Do you keep your doors locked at home?

[Diode]

My habit of locking the doors is so ingrained that I have been know to lock the back door after sticking my head out to check on my son while he is playing. He then gets rather annoyed that he is locked out of the house.

Guilty of that too But if you really want to annoy someone, try locking your wife out

When close a door, I lock it. I've finally gotten my wife and son to do a better job of this too. Took much fussin though.

Ya think about it and it's really sad. When I was a kid (a long time ago) I don't think we locked the doors when we went to bed. Let alone durring the day.

[Paladin]

Doors always locked (with deadbolts) unless they under the watch of someone armed or my rather capable dogs.

Locked doors with deter/slow down criminals. If criminals have to break the door to get in, it will give you some warning and at least a little bit of time.

If you leave the doors unlocked, and don't have a dog or alarm... you run the risk of someone sneaking in. Once in, they may sneak off with your stuff or your kid or they may plan to stick around and ambush you.

Good plan to lock the doors.

[DaveT]

Yes, all the time. If the front door is open, the combination glass and screen door is latched.

Deadbolts always engaged at night and when we are not home. When we are on a trip, the power to the automatic garage doors is cut off and a security latch engaged on each.

Gun safe is bolted to the floor and 2x4 studs inside a closet, the door to that closet also has a sturdy lock on it.

Even in a small town like we live in, the crime rate is soaring and the P.D.'s normal compliment of 2 officers has been cut in half thanks to an incompetent Mayor who thinks this is the old days when a BG could be talked out of doing anything wrong. Meth labs are a big problem out here, crime is up so folks can pay for drugs, and the Mayor and City Council have their collective heads stuck in the sand.

A great way to know what is going on inside your home at night is to utilize the cheap 2 way plug in intercoms from Radio Shack. I have one in the garage and at night, I lock the transmitter button on. The receiver is by my bedside, on with the volume set to where something happens inside my garage, I can hear it instantly.

[WaltherP99]

All doors are dead bolted and locked when no one is home. Installed a full 8Foot fence that includes drive way and telephone and AC units enclosed in the Back Yard. Dogs have a dog door and can go out and in freely. When home the Garage stays open and I smoke outside in the garage always have a firearm close if not on the hip. No one can see in the back yard.

The fence is smooth on the outside and poles on the inside. This means a would be a burglar would have to climb an 8Foot smooth fence then the dogs would be there for extra protection. The dogs are the best protection I can not count the amount of times my dogs make me aware of someone coming to the front door or even when a car door is shut in-front of the house. As well they are very protective of the family and would attack any stranger that would enter the house.

I do remember the day when you could leave your doors unlocked but those days are gone..

[OverEasy]

We live out in the woods. We can't see the neighbors, they can't see us.
I keep the door locked at all times. It is an automatic habit now.

I've locked my wife out of the house so many times she now carries a key!

I've even locked myself out of the house! Nowdays, it's gun in one pocket and keys in the other and I don't go outside without my pants.

So far it's working. I keep the garage locked also, so I need my keys anyway when I'm working outside.

When I was growing up we never locked the doors, except if we were going out of town for a few days. But the family and the neighbors all knew the key was in the flower bed on the left side of the door. Heck sombody might have needed to borrow somethig while we were gone!

"Lassie", Timmy, The McCoys, Andy, Opie, Barny and The Beaver are all dead and gone.
You would be wise to call before you come knock on my door today!
It's sad and it makes me mad that I have had to change the way I live and look at the world. But to quote Joel Osteen, "I'm not gonna be a victim, I'm gonna be a VICTOR"

Lock your doors, especially your car doors!
OE

[oilman]

Locked at all times unless I am outside but in sight of the door, e.g., go out on the patio to sit.

[propellerhead]

I've come home at night to find my wife's keys still hanging in the lock of our front door. <shakes head>

[j1132s]

Definitely locking all my doors, why take unnecessary chances?

BTW, in case some folk don't know:

Our front and back doors each have 3 locks: 2 deadbolts (1 w/o key access) and a lock that's on the knob itself. Normally we just use the knob lock because it can be put into the locked position and still allow an open door to close (i.e. saves the trouble of using a key to lock when leaving the house).

A little while ago, we locked ourselves out and had to get a locksmith. Well, I didn't time how long it look him, but it seemed like just 10 seconds with a peice of thin metal and he was able to open the door.

So just a warning in case your door also has one of these worthless locks.


We lock ourselves out very often but were able to get our backup key, which bring up a question... How many of you leave a key w/ your neighbor ?

[tomneal]

This reminds me of an argument I heard at the range

The home defense shotgun crowd was arguing about keeping a round in the chamber of a pump shotgun.

The empty chamber crowd spoke of the Klack-Klack giving the bad guy a warning.


Someone from the loaded chamber crowd ended the conversation with:
"I thought I gave them plenty of warning when I locked the durn doors."

[kw5kw]

My doors are always locked, unless my wife or I happen to be in the yard watering the grass, mowing the yard, working in the flower bed, letting the dog out, etc.

Then it is only the door that we're going thru that's unlocked. When we go to the door to let someone come in, the door’s closed behind them and it’s locked… I get the feeling that sometimes they feel like they’re in jail, with the thud, clank, clank-thud of the door closing, the sound of the smaller door knob lock turning and finally the sound of the deadbolt engaging.

Side note:
Our curtains are also the “motel/hotel� quality that keeps the sunlight out… Here in Texas heat we have found that it keeps our electric bills way, way down compared to our neighbors. Our highest electric bill this summer so far has been less than $200.00, even though we have to use more lights during the day. Keeping the sun out has really improved our energy usage. This also has a benefit that no-one can see in our house at any time! They can’t see what we’re doing, or even if we’re home. Our house always looks the same, home or not. Somebody just walking or driving down the street can’t even see a shadow of us on the curtain. We absolutely love this additional security.

[Our] Keys are not always carried so we put a keypad on the garage door.

I agree the best defense of any home is a dog. They are so much better than any alarm. Dog's are PROactive not REactive alarm's are.

Alarms go off when an area of the premises is intruded, a dog starts their warning when they sense anything abnormal... albeit it could be a cat but you still get the warning. Heck, even that cat could be rabid.

[carlson1]

Locked, Alarmed, Golden Retriever, and killer Chihuahua between me and bad guy.

[kauboy]

Always locked!!! We have a keypad on our garage but I still lock the door that leads into the house. Front and back two are all deadbolted all the time, unless we are doing yard work, and then only the front or the back is unlocked. Not both!

Unfortunately, the keypad on the garage isn't a great stopper to entry since my garage has two windows. So, to give ample warning there, I affixed a warning sticker. It has a silhouette of a gun and says "This home protected by 2nd Amendment Securities". It resembles those blue "Brinks Home Security" signs you always see.

Unfortunately it took a long time for me to get my wife to stop leaving her keys in the front door. That was aggrevating.

[dws1117]

unfortunately all door are almost always locked. It's really sad, but such is like in todays society.

[Venus Pax]

I'm chuckling reading some of these. Dh gets aggravated when I accidentally lock him out of the house. It's just a habit now to throw the deadbolt when I close the door.
I do leave a key with my neighbor, as I don't trust myself to hide my key in a place that a BG can't think up.

[Braden]

It depends.

Our front door stays locked with a dead bolt all the time whether we are home or away, night or day.

The door from our garage to our house stays locked too.

Our back door is locked and dead bolted at night but during the day my wife doesn't bother locking it because our son goes in and out to play in the back yard. We have two large dogs back there that are both VERY protective so I'm not too concerned about anyone going back there. Besides, the gates have combination locks on them so someone would have to jump the 6' fence to get in the back yard (not hard to do of course, but I imagine it would be scary to see two angry dogs come running around the corner of the house just as you're getting over the fence).