Yeah. Like I said, my wife was scandalized that I could open the back door so easily with a credit card but, if someone else wanted in, they could just bust the bottom left pane of glass and have easy access to both the door knob and bolt switch.
(Or it’s probably one large pane with a wood frame mockup over it but I doubt my home invader cares)
I’m a little jealous that you live in such a safe 'hood.
A couple of years ago, we started locking up during the day. We were discussing that with neighbors…
One of our neighbors turned to her husband and asked “Do we even have a key to our house?” He shrugged.
Yes, without causing damage, but would not be fun to squeeze through basement windows. I think they even with the simple locks in them engaged they can still be lifted out of the tracks from the outside. I think there’s nothing much stopping the window air conditioner in one room from being pulled out if you can get that old window to go up a little.
If those methods fail there are a number of old windows that a pane might be come out of without great difficulty. If not pretty easy to break a small pane, unlock the window and get in easily.
When I was in grad school I lived in a quarter of a house, and my key broke off in the lock. I was able to get in by unscrewing a window with my trusty Swiss Army knife. No damage.
Here we have a key hidden, and a few neighbors with keys. We often leave high windows unlocked and open for the breeze, so if we did that we could easily remove a screen. The gate to the backyard has a combination lock so we could get in there for easy access. We have a smallish window in the laundry room which would be easiest to break if it came to that.
The door to the garage is locked, so opening the garage door wouldn’t be very helpful.
Our house had no locks on the doors when we moved in. It’s 230 years old and part of that time was used only in the summers so it was not just open but uninhabited for at least four months a year.
Our insurer mandated that we put locks on the doors, so we did. No idea where the keys are though.
I keep my doors and windows locked. (I live in a small town with a low crime rate, but why take any chances?)
When I first moved in, I didn’t know anyone well enough to give them a spare key.
So when I locked myself out 
, I called the police. They broke in easily by smashing a glass panel in my front door near the lock. They advised me to replace the door (which I did.)
Now I have a cleaning lady and a gardener who both have keys.
This is what I’d do as a kid (up through high school) if I got locked out of the house. It was easy. Then.
Now, in my townhouse, there’s no easy way to break in. I’d probably have to call a locksmith. On the front entrance, we have a door with deadbolt, a greenhouse window (that I would not like to break), and a powder room window. I’m 99% sure I couldn’t get through the powder room window even if it were open a smidge, so I could open it from the outside. It slides horizontally, and one side is fixed pane.
We have neighbors on both side walls, and the back “entrance” is a balcony that is enough over my head that even if I had the upperbody strength to pull myself up I probably couldn’t reach.
Our doggie door in the house I grew up in was designed for dachshunds. I’d never in a million years fit through. I do remember a visiting cousin crawling in through it when he was a skinny kid.
Then I’d need to break into my car to get the spare house key as probably most of the times I go out I’m not getting in my car - run, walk, or ride.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC
Hubs is concerned about break-ins, so our home is always locked up tight. Of course, there is a side window next to the front door that could be easily broken by anyone who really wanted in, but I’m not going to point that out to him. I don’t want bars on the windows.
I have a hidden key and my BFF has a key.
I could probably get in my basement as the wooden bulkhead doors are secured with a carabiner, that I’m thinking would break if I worked it hard enough.
Absent that, I can break a small window by the front door, but wouldn’t because it’s very old decorative glass and I wouldn’t be able to exactly match it. The basement windows are probably the best bet, they’re hinged and held by turnbuttons that can’t be all that strong.
When we bought our house 2 years ago we only got one key, for one door, when we closed. That was more than a bit concerning so we went to Lowe’s that very day and got all new locks and deadbolts, all keyed alike. Now we have a lot of keys to the house. My SIL, who lives maybe 5 minutes away, has one in case of emergencies. The rest are buried in the bottom of a can of random rusty nuts and bolts in the garage, one of many such cans scattered around the workbench.
We also have one hidden in a secret spot near the house so that in the event we find ourselves locked out I don’t have to go over to my SIL’s house.
If we found ourselves truly locked out with no way to get at a key, we’d have to break a window. We don’t keep windows or doors unlocked when we aren’t home and the credit card trick won’t work as we use a deadbolt for both exterior doors.
That’s the thing - he doesn’t live “in a hood!” 
I just realized, we can get in the garage w/ a keypad, and the door from the garage to the house is rearely locked - like not unless we are on a long vacation or something. And there is a key hidden in the garage (tho I’m not exactly sure where. But I assume I could find it.). In answering “no” before, for whatever reason I was assuming the power was out and I wouldn’t be able to open the garage door. (I do not believe you can manually lift it from outside.)
For those with keypad locks - are those wired or battery?
Same here; we never lock the door. It’s pointless at our place.
Our house doors are nearly always locked, even if we’re at home. If we’re leaving the house, the doors are absolutely locked.
There’s a spare key hidden on the property, which is the first line of defense for getting back in. Otherwise, we’d likely be looking at having to break a window; a couple of the first-floor windows are still original to the house (1928 vintage), and if I had to break a window to get in, one of those would be the sacrificial lamb.
Duh, it was the buyer who was upset. The seller was obviously fine with just leaving everything unlocked.
I’m in a highrise apartment. Spiderman could climb up the outside of the building then break the sliding door on my balcony. Or some brave schlub in a real tall porta-lift could do the same.
Otherwise, it’s get through the building front door after talking to the doorman on the intercom, getting an elevator e-fob from him, riding the elevator to our floor, then figuring out which apartment is mine, then kicking in the steel fire door set in the steel doorframe. Sounds hard.
Since the doorman and the maintenance staff know me, the maintenance people have a master e-fob that works the elevators and all the apartments’ doors. So if it’s 8-5 MF when maintenance is on-duty I can get in readily with no damage. Or wait for them to be called in afterhours which annoyeth them greatly. And legitimately so.
One would think in the boonies of palm Beach County a gated golf community with 24/7 security would be safe. Nah. It’s where it looked like someone gained access to our townhouse through a locked window by prying it open.
Cameras cash and underwear stolen. Creepy neighbor possibly.
Where I am now it’s rural residential, but I always lock doors even when home. I did lock myself out on occasion. Then I would shimmy through a window that was left unlocked. It was removing the screen that took time.
Locked myself out yesterday! Dropped
My house keys on the way out. Didn’t notice until I wanted to lock the deadbolt. No problem I’ll go to the spare key hiding spot under the milk can in the back yard . Foiled! Not there anymore. Oh I forgot we had the decks cleaned and stained last year and everything was moved.
Had to wait until himself came home. He said I could’ve used a cc trick to get in the garage service door and used the spare key hanging on the hook.
I’d really like a keypad lock.
To all the people who routinely lock their homes but could easily break in… Why do you lock up? Why not either remove the easy access or leave the place unlocked for your convenience?
I live in a close-in suburb of Chicago; while this area is by no means a high-crime area, property crimes are common enough here that it makes sense to at least stop the casual/opportunistic thieves by locking the doors. (We always lock our cars when we park them, for the same reason.)
I don’t lock myself out of the house that often – perhaps once every couple of years.
My “could easily break in” responses are either (a) use the hidden key, or (b) break a window, neither of which are likely to be done by a casual/opportunistic thief, and I’ve not ever had to resort to breaking a window.
Especially in a close suburban area, there’s a vast difference between kicking in a basement window and walking in the unlocked front door. One of them may very well get a call to the cops if it’s noticed and one will never ever ever get a call to the cops. I’d much rather force a burglar to do something obviously destructive than simply waltz in to steal my stuff.
It’s like locking your car. Yes, that handbag on the passenger seat is just one brick away from a thief, but thieves will walk down a line of cars trying every handle before risking a noisy broken window.
Way out in the country, it’s not worth the bother. Nobody is going to notice if a thief has a battery powered angle grinder to get past your steel security door, you may as well just leave the place open and avoid the repair bill.