# Explain: This Door Ain't Never Been Locked, Swear It Never Will **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 19, 2013, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602 "2013-08-19T00:36:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![StusBlues](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@StusBlues](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StusBlues)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/41 "2013-08-19T15:56:59Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > It’s just the way small towns are. It’s only a slight exaggeration that if a strange car pulls up into your driveway all the busybody old lady neighbors will know about it before you do. 🙂 That’s not an exaggeration at all, honestly. I AM surprised to hear the whole “never lock our doors” thing still goes on. I’d assumed that even folks in small towns locked up nowadays. Then again, the small-town atmosphere in village where I grew up has been more or less shattered by a large Tyson plant that moved in ten miles down the road, so it may be a thing of the past there - but not everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/42 "2013-08-19T16:09:54Z")
I don’t lock my house. I couldn’t actually come up with the keys if I had to. There’s nothing worth stealing, and if you want in there so badly you’ll brave my doberman, german shepherds, giant schnauzer and standard poodle, I guess you’d break a window if the door was locked. Besides, unless you were really big, you could probably fit through the dog door. It drives my cop neighbors crazy - they not only lock their doors, they have a security system. StG ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/43 "2013-08-19T16:13:38Z")
I live in a small rural town where everybody knows each other and the back door to my house can’t be locked. Never has been for at least 50 years. We sometimes lock the front door if we are leaving town. Garage is never locked, except when leaving town even though it has many thousands of dollars of tools in it. Crime, burglary, robbery, worry me about as much as an asteroid impact does. ---
**Author:** ![Kimballkid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b5a626/32.png) [@Kimballkid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimballkid)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/44 "2013-08-19T16:17:10Z")
Hell, whenever I’m expecting a package while I’m at work, I leave the people door in the garage unlocked and put a sign on the front door telling the delivery person that. Also, when I had a neighbor paint my house, I left that door unlocked so they could get to the stuff they needed. ---
**Author:** ![control-z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/eada6e/32.png) [@control-z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/control-z)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/45 "2013-08-19T16:24:30Z")
> [@StusBlues](#): > > We would leave town for days on end without locking the house at all. True fact. It’s still like that in rural Virginia, a couple I know went on vacation to SC last week and their house doors don’t even lock. Another nearby friend doesn’t lock their doors. I don’t really need to lock my doors either but I just do because it can’t hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/46 "2013-08-19T16:25:45Z")
> [@StGermain](#): > > There’s nothing worth stealing, and if you want in there so badly you’ll brave my doberman, german shepherds, giant schnauzer and standard poodle, I guess you’d break a window if the door was locked. Besides, unless you were really big, you could probably fit through the dog door. > > It drives my cop neighbors crazy - they not only lock their doors, they have a security system. I would consider that list of large dogs a security system, wouldn’t you? ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/47 "2013-08-19T16:30:46Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I think it is part of the myth of “small town” America, where, back in the good old days before all those city folk and liberals and foreigners ruined everything, everybody in town knew everyone else, there was no crime (beyond the town drunk), and everybody was welcome in everybody else’s home. Locking your door would be both unnecessary and inhospitable. > > As a British person, newly arrived in America, in a smallish town (but a university town no less) in California, people warned me not to go out of my apartment without locking the front door (with the implication that this necessity was a fairly recent, sad, modern development). I was quite taken aback. I grew up in a pretty middle-class, law abiding area in Britain, but I would never have dreamed of going out without locking my front door, and I have some doubt as to whether Americans of earlier generations really ever did so either. They like to believe they did, though. I grew up in a small farm town in Oklahoma. Not only did we not lock our door; but we didn’t even have a key to our doors; front or back. Also my mother never bothered to remove the key from the ignition in our car (in town anyway). Even though I graduated high school in 1980; I can tell you that my brother, who still lives there; doesn’t lock his doors (and again, doesn’t even have a key to them AFAIK). ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/48 "2013-08-19T16:32:18Z")
> [@Folacin](#): > > We didn’t even have a key to our front door - we were going on a two week vacation, and the folks thought that locking the door would be a good idea, until they realized that they really couldn’t. 1960’s, small town MN. The door had a bolt, but it was one of the old ‘skeleton’ key ones, and we didn’t have a key to it. > > My dad would get pissed at us kids when we’d take the keys out of the car ignition - he just assumed he could get in the car and go. Same town, but that was in the 1970’s. > > Mom is still in that house. There is a dead bolt on the front door now, and she was looking it for a while, but I think she’s back to not bothering. Ha ha, I think we went to different high schools together. ---
**Author:** ![Enright3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/enright3/32/2897_2.png) [@Enright3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Enright3)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/49 "2013-08-19T16:40:38Z")
> [@Leaper](#): > > But 7-11’s do, because what if they need to evacuate the area for some weather emergency or something? Surely the Dennys would have locks for the same reason? I’d bet it comes down to the simple fact that most doors are built with locks in them. It would actually be more work to order a set of standard glass/restaurant type doors without locks. IOW, I think that the Denny’s thing is just some urban myth. If nothing else, during construction; before the store was open; I guarantee they locked the doors to keep people from stealing stuff. At that point it’s definitely cheaper to keep the same doors on there. ---
**Author:** ![Snickers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Snickers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snickers)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/50 "2013-08-19T16:46:39Z")
Yep. In my hometown (small western Wisconsin town, ~2000 people), people rarely lock the doors. My mom only locks her door at night if Dad’s gone for whatever reason. Hell, they don’t even know where the key to the front door _is_ - it’s been lost for ages. Most of their cars have the keys in them, ready to go, too. When I lived there, the only place I locked my car was at the high school. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/51 "2013-08-19T16:48:49Z")
When I was growing up we didn’t even HAVE locks on our doors. We only had one beat up old car, and I don’t think my folks had keys for it (I seem to recall my dad started it with a screw driver). 😛 So, my WAG is pretty much what others are saying…the phrase is an attempt to hearken back to bygone days when people didn’t need to lock their doors because there was a lot less petty crime in small town America, while today if you live in a big city or even a large suburb you probably need to at least go through the motions of locking up. The other side of this is that, as a country we are incredibly more rich today than we were when I was a kid, so we (my family any myself especially) have a lot more to steal now than we did back then. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/52 "2013-08-19T16:55:03Z")
This entire thread is an example of people unable to imagine lifestyle not being the same everywhere – and a lot of people who probably consider a town of 50,000 a “small town.” I would be willing to bet that if I walked around this area close to half the houses would have at least one door unlocked. In the winter when it’s very cold, it isn’t unusual to see the entire parking lot at the post office filled with cars whose owners left the engines running while they went inside. There are not just cars, but tractors, trucks, ATVs, motorcycles, and other vehicles unlocked and with keys in them everywhere. Life in the city and life in the country are different. I’m not saying either is better (although we all have our preferences), but they are different in ways you might not imagine if you haven’t lived in both. > [@njtt](#): > > I grew up in a pretty middle-class, law abiding area in Britain, but I would never have dreamed of going out without locking my front door, and I have some doubt as to whether Americans of earlier generations really ever did so either. They like to believe they did, though. So if it didn’t happen for you in Britain, then it not only doesn’t happen in the U.S., but _never did happen_? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/53 "2013-08-19T17:06:18Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:52, topic:666602”] This entire thread is an example of people unable to imagine lifestyle not being the same everywhere – and a lot of people who probably consider a town of 50,000 a “small town.” [/QUOTE] I don’t think it’s so much an inability to imagine it as a presumption such an idyllic situation is mythical, or something in the past, and not something that exists either in the recent past or today. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/54 "2013-08-19T17:11:47Z")
Presuming that a lifestyle is mythical does sound a lot like being unable to imagine that it is real. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/55 "2013-08-19T17:28:21Z")
It’s funny, because the most rural friend that I have (tiny unincorporated town in Virginia) has posted a number of times on Facebook about having wannabe intruders try her door in he middle of the night (dog scared the person off), a neighbor down the road getting their house robbed, that kind of thing. I can’t offhand think of any “city” (including Chicago) friends having nearly the same troubles. Yeah, you think that everything’s fine and dandy living in the boonies, until it’s not. Until someone goes crazy or gets into drugs or whatever and they’re not so nice suddenly. My mom started locking our house door after someone snapped and (IIRC) murdered his girlfriend, and turns out he fled down our road as part of the getaway. She said after she learned that, she wondered what would have happened if his car broke down on our road and he decided to acquire one from a nearby house. ---
**Author:** ![August\_West](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/august_west/32/18069_2.png) [@August\_West](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/August_West)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/56 "2013-08-19T17:37:10Z")
I live in rural Wisconsin. I can’t say we’ll _never_ lock our doors, but we don’t lock them now. My wife and I are both at work and every door to our house is unlocked. When I’m home, the keys to my car are kept right in the cupholder in the center console. If we have a package delivered, it’s pretty standard to come home and find that our mail carrier has deposited it right inside the house, especially if it’s been raining. I did start locking our barn when there was a rash of tool thefts in the area, so I guess we don’t qualify for a complete pastoral idyll. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/57 "2013-08-19T17:43:18Z")
> [@Collaborator](#): > > That said, locking your doors is a false sense of security in so many ways. Kicking a door open? **Extremely** easy. Bumping the lock? Also easy. Going in through a window? Yep, pretty easy. There’s really nothing stopping someone determined to get into your house short of fortifying it with bars, steel doors, etc. Maybe in your neighborhood. In mine, a locked door means the riff-raff moves on until they find an unlocked door. Yeah, they could kick in the door, jimmy the door or break a window. But all that makes noise and takes a certain amount of intelligence. 'Round these parts weird noises and weird people get investigated by the local nosy retired folks (better than guard dogs). ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/58 "2013-08-19T19:59:38Z")
My paternal grandparents never locked their doors. But they lived miles outside the “city” limits of a “city” that had a population of about 500. On a private road that bore our family name. Every single house on that road was occupied by relatives. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/59 "2013-08-20T09:55:53Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Well, living my life in St. Louis, Detroit, Chicago, and Gary, IN just might have something to do with my lack of “getting it”. It’s a pretty foreign concept to a city dweller. > . That’s what I meant. It should be immediately obvious that if people don’t lock their door, the reason is that it’s essentially perfectly safe not to do so. That you didn’t immediately understand that shows that city dwellers have come to perceive crime as an unavoidable fact of life, to the point of not even considering that it might not be prevalent everywhere. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2013, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602/60 "2013-08-20T10:09:44Z")
> [@Kimballkid](#): > > It’s only a slight exaggeration that if a strange car pulls up into your driveway all the busybody old lady neighbors will know about it before you do. 🙂 > [@StusBlues](#): > > That’s not an exaggeration at all, honestly. > . Indeed. It’s pretty much fact. And not solely old ladies. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-this-door-aint-never-been-locked-swear-it-never-will/666602.md?page=4)