<p>Maybe because my mom grew up in NYC, I was taught to always lock the door at night and I always have, no matter how rural or friendly a place I lived. I can’t even imagine going to bed and sleeping soundly with an unlocked door. We don’t lock the door during the day if we are home, but that’s because we live in a tiny house nad the front door opens into the main room, where we’re likely to be. The back door is through a gate and around the house so we almost never use it. If one of my older kids is staying in the basement, they are the only ones really, unless we’re BBQing or something. We keep the garage and door into the house from there locked.</p>
<p>In north Jersey we lock front and back doors (no garage.) Most of the time. Unless someone forgot a key.</p>
<p>In south Jersey, we don’t lock any door when we’re staying there; only lock up to travel. (my kids who grew up in the urban area lock the doors when they’re visiting; H and i grew up in a more rural area and don’t.)</p>
<p>We lock it and other doors only at night. We are pretty rural. One time we went on vacation and our front door wasn’t shut properly and it popped open. I was amazed that we didn’t have any raccoons living in the house when we came home a week later.</p>
<p>My husband is fanatical about locking the door to the garage, especially before we go to bed. When I’m home alone I’m not so good about it. I do always want the front door locked, but my kids don’t cooperate well :(</p>
<p>No, but we don’t lock any of our doors. </p>
<p>We have an attached garage that only has a garage door, which I close every time we go in or out…and not because of security , but because of animals ranging from hummingbirds to snakes. Our back door is unlocked a lot this time of year , because we have an outside living area that we are constantly walking in and out with food and tools for cooking / serving with. Thankfully , we live in a small town with low crime. I think the likelihood of someone breaking into our home is very low, and if they did, my valuables are secured ( meaning cash or jewelry ) I have no love for televisions or other electronics and unless a potential burglar has a flair for antiques , I think we are safe.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t recognize other people’s security issues in other areas.
I just visited my hometown on beautiful Cape Cod , where I would never have the attitude I do here…they have an alarming number of drug related crimes which sadden me, and frighten me at the same time</p>
<p>I was locked out today with the dog, until H got home. I didn’t try breaking in. My car was in the driveway and it was unlocked, so I put the dog in there while i worked in the yard.( it was very shady and cool) our car is also generally locked, but I had already gotten into it this morning.
Our garage is detached at the back of the property and always locked. Our house is also always locked.
In our area, I have heard of people having their cars broken into while they were bringing in grocery bags.
Thieves stalk neighborhoods and are very watchful.
In the summer, they may pose as solicitors or as people looking for work.
However, I have not been bothered by them since we got our dog!
;)</p>
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<p>Why wouldn’t you lock the door when you leave the house? Garages are relatively easy for thieves to get into, and offer privacy to thieves in the garage trying to break into the main house. Garages may also store tools which thieves can use to break into the main house. So a door between the garage and the main house should be subject to extra security.</p>
<p>In our upstate NY house, we never had a key to the front door. We had one to the back door but only locked the door on vacations. In our new CO house, we use the garage door for entry (remote or keypad). We should lock the door to the garage, but we rarely do. </p>
<p>Our garage door locks when it closes. I’m pretty sure that’s the way the house came. If not, we probably would have locked it anyway. Our garages have windows that someone easily could have broken and climbed through. I never really thought about it before, but I realize now that it’s probably somewhat strange for a garage to have windows like the rest of the house does.</p>
<p>We’ve only gotten “locked out” once in 25+ years of being there. Even then, we weren’t really locked out. My parents and my sister realized they didn’t have their keys and were worried, but when they woke me up after freaking out for a bit, I told them that I had mine with me.</p>
<p>The large number of posters who apparently live in areas where there are no thieves so that they can leave all of their doors unlocked with no significant theft (or other crime) risk may want to think about why college students frequently get their stuff stolen. Students who grew up in low theft areas where locking doors and watching your stuff is not required to avoid theft may bring careless security habits to college, where thieves find a target-rich environment.</p>
<p>Nearly all insurance companies require forced entry to pay a theft claim.</p>
<p>City dweller here. When we had a house, front door was always locked, garage door always closed. We locked (deadbolted) the door from garage to kitchen at night, or if we left for vacation. Now that we’re in an apartment, front door is always locked, as is balcony door (unless we are out on the balcony). We add a second deadbolt at night. Despite our precautions, we have had 2 garage break-ins and 1 house break-in in 30 years. However, we’ve never had a security system. H doesn’t “believe” in them (thinks they give false security). However, D lives in a major city with 4 other girls and they do have a security system. Makes me feel a little more comfortable. </p>
<p>We live in a very rural area. We have a security system but rarely turn it on, only when we leave town for an extended period. Basically we bought it to have the sign in the yard since the common wisdom is that the sign deters bored teenagers from breaking in. I have a key to my front door and come in that way, unless I am am carrying groceries in which case it will be the kitchen door, the back door. My house is a “front door house” and guests come to the front. I lock the doors, not because I am worried about robbers, but because I’m worried my neighbors would just walk right in after a quick knock. This is a very social community. I don’t want to be surprised in the bath. They are wonderful neighbors. If they walked right in while I was gone, I’m pretty sure they’d have a seat and guard things till I showed back up. : )</p>
<p>We don’t have a garage. We lock the barn. I can’t think of the right joke to insert here.</p>
<p>Just don’t lock the barn after the horse has been stolen. ;)</p>
<p>We lock everything even in this safe city, you never know. Even the door from the garage to the external sidewalk for trash and stuff.</p>
<p>My patio door is probably unlocked now while I’m over at the church office. Anybody trying to get in would look at the mess in the family room and assume that the place was already tossed. Our only valuables are my husband’s guns (he is big on target shooting and reloading his own ammunition) and the guns are kept disassembled and stored in separate areas. NO one would want our ancient tube TV or 2001 desk top computer, and no jewelry, antiques or electronics to be found.</p>
<p>Our garage is NOT easy to break into, ucbalum. It is very visible to the street, too. I would more worry about one of the cars outside the garage (if the car wasn’t IN the garage, which it usually is) with an opener in it getting broken into.</p>
<p>“Students who grew up in low theft areas where locking doors and watching your stuff is not required to avoid theft may bring careless security habits to college, where thieves find a target-rich environment.”</p>
<p>I’m not sure which college you are talking about but at my son’s college the dorm and the on campus apartment doors lock automatically when shut, So DS’s problem is more of making sure he has his key on him when he leaves his room. </p>
<p>While we lock the door at night during the day when someone is home we do not have the doors locked. Our beagle is a real watch dog. When someone gets close to the house he barks really loud and while he’s not a biter I can’t imagine anyone wanted to chance it because that bark is NOT friendly. There is no way someone is going to break into this house without us knowing it.</p>
<p>Our house is quite old - 1922. The garage is under the house, along with the rest of the basement. The door to the house from the garage comes up through the center of the house. We lock that door all the time. We store plenty of tools in the basement so if a thief gains entrance to the garage then they can likely find both the extension cord and the sawzall to cut through the door to get around the deadbolt. The basement/garage has plenty of ground level windows to kick in.</p>
<p>We lock doors even when we are home. Our neighborhood is full of hedges, and our property is no exception. We aren’t set too far back from the street but you can’t see much of the house from either of our driveways. Short of nuking the property, we will always have a camouflaged house. We’ve had a few things walk off so we are extra careful to lock doors when we are out of sight outside. </p>
<p>I’ve only had to call 911 once on someone who just wouldn’t leave. He thought I was home alone. Once he started yelling, I didn’t care that I wasn’t alone - he needed to leave and I didn’t need to deal with it.</p>
<p>We have a neighborhood security patrol. We don’t use them, but we don’t have the nicest home in the neighborhood.</p>