My sweetie and I vehemently disagree about whether the doors to the house should be locked while we're at home.
We were grumbling about it (again) this morning, and I turned to the internet for consolation. I found an old NYTimes article that revealed the divide goes a lot further than our household. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/14/garden/14nolock.html
What do you do?
149 votes
papaya / 10560 posts
We are awful at locking our doors. We actually left our front door open and we were gone about 3 hours today. DH called a little while ago because he drove out and left the garage open.
Need to get better at locking doors and not taking our safety and security for granted.
pomegranate / 3577 posts
I always lock the house. Heck, I always lock my car doors as soon as I get in the car. (Borne out of a "Dateline" my Grandma watched. Apparently your car doors are 300 times stronger when locked. I don't know if that is true, but I always lock my car doors now!)
However, I grew up in super-rural Texas. Not only did my Grandmother's house not have locks, she left her car keys in the ignition, because then she always knew where they were.
wonderful grape / 20453 posts
Always locked unless I'm watering plants or getting the mail.
grapefruit / 4136 posts
Um yeah...the first time we locked our door this YEAR was when we put our house on the market. That includes when we would leave for the weekend!
nectarine / 2765 posts
Always always locked. We live in a good neighborhood but I'm paranoid & figure it's a good habit to have. DH doesn't seem to think its as important when we're home but I'm still working on him 
nectarine / 2936 posts
We keep them locked almost all the time. Sometimes I will leave it unlocked if I'm home during the day and the dog is coming in and out, but mostly locked. And we always set the alarm overnight or when we leave the house.
cantaloupe / 6146 posts
I lock it at night but not during the day--regardless if I am home or out.
Locked for long (multi day) trips, too.
nectarine / 2132 posts
always always always. i even lock the doors for the 5 minutes i let the dogs outside to do their duty. i'm am anxious person though.
pear / 1823 posts
Our front door is always locked but mostly because I use the garage to come in/out of the house. However, if I open our back door to the deck, it may stay unlocked all day until we go to bed and I check...
hostess / papaya / 10540 posts
The front of the house is always locked unless we are in that front. The back is usually open if we are around.
bananas / 9628 posts
i grew up in a house that was never locked unless we were on vacation. as an adult i starting locking my own door when i was living alone & had a crazy stalker that hid in my laundry room (the back door opened into the laundry room and then there was another door from the laundry room into my kitchen) and the front hall of my building. now, if our door didn't blow open, i'd leave it open when DH was home with me, but it blows open so it's always locked.
eggplant / 11824 posts
Our doors are always locked. We enter the house through the garage, so it's easy to always keep them locked. I also am a little obsessive about making sure that the first floor windows are all locked if we are not at home / at night.
My parents don't even have a house key, they lost it years ago but don't care since they never lock their house. Makes me so nervous!!
pomegranate / 3809 posts
It's always locked overnight, and stays that way unless we go outside. If we're out and about in the yard or walking the dog, we leave it unlocked and then usually leave it that way too until bedtime.
coconut / 8305 posts
I can't vote b/c we're a split house as well!
If I'm home I want the door unlocked, ESPECIALLY since it's one that can still be opened from the inside if it's locked from the outside & one of the last times it was locked I locked P in the house by herself (it was horrible). I like the ease of not having to worry about it!
DH on the other hand prefers the door locked ALL. THE. TIME! He even goes so far as to lock the door that goes to the sun room along with the backdoor that's in there... so anyone that were to come in from the back door would be met with another locked door before getting into the rest of the house! lol
GOLD / cantaloupe / 6703 posts
Mostly locked. Sometimes I'll leave it unlocked if I'm, but it's always locked when we leave. We live in a secure building that you have to have a key to access, so it's pretty secure. That being said, if we are going down the hall to do laundry and LO is in the apartment, it's definitely locked.
nectarine / 2280 posts
Mostly always unless I forgot or am waiting for someone who's coming over.
kiwi / 673 posts
Locked always. I'm really careful about having my keys on me when DH isn't home, too. I locked our dog in the apartment once by accident, and don't want to repeat that mistake with LO.
GOLD / squash / 13464 posts
I grew up in a house that was never locked.... Until I came home alone to an intruder in the house. Now I always always always lock doors.
cantaloupe / 6730 posts
It's locked when we leave the house, or if we know we won't be leaving for a while. If we're outside, door is unlocked and usually we unlock the door if we expecting one of us to be home soon. Except after going to bed. If we're sleeping, doors are always locked.
pomegranate / 3113 posts
If I'm working in the front yard or if we're expecting a lot of company, I leave the front door unlocked. The back door is unlocked if we're in the back yard. Otherwise, we try to keep the doors locked -- every once in awhile I forget (I grew up in a really rural area where we only locked the doors if we went on vacation) and DH gets upset. I understand his point and usually feel like a jerk when I forget. We live in a nice area, but it is in a city and home invasions do happen around here from time to time...better safe than sorry.
honeydew / 7589 posts
I've grown up in some not so safe countries and had a stalker during my short stint in the USA, so I'm religious about locking doors, including my car doors as soon as I get in.
nectarine / 2220 posts
Always locked. Even if we're just taking trash to the bin and somebody is still in the house, we lock it behind us.
blogger / wonderful cherry / 21616 posts
I grew up rurally and we never locked our doors- except overnight. And usually when we left the house, but not always. There was never anything to worry about.
DH grew up totally opposite. We clash on the issue. I always leave our door unlocked and he's constantly locking it.
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
I usually only lock it if we're leaving the house for more than a few minutes. I live in the back of an out of the way complex in a tiny town. E and I will sometimes go have lunch in the courtyard and leave the door unlocked. If I remember I lock it before we go to bed, but more out of habit than anything.
When I lived in New Orleans and Philly, though, my door was locked and dead-bolted.
coconut / 8681 posts
My parents never ever lock their doors. They live out in the middle of nowhere but it's still always terrified me!
We always have at least the screen on our security door locked. Always unless DH is in the front yard or in the garage with it open.
pear / 1554 posts
We always lock our door. We've always lived in big cities and it's just something we've always done.
persimmon / 1281 posts
We always have at least the grill locked. Most times both doors and burglar proofing is locked. We live in a gated community but even here unexpected things happen!
apricot / 491 posts
Wow I can't even fathom leaving the door unlocked-- the same goes for car doors. I grew up in a big city so I guess that's why.
Now with a toddler it's become not only a safety issue to keep people out, but also for making sure my kid doesn't decide to go for a walk all by himself!
clementine / 916 posts
Always locked! Once in a while I leave it unlocked when I throw the trash out, but that's it!
wonderful pea / 17279 posts
DH always locks the house, but then leaves the garage up sometimes. Weirdo.
If I am at home I sometimes lock the door. Having a locked for doesn't dawnn on me until after the door bell rings and I realize a stranger is *this* close to coming into my house without an invite.
cantaloupe / 6923 posts
Ours is only locked when we are home or on a trip. When we're running errands or gone to work its unlocked. Stupid I know!
pomelo / 5321 posts
Always locked! I check it obsessively to make sure it's locked throughout the day.
pineapple / 12526 posts
Well... ours is a strange situation because our front door doesn't open with a handle from the outside. You HAVE to use a key to open it. There is a knob on the inside though.
Technically, our front door is always unlocked. But everything else stays locked up.
persimmon / 1447 posts
I live on a military base, so I'm comfortable leaving doors unlocked, but when we lived out in town the doors were locked 100% of the time.
cantaloupe / 6800 posts
Unlocked if we're home because we're in and out so much.
Locked w/ alarm on if we leave or go to sleep
watermelon / 14206 posts
We lock at night, and when we leave, but not during the day when we're home. With the dogs going in and out, it would just be more of a pain.
We kept it locked when we were in the apartment, though.
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57 comments