I’m a reflexive door locker. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been locked out over the decades, but I have a locksmith number in my contacts.
When you buy a new house, the first thing you should do is either have the locks replaced (most locks contractors use are crap anyway) or have the locks re-keyed. I knew one man whose house was broken into by his neighbor’s son. You have no idea how many people have access to the keys in your house—including subs who were hired by your contractor or neighbor’s who have keys for emergencies.
The front door locks itself. We have bars on the windows and a barred security door. Sometimes in summer during the day, the door is open and the security door is shut, but not locked. Security door is locked at night, or when my husband is away - not because I’m afraid when I’m alone, but because I forget my keys often. If I have to unlock the security door, then I can’t forget them.
The back door isn’t locked. It has a sort of peg that we push up into the jamb, but if you were wanting to break in, a swift kick would do that. Course, a swift kick would if it was locked, too. It’d be loud and painful to climb the back fence, over the rose vines and then break into the house, and then my dogs would eat you.
The balcony doors are open always in summer and unlocked in winter. You’d have to climb the side of my neighbour’s house, walk across the roof and hop the rail to get in, and then my dogs would eat you. So don’t bother.
The only reason we have barred front windows and a security door is to cut down the crimes of opportunity. Window bashing seems to be the first go, they don’t bother to check your door.
When my kid was little and I lived in Michigan, I was a negligent parent, we never, ever locked anything and had no dogs. We had a menacing attack parrot, sort of. OP’s kids wouldn’t have been able to sleep over, alas. Too bad.
Fair enough - I agree that 1 and 3 are too young and things are different for where you are.
On the other hand, the idea that any child anywhere is not safe in his own yard because he couldn’t be trusted 10-20 blocks away is a very silly thing you actually wrote in this thread.
For what it’s worth, I agree that the ages of those children are way too young. I think we let our boys out in the yard alone by about 5-ish.
Anyway, I’m so glad I don’t live in the same world as many of you seem to. I’m home now and there isn’t a locked door in the house. Yesterday, everyone was gone for part or all of the day and the front door was unlocked and the back sliding door was wide open.
We didn’t change the locks when we moved in 20 years ago, and I’d have to look around a bit to actually find a house key. I do know the garage code though, so we lock up every now and then, but never when we are home.