently. :001_huh: However, I have to admit that some of the towns mentioned in this thread sound idyllic. :001_smile:

[justamouse]

I lock my doors when I'm going out, now, but while at home they're never locked.

 

At my old house the doors were never ever locked but at night. I'd go out for the day and leave the doors open. Yep, in NJ.

[laughing lioness]

Upper Midwest. It's not infrequent to see cars parked, running, keys in engine, while someone "runs in to grab something from the grocery store."

[*********]

OP here...

 

Well, it kinda sounds like those of you who live in rural areas don't lock up much.

 

I lived my entire childhood in the city of Flint, so not locking up wasn't even a thought. Even then, we had two teens break into our house in broad daylight while my sisters and I were all home.

 

My dh grew up in the city of Detroit until he moved to the suburbs at age 10, so locking up is instinctual for him, too.

 

I guess I'm a bit sad to think we're so aware of safety because of where we live. I'd LOVE to live somewhere that the neighbors borrow cars and leave packages in the house and what not. I mean, before we moved recently, we had good relationships with our neighbors; we all did things like borrow/lend eggs, pick mulberries from each other's trees, etc. But we'd NEVER even consider entering each other's homes if the owner didn't answer the door. I wouldn't even try the knob.

 

And one neighbor lady and I were really close; our boys are friends and all that. So, for example, one day I made homemade applesauce, and took a dish of it over for her little one. She didn't answer the door, which either meant she wasn't home, or didn't hear me knock. It didn't even occur to me to try her doorknob and see if it was unlocked. That's just not something that's done where I live. Someone jiggling my doorknob from the outside would automatically get me to grab my phone to call the police! :tongue_smilie: If you don't have a key, don't try the knob. :D

[justamouse]

Upper Midwest. It's not infrequent to see cars parked, running, keys in engine, while someone "runs in to grab something from the grocery store."

 

Lol, yeah, people do that here.

 

Bethany, I'm not really rural, I'm smack in the middle of 6000 people. It is a small town, but it's right in the middle of town.

[elegantlion]

Well I've always lived in relatively safe areas, but we always lock our doors. I really can't imagine not locking up when you leave. We used to leave our garage door open at our old house, but the door from the house to the garage was dead bolted. After someone tried to steal from our garage while we were home, we started shutting it too.

 

I'm not paranoid or fearful, but I really don't want anyone (neighbor or no!) just walking into my house.

 

I have left the car running to run into the convenience store before.

[*********]

Lol, yeah, people do that here.

 

Bethany, I'm not really rural, I'm smack in the middle of 6000 people. It is a small town, but it's right in the middle of town.

 

Maybe my skewed perception is because I've never lived in a small town. I've always lived in Flint, a suburb of Flint, or a Detroit suburb. So I have no idea what it's like to live in a small town.

 

Sometimes dh and I take the scenic route between Detroit and Flint, and drive through some small towns. We always talk about how nice it'd be to live there. :)

 

Hunh. I just Googled it, and two of the small towns we think are so cute have popluations between 2,000 and 3,800.

 

In comparison, just the suburb we live in came up with a population of 71,000, and we're surrounded by other suburban cities that are just as populated. The whole metro Detroit area came up as the 9th most populous in the United States, with just under 4 million. Flint, where I grew up, has a population of 125,000. So considering all that, I can see why dh and I would be so different from those that live/grew up in rural areas.

[edelweiss]

OP here...

 

Well, it kinda sounds like those of you who live in rural areas don't lock up much.

 

I lived my entire childhood in the city of Flint, so not locking up wasn't even a thought. Even then, we had two teens break into our house in broad daylight while my sisters and I were all home.

 

My dh grew up in the city of Detroit until he moved to the suburbs at age 10, so locking up is instinctual for him, too.

 

I guess I'm a bit sad to think we're so aware of safety because of where we live. I'd LOVE to live somewhere that the neighbors borrow cars and leave packages in the house and what not. I mean, before we moved recently, we had good relationships with our neighbors; we all did things like borrow/lend eggs, pick mulberries from each other's trees, etc. But we'd NEVER even consider entering each other's homes if the owner didn't answer the door. I wouldn't even try the knob.

 

And one neighbor lady and I were really close; our boys are friends and all that. So, for example, one day I made homemade applesauce, and took a dish of it over for her little one. She didn't answer the door, which either meant she wasn't home, or didn't hear me knock. It didn't even occur to me to try her doorknob and see if it was unlocked. That's just not something that's done where I live. Someone jiggling my doorknob from the outside would automatically get me to grab my phone to call the police! :tongue_smilie: If you don't have a key, don't try the knob. :D

 

 

I agree!! It would never occur to me in a million years to try the doorknob!!! I would never even think of entering someone's home unless they came to the door to greet me. :confused:

[missmoe]

I wouldn't try a door knob either!

 

The city I live in has about 100,000 people. People breaking into your house to steal things just isn't part of the culture here.

 

The different mindset in STL was very sad to us. One of our neighbor's grandsons had his videogame set stolen off of his body while walking it three doors down the street. The neighbor had offered to help him fix something that was wrong with it. That attitude was a reason we moved. The first night in our house in STL someone broke our car window to steal a coat! We should have known then!

[prairiebird]

Maybe my skewed perception is because I've never lived in a small town. I've always lived in Flint, a suburb of Flint, or a Detroit suburb. So I have no idea what it's like to live in a small town.

 

Sometimes dh and I take the scenic route between Detroit and Flint, and drive through some small towns. We always talk about how nice it'd be to live there. :)

 

Hunh. I just Googled it, and two of the small towns we think are so cute have popluations between 2,000 and 3,800.

 

In comparison, just the suburb we live in came up with a population of 71,000, and we're surrounded by other suburban cities that are just as populated. The whole metro Detroit area came up as the 9th most populous in the United States, with just under 4 million. Flint, where I grew up, has a population of 125,000. So considering all that, I can see why dh and I would be so different from those that live/grew up in rural areas.

 

 

Heh, I grew up on the southwest side of Chicago, and now I'm living in a southside neighborhood. In between that, I moved to a few smaller towns downstate, and people thought I was nuts about how often I checked if my car was locked, if windows weren't down, if my windows of the house were locked etc. If you did end up moving somewhere rural, you'll probably still have that nagging thing that makes you go back and lock. I couldn't shake it after 9 years, and living up here for the year while DH looks for work is probably just going to reboost that!

[DarlaS]

Maybe my skewed perception is because I've never lived in a small town. I've always lived in Flint, a suburb of Flint, or a Detroit suburb. So I have no idea what it's like to live in a small town.

 

Sometimes dh and I take the scenic route between Detroit and Flint, and drive through some small towns. We always talk about how nice it'd be to live there. :)

 

Hunh. I just Googled it, and two of the small towns we think are so cute have popluations between 2,000 and 3,800.

 

 

I live in a town of about 3,000. Head east a ways next time, and stop in for coffee! :D

[Tigger]

My parents in a rural town in New England. They only lock their doors if they will be gone for 2+ hours. I've told them that they really ought to do it more often. Yes, it's a safe area in general, but it's not Mayberry.

 

:iagree:

 

My parents are in sort-of rural NY - they hardly ever lock their door, it's maddening! They're not suburbs, but they're not in the middle of nowhere.

 

And yet, here I say that, and I'm in the middle of nowhere, in the county, in Missouri and hardly ever lock our door either! The other night DH forgot to close the garage doors - lights were on in the garage all night, keys in both cars, and the door into the house unlocked. Half the time one of the lower level doors is left unlocked, half the time the front door is unlocked and we actually leave one of the deck doors unlocked if we know someone is coming back or over and they don't have a key! The only time we absolutely, positively, consciously lock all the doors and windows is when we're going on vacation - other than that, they might get locked, they might not.

 

Where we live, it's not uncommon to see cars running at the store while the driver is inside picking something up either....with or without kids in the car without an adult too! People leave their keys in their cars and might be gone for hours. I've even seen folks leave the car running and unlocked at the mall in the small city nearby!

Edited January 12, 2012 by Tigger