# Do you lock your front (and back) door when you are home? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 8, 2013, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654 "2013-10-08T05:04:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/61 "2013-10-08T20:57:05Z")
Always locked. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/62 "2013-10-08T21:29:49Z")
> [@BlackKnight](#): > > Would locked doors have stopped him? > > He had a gun, and his first victim (who survived), invited him inside. He sniped off other victims from a distance. After a cursory reading about the case, it seems like it’s not a very good example of the value of locked doors. You seem to have missed my point completely, which was: bad things can happen even in small towns. My example had nothing to do with locked doors, and everything to do with the comment that preceded it. If you think you’re safe because you live in Podunk, Nebraska, you’re possibly deluded. Another example would be the murder of the Clutter family in Holcomb, KS. Pretty sure the doors weren’t locked on that one. Whether that would have saved them is unknown. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/63 "2013-10-08T21:42:33Z")
No way, our doors are typically unlocked while we’re home during the day. We usually lock them before bed. I live in the middle of Atlanta. ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/64 "2013-10-08T21:56:17Z")
We live in a very rural area. The doors aren’t locked if we’re at home, even at night. We usually lock the doors if we leave the house, though I probably won’t bother with it if the dogs are inside. My partner would probably never lock the doors if he was living alone. When I’m alone, I’m the paranoid type and will keep all doors locked at all times. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/65 "2013-10-08T23:17:35Z")
I live in a nice suburban community that has a low crime rate. I keep our doors locked because low does not mean no. But I’m not particularly upset when someone forgets to lock a door. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2013, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/66 "2013-10-08T23:19:42Z")
Nobody in Peru leaves doors unlocked except in a very, very few heavily guarded beach communities. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/67 "2013-10-09T00:16:12Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Nope- they get locked when we go to bed. Yep. Doors only get locked when it’s time to sleep. ---
**Author:** ![MareIt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ea666f/32.png) [@MareIt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MareIt)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/68 "2013-10-09T00:21:13Z")
My door gets locked before I go to bed and when I leave for work. I rarely lock it at any other time, including while taking my dogs out on long (45min+) walks. I live in a suburb of DC that is considered Dangerous by upper class white folks because lots of non-white, working class folks live here. ---
**Author:** ![tadtooornamental](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c89c15/32.png) [@tadtooornamental](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tadtooornamental)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/69 "2013-10-09T01:56:54Z")
Smallish town, 10,00 people. I live alone in an upstairs apartment sort of on the edges of town. My front door is locked as soon as I come home (unless I’m expecting company). Once you walk in my front door, you go up a flight of steps and there is another door leading into the apartment proper. This door also gets latched (again, unless I’m expecting company) as soon as I get home. In my last place, with two roommates, I don’t think the door was ever locked the entire time I lived there. I guess that living alone, no dogs, cats that would run up to any potential ne’er do well for food/attention, I just feel better knowing that both doors are locked. Not that it’s a bad city, or even a bad part of the city, it’s just for peace of mind. ETA: The doors get locked when I leave as well, unless I’m going to be gone for less than 15 minutes or so. My car is also always locked. ---
**Author:** ![HoneyBadgerDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/honeybadgerdc/32/1033_2.png) [@HoneyBadgerDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HoneyBadgerDC)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/70 "2013-10-09T02:07:37Z")
I now live in what used to be my quest house behind the main house. Several years ago I awoke with a snarling police dog standing over me. I was sleeping with the door wide open and the poilice were searching for an armed robber that came over my fence. They found him in the avocado tree of my neighbor next door. About 15 years prior to that when I was married a naked lady came in through my back door and crawled into bed with my wife and I . She was my barber! Just recently my camera and a very expensive pocket knife were stolen off my front room table, I know but cannot prove who did it. I lock the door now. ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/71 "2013-10-09T02:58:39Z")
Live in a house in the Melbourne suburbs. The front door needs a key to open from the outside but isn’t lockable on the inside. So it’s either open or closed depending on the whether, time of day etc. On the weekend if I’m in and out of the yard and it’s a nice day the door is open. The back door is similar. When the weather is decent it’s left open all day even when people are out. When it’s closed, I actually have the key in the lock on the outside so if someone goes on the back deck for a smoke and the door shuts behind them, they can get back in. I seldom remove the key at night so theoretically, anyone who can get in my back yard, get past the dog and get up onto the back deck, can get into my house. I sleep well. ---
**Author:** ![SlackerInc](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slackerinc/32/275_2.png) [@SlackerInc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SlackerInc)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/72 "2013-10-09T03:00:03Z")
I’m still wondering if the non-lockers are just kind of not bothering or if it’s a sort of philosophical stance; and if it bothers them that so many other people do lock their doors. > [@kayaker](#): > > Basically, her home was entered and searched by the police who were unable/unwilling to show proof their actions were justified. So now her home is locked so that she feels safe from law enforcement. Wow, that would enrage me. > [@Iggy](#): > > Doors are generally unlocked and propped open if I’m home. > > I live in a remote part of a smallish Caribbean island. Okay, this strikes me as a legit place to not bother with locking doors. I’d still lock them even in a remote rural area in Montana or someplace, as long as it is accessible by car from the rest of the U.S. road network. But a remote part of a smallish Caribbean island really cuts down the potential number of people who could come by. > [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Those of you who lock the door: Do any of you have kids, who play outside? If so, how does that work? We have two locks on the door: one on the doorknob, and a deadbolt (the latter of which I lost the key to long ago). When everyone is inside, both locks are engaged. When anyone is out of the house, including the kids, only the doorknob lock is used, and there is a realty-style combo lock hanging on the doorknob with a spare key in it. My wife and I have our own keys to that lock, but the two older kids (10 and 13) know the combination and use that to get inside. The younger two kids (3 and 1) are not allowed to be outside without supervision. > [@Omega\_Glory](#): > > Sometimes. At first, we rarely locked it, then an acquaintance let himself in, so we started keeping the door locked, but time has passed and we’ve fallen back into old habits. Interesting. So that was an unpleasant/awkward experience? I would not like it; but I note that another commenter said this was essentially a feature, not a bug, that their friends could let themselves in (and apparently your acquaintance was looking at it that way). I’m just remembering that one of only two “juvenile delinquent” type acts I ever engaged in was when I was eight and snuck into a neighbour’s house after discovering an unlocked door. They caught me, and I was extremely scared and embarrassed, and I’m sure they were discombobulated as well. This strikes me as a good reason to keep doors locked: no way are most kids going to smash a window, but they might well try a door handle. > [@want2befree](#): > > I live in the suburbs in an apartment complex, upstairs. I keep the door unlocked during the day because we go in and out all the time. Does it require a key, or going past a doorman, to get into the main common area? > [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](#): > > Nobody in Peru leaves doors unlocked except in a very, very few heavily guarded beach communities. Interesting. What is the nature of these beach communities? Are they so heavily guarded precisely to allow unlocked doors? My conception of things would be that any place that needs heavy guarding, people would do that in \*conjunction \*with locking doors. > [@HoneyBadgerDC](#): > > About 15 years prior to that when I was married a naked lady came in through my back door and crawled into bed with my wife and I . She was my barber! Just recently my camera and a very expensive pocket knife were stolen off my front room table, I know but cannot prove who did it. I lock the door now. So you think it was someone who lives nearby and slipped in and out? You gotta give more context to the barber thing. Just really drunk, or what? ---
**Author:** ![Dorjan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dorjan/32/12440_2.png) [@Dorjan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dorjan)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/73 "2013-10-09T03:08:04Z")
I live in a house in a 1st ring suburb of Cleveland. We never lock our doors while home until we go to bed. According to the crime stats released by our police dept, in 2012 we had 680 Burglaries, B&E, and attempts at both, for a population of 48,281. A 1.4% random chance of encountering a burglar isn’t enough for me to really worry about it. ---
**Author:** ![Renee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/renee/32/287_2.png) [@Renee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Renee)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/74 "2013-10-09T12:08:45Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m still wondering if the non-lockers are just kind of not bothering or if it’s a sort of philosophical stance; and if it bothers them that so many other people do lock their doors. For me it’s mostly not bothering, but also the knowledge that we don’t have much in the way of pawn-able valuables lying around. Replacing a kicked in door would be more expensive than replacing anything they were able to steal. I also just don’t believe anyone would try to break in here. To get to the house you have to go down a long (maybe 400 ft) driveway, at which point you have definitely been noticed if we are home. We have three vehicles and two drivers, so there is always a vehicle, usually a large pickup truck if we’re both gone, parked in front. It looks like someone is home even when we’re gone, and living out here with livestock, it’s also likely that we would have a shot gun (and we do) and dogs (ditto). It doesn’t bother me at all that other people lock their doors. ---
**Author:** ![Omega\_Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7c8e57/32.png) [@Omega\_Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omega_Glory)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/75 "2013-10-09T15:09:19Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Interesting. So that was an unpleasant/awkward experience? I would not like it; but I note that another commenter said this was essentially a feature, not a bug, that their friends could let themselves in (and apparently your acquaintance was looking at it that way). It was unpleasant because he both dropped by and walked in unannounced. If he’d been a friend who was practically family and he’d called ahead, he probably would have been told to let himself in. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/76 "2013-10-09T15:20:24Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > I’m still wondering if the non-lockers are just kind of not bothering or if it’s a sort of philosophical stance; and if it bothers them that so many other people do lock their doors. More just a question of different habits. My parents never locked their doors, so I didn’t when I lived at home; my wife is a door-locker, so I got in the habit of locking mine. > [@](#): > > You gotta give more context to the barber thing. Just really drunk, or what? That is definitely a service they don’t offer at Superclips. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/77 "2013-10-09T15:55:25Z")
When I lived in the country, I ONLY locked my door (there was only one) when I was at home. When I was away, I never locked it, as I was so isolated that no one would ever notice if anyone broke in, and if someone was going to break in, I’d rather they not break any windows. The sheriff’s office was at least a 15 minute drive away. Never had a speck of trouble in 20 years. Now that I’m in a close-in, old, urban neighborhood, I lock the front door at all times and rarely even use that door, as my car is parked near the back door. When the weather’s nice and I’m home, like today, I open the front door but keep the screen door latched because of the doggies (who can’t get over the idea that \*other \*dogs are allowed to walk on their sidewalk and even \*pee \*on it!). I do not lock or even close the back door when I’m home awake, so the dogs and cats can go in and out at will. When away from home, I lock the inside back door. When I go to bed, I lock the inside back door and the screen door (metal door with keyed deadbolt). My house has bars on all the windows (from the 1930’s), as do most of the houses in the neighborhood. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/78 "2013-10-09T16:36:37Z")
I didn’t routinely lock our outside doors when I was home prior to my wife moving in. She’s pretty fanatical about it, and we always do at night now (except the sliders in our bedroom which we keep open at night except in cold weather). During the day, when we are home, I’d say the door are usually unlocked. We have dogs that don’t let anyone sneak up on us, and we live in a place where no one ever just happens to walk by. ---
**Author:** ![Kiyoshi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e19adc/32.png) [@Kiyoshi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kiyoshi)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/79 "2013-10-09T17:57:44Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Then you’re the only person I know who doesn’t have a Yale lock. Many home insurers demand them. My house doesn’t have a yale lock. It has a porch door with a mortice lock, and an inner UPVC door where you lift the handle if you want to lock it. However, the doors are locked at all times. Even if I didn’t live right next to a council estate, I wouldn’t dream of leaving it unlocked so that anyone could wander in. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2013, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654/80 "2013-10-09T18:34:01Z")
> [@SlackerInc](#): > > Interesting. What is the nature of these beach communities? Are they so heavily guarded precisely to allow unlocked doors? My conception of things would be that any place that needs heavy guarding, people would do that in \*conjunction \*with locking doors. They are a combination country club/beach house kinda thing. You can only access the by the front door, there are no houses or towns nearby. From the beach there arern’t any walls, but there are always guards on the lookout. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-you-lock-your-front-and-back-door-when-you-are-home/670654.md?page=5)