Security is not all or nothing. Locking doors and windows will keep out the laziest and lowest skilled thieves, but these are a substantial percentage of thieves who steal the easiest targets that they encounter. Additional security measures like better locks, alarms, etc. that can make the theft slower, noisier, or more difficult can screen out a larger percentage of thieves. It is true that keeping out the most skilled thieves is very difficult, but the most skilled thieves are only a small percentage of all thieves.
Ha, so basically it’s like the joke about bear chase… you only need to be faster than your friend (or better locked than our neighbor)
We lock our doors and shut all our windows. We were only burgled once, about 30 years ago when we didn’t shut the master bedroom windows, which was the point of entry.
We feel many crimes in our area are crimes of opportunity. We just prefer making it a bit less inviting to break in. We have great neighbors and all look out for one another.
The idea of having a stranger in our home is very upsetting to me. I especially don’t want them present while we are there nor there when I arrive home. People can be violent when surprised or cornered and if armed especially dangerous.
We have a number code lock on the door between the garage and the house. It’s great - I don’t need to worry about digging in my purse for the keys (especially after getting my new car a few years ago that doesn’t need the key to start!).
We do want to replace the other locks also with similar number locks - H doesn’t like taking the keys with him when he goes out running and I don’t like the fact that he leaves the doors unlocked.
Forgot to add - we have a Schlage lock for the door between the garage and the house. Looking to get another Schlage for the front door - I think we’ll need to replace the deadbolt with the Schlage door lock and then change the locking doorknob for a regular doorknob without a key.
As long as you don’t follow the same phone number scheme ![]()
Time to rethink: This year, it officially became a “Historic Vehicle”!
Your hubby has now entered the exclusive “car collector” circuit.
There’s always a catalytic converter to steal in ICE cars with nothing to steal in them…
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I replaced all four of our deadbolts with black Schlage locks and matching door handles. It’s been wonderful. We have the same code for all of the locks and keys are a thing of the past. And they look great. There is a key for each lock, but as someone else said, it’s highy unlikely that they will all run out of battery power at the same time, so I don’t expect we’ll ever use them. Three of the locks installed without a problem in the existing holes, but we had to cut a larger hole for one, which wasn’t very easy. You need to take out the existing lock and measure the hole so that you can compare that with the hole specification for the lock you would like to use.
We have SimpliSafe keypad locks and I believe you can use the key if you need to. My daughter installed UltraLoq U-Bolt locks, which also let you use a key.
I like the fact that I can give guests, our cleaning lady, some service folks their own codes and can eliminate their codes when their need to use it goes away. We gave three driveway facing doors and I have locks on all three and like the fact that I can lock or unlock them when traveling and can see when people lock or unlock the door.
I’m a little unclear on how secure things actually are. We live in a very safe sub/exurb at the very end of a 1/2 mile street – only house on a cul-de-sac and you can’t see our house from the street. People would pass a number of very large, expensive looking houses visible from the street prior to reaching the cul-de-sac. And on the other side of our house is a river. But, because it is on the river, the house is mostly glass and actually has 13 external doors (Mostly sliding doors). We do lock the door at night and when we go out at night but mostly don’t activate the alarm system.
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