Front door is generally locked. The back doors (sliders) are locked unless they are open to let in the breeze. I try to remember to lock them when I go out if they’ve been open.
Only when I’m out of the house and before going to bed. Even then, I sometimes don’t lock when I leave if I know someone else is coming home in a couple hours or if I’m only gone for a short while.
Anything else seems paranoid to me, but then I don’t live in a big city or in a neighbourhood with high scrime-rates.
I chose when not at home or at night. Sometimes I’ll do it of I’m home alone, and plan on a solid nap during the day.
We also have an alarm that I activate in tandem with locking the doors.
There’s an outer door that open onto the street, a second door inside the lobby, and then the door to my apartment, all of which lock automatically when you close the door behind you.
Basically grew up in a high-crime city, so it’s absolute habit to lock the door behind me. I was home twice as a kid when some stranger tried the front door, found it locked, and left. No telling how many times none of us were there and that happened. We were broken into exactly once in the 8 or 9 years we lived there. They had to go into the back yard and break a window to get in because everything was locked up and even the windows were secured well. They didn’t get much valuable because the guns were in a gun safe, our jewelry and other small portable things were in a safe, and we had an indoor-outdoor key deadbolt on the front door, so they couldn’t easily make off with anything bigger than you could carry in your pockets; hard to get a TV over two fences that are locked with padlocks.
I read a home security book written by a former burglar. He said the easiest tactic he used to use was find a place with an unlocked door. No tools necessary. Quick in, quick out. He said the problem with it was that you might find someone home. For criminals who are in it for the thrill or the violence, that’s a bonus. The burglary just turned into a home invasion. Fun for them, but not for you.
Most of the housing I’ve had outside of the US was “self-locking”, like constanze describes: you don’t need the key to open it from inside, but you do need it from the outside. You can give the key an extra turn to engage more bars, locking it further.
My flat’s main door isn’t self-locking and, if left unlocked, can just slide open - therefore I give it a half-turn when I’m in, just so it will stay closed.
My door locks as soon as you close it, so always. At night or if I’m out for a long time I double-lock it. I live in East London, so not doing so would be stupid. Mind you, my daughter has left the door open several times (you have to pull it shut) including when none of us are home, and nothing’s happened.
We live out in the country, and have three dogs. We keep our front and side doors locked, but our sliding glass back door can’t be locked at all because of the dog door we installed.
I don’t even have a key to the house.
Nah. We probably should at night, but nobody would get close to our home without alerting our dogs. And since our house is mostly windows, and our yard mostly rocks, well, if someone wants in, locks aren’t going to stop them.
In the Middle East, no… in Europe, yes… in America, hell yes.
I voted for only when I’m not home, for several reasons: First, a burglar or other bad guy would be stupid to ignore the police station across the street. Not only are the city cops in and out of there all the time, but this is the westernmost city in our county. Officers from other jurisdictions here aren’t allowed to drive their cruisers out of the county, so they drive in from home, and pick up their official vehicles from across the street. So officers from about seven different agencies are in and out of that parking lot at all hours.
Second, a bad guy would be really stupid to ignore the police cruiser parked in the driveway of my house. Pretty blue lights, and clearly marked Sheriffs Deputy. And “K9 Corporal Mojo. Keep back!”
Which leads to reasons three and four: Corporal Mojo - a bite trained German shepherd, and his “little brother” Sebastian, the great Pyrenees. If you aren’t invited in, they won’t welcome you.
Not to mention that my husband believes in the Constitution, including the Second Amendment.
(Actually, if the dogs are home alone, I don’t lock the doors. If there’s a fire or something, I want the local rescue squad to get them out asap. The fire department is across the street too, and the whole gang there has met the critters. They know that my opinion is “damn the house, save the dogs.”
I keep all of my doors and windows locked at all times.
Locking the car doors is also second nature to me. I get in, lock the door, start the car, start driving, and buckle up… In that order, every time.
Professional paranoia.
When I was growing up, my mother was stay-at-home and the door was locked only at night. When my own kids were young, it was the same. When the youngest was about 9, my wife started working and we got in the habit of (almost) always keeping the door locked. Now that we are both retired, we have kept to that habit. We turn the deadbolt at night and when we go away. I realize that anyone who can pick a lock can turn the deadbolt, but why make it easier.
When we moved in 39 years ago, our next door neighbor told me that as far as she knew the door of her house had never been locked! I was astonished. We live in a suburb inside a large municipality (by which I mean completely surrounded by the larger city).
Back when I lived in Davis, CA, I fell into the habit of not locking my door if I was only going across the street to the store. Came home one time to a confused guy who obviously thought he belonged there. He kept apologizing for John not being there. John was supposed to have come first and set things up and he’d be by soon to explain everything.
I made excuses and went back across the street to phone the cops. Let them know that the guy hadn’t done anything, he was just confused. Turns out they knew him and this kind of thing happened when he went off his meds. And no, he hadn’t ransacked the place, that was the way it always looked. Embarassing. I lock the doors all the time, now.
We live in a not-fabulous Chicago neighborhood, so hell yes.
The doors get locked when we leave, and once in a while if I think of it at night. We live not just in a small town, but in a tiny neighborhood across the river from the rest of town with exactly one bridge in and out. It’s a very crowded little neighborhood, with 9 or 10 houses within 100 yards, and a lot of our neighbors are retired people who are home most of the time and like to keep an eye on what’s going on. One of those people keeps a gun on him pretty much all the time. The dogs are largish and very territorial. We have very little worth stealing, as you might guess by the inexpensive, nondescript cars parked out front. The risk/reward ratio for breaking in here is just not really worth it.
Always always always.
And I lock my car doors even if I’m running in for a quart a milk.
We went years without locking the door, even after a total stranger walked into the house one night. We started locking the door after the dog died. Now we have a new dog; we locked the door at night or when there is no car in the drive, but leave a key to one of the doors outside the house.
I think we’re nuts.
Not always, although I should. Sometimes when I am in the shower and I remember the doors are not locked, I almost get the urge to get out and do so. What is it about being naked that makes one feel so much more vulnerable? I mean, if someone were to come into my apartment uninvited, my urge to defend myself and poke their eyes out would be just as strong clothed, or not.
Always. Locking the door is just a part of closing the door to me. I’d have to be actively thinking about it to leave it unlocked.