In defense of people who wish to lock connecting doors from the garage, I hear you. Mine are for different reasons, but still. I do it because I wanted that added bit of audio in the house if someone is trying to break in.
I can’t imagine them getting in the garage without me hearing them either, but I know I’d hear anything inside the house. Lets me sleep better at night.
I haven’t locked my door (or carried keys) in about 10 years. Where I live, if you want to get into a house, you can drive up in a van with flashing lights that read, “I’m robbin’ this fuckin’ joint!” (with musical accompanyment), go around back, smash a window or kick in a door and run positivily Jesus-tittyfuckin’-amok.
Like having a convertable car, locking the door only guarentees having to spend more after the break-in to fix the damage.
So, fuck you. I don’t carry a house key, and I’m not an idiot. At least thats what you mother said.
You honestly can’t come up with solutions to these clever puzzlers? These are standard questions to pass the garage door test. Without your license, no hardware store will sell you an opener lest a giant tree fall on your garage and block your only way into your house. They’re too afraid of getting sued.
Seriously, it’s not that hard. If you don’t carry a key, you keep one somewhere – a neighbor, a family member, hidden – somewhere. It may be inconvenient, but how often does your garage door spring break? And if there is an emergency, you can always bust a window.
If you’re hurt because your landlord yelled at you, then pit that. But pitting this shows a real lack of self-awareness.
And you went on to describe her being “pissy” and “bitchy”.
Umm, free advice? You might want to try living with a non-bitch.
Man, where is this great place where you only lose power 90 minutes a decade?
Sure, if that’s your situation, I can see that you could just get by with the garage door opener. But I’ve never lived anywhere where the power lines were anywhere close to that reliable. I think lately we’re down to about 2-3 times a year that we lose power for long enough to be a nuisance. But it used to be more like once every 2-3 weeks.
I’ll jump in to say that I don’t carry a house key anymore. I used to, then I realized one day that the only key I use it my car key. I don’t get to work first anymore, I don’t go to my parent’s house when no one is home…etc. I put them all on one ring and stuck them in my car. When I get to work I toss my car key on my desk and go about my day.
When I get home, I use my garage door opener to open my garage door and can walk right in through the unlocked attached door.
FTR, a few weeks ago my uncle’s house was robbed. They broke into a service door on the garage, opened the garage, pulled their van into the garage and closed the door. Then, with no one able to see them, they broke in the door between the house and garage and loaded their van. All in broad daylight.
Now, I do have a front door key in my car…I think.
I also have a back door key hidden outside and this thread prompted me to double check that it’s still where I put it 4 or 5 years ago.
The only time the connecting door is locked is when we (when I was married) were on vacation and that was really only to keep nosy family members out of the house. There’s a spare to that hidden in the garage.
So no, I don’t carry a house key. In fact, if I walked out my front door right now and closed it behind me, I’d be relying on my spare to let me back in…but that’s why I have it.
Also, I don’t lock my connecting door, but I don’t really see any reason to. Locks are easy to pick especially from inside a garage with no one watching, besides, you’d have to gain access to it first, if you can do that, the hallow steel door isn’t going to put up much of a fight.
Also, the thing I like to remind people…you can brick up your doors and people will just break a window. You can put bars on your windows and you wanna know something…you can cut a person sized hole in the side of a house with a sazall in about 2 minutes. It’s not that hard, I’ve done it (I installed a door where there wasn’t one before).
Oh my goodness… it’s looking like our Patented Stealth Security System™ might just be the best strategy.
We like to call it:
“Not Having Anything Worth Taking”
No big screen TV, no family silver, less than three bucks in cash, no collectible ratfink dolls.
It seems to work. That "Car No One Wants" system is working, too.
I guess I’m in the stupid idiot/bitch/cunt (did I miss any? I think that was it) club. Since I’ve moved to Las Vegas, I’ve not used my front door key once. I exclusively use the keypad to my garage door. I don’t carry any keys, at all. My car uses a fob, and my job access is a swipe card. I suspect in time, actually, that keys may go the way of wristwatches.
I’d say that fits me. The longest power outage I recall lasted about 30 minutes about 8 years ago. I don’t recall a single loss of power in the five years we’ve lived in our current place.
So, east San Francisco Bay area.
Growing up in western Washington I only recall one outage long enough that we were worried about the contents of the freezer.
I always carry my keys, my garage doesn’t have an opener and isn’t attached to the house anyway.
But the outrage in the OP seems out of proportion given all that happened to you was receiving a cranky email.
At the risk of being lumped into the “stupid fuck” crowd, I’ll also admit that I don’t carry a house key. Like a couple of other posters upthread, the “key” to my car is nothing but a remote fob that never leaves my pocket. I don’t even press the buttons on it, since it locks and unlocks the doors and starts the engine all by radio transponder magic. Carrying any regular keys attached to it would turn a smooth, rounded object in my pocket to a sharp-edged thigh-digging implement.
I understand full well what that means for when I return home in a power outage, and it’s a risk I’ve obviously decided to accept. Most outages are short and I’d wait it out. If it ends up being a long one…well I guess I’ll be hanging a new rear entry door.
But I did want to pipe up to counter most of the OP’s reasons for failing to get in my house. Only a couple of them actually apply to me, and I suspect many people would say the same:
My garage door opener isn’t contigent on the remote built in to my car, or on a remote that I might carry in my car. There’s a keypad on the door frame. Those aren’t uncommon, by the way.
My garage door opener isn’t connected to the switch that controls the garage lighting. I don’t think it’s particularly common for that to be the case…seems like a fucking stupid idea. The only way to de-power my opener is to get on a step ladder and unplug it.
If a tree falls on my garage, causing enough damage to keep the door from raising, I presume I’ve just been granted access through a newly-created opening in my house.
And finally, I still don’t need access to my car to get in my garage.
The other points raised by the OP (which I trimmed out) are potentially valid, and go back to the risk acceptance I already discussed. I’m betting some inconvenience, and possibly a broken window, that I won’t get bitten by an unlikely circumstance. What can I say? I’m a bad boy and I like to live dangerously.
I don’t see a big problem with the cunt (I think this word needs to be rehabilitated BTW) carrying just a garage door opener. She knows that there are other people with the key. So if there is a power failure or whatever, she just waits for someone to show up who has a key.
The problem I see is that she sent a snarky e-mail about being locked out. If she is going to forego carrying a house key, she needs to accept that this will happen once in a while.
As far as locking the door between garage and residence goes, I agree that it normally doesn’t make much of a security difference. Once the bad guy gets into the garage, he has the privacy to take his time getting through a locked door. But sometimes (at least in the suburbs) it’s natural to leave the garage door open for a while. For example if you are doing yard work and your yard work tools are stored in the garage. In those cases, I would feel a bit uncomfortable if anyone could just wander off of the street and into the house.
ETA: P.S. In my experience it takes only a few extra keys to make a difference between a keychain which sits comfortably in your pocket and one which is constantly digging holes in your pants.
For all those worried about a power outage, my parents had one of these. The lock sits on the outside of the garage door and the cable goes to your door release. If the power goes out you use your key, which removes the lock cylinder, which is attached to the cable, which unlatches the door from the opener and now you can manually lift it.
No, I’m saying that it takes 90 minutes for the locksmith to show up.
Seriously, how the fuck did you interpret that as “My power only goes out for 90 minutes a decade”??
I don’t know if we even have house keys. I guess we did when we moved in, because I remember coming in thru the front door. But I lock the front entry with slide bolts inside, so a key wouldn’t work anyway. I suppose I could carry a key to the door in the back of the garage, although I don’t know if we have a key to that lock. Plus it’d be ridiculously easy to break a pane of glass in that door and gain entrance. Or get in thru the side window.
Guess I’m an idiot then…
This is a bit of a tangent, Rachel, but I’d like to ask you a question, in all seriousness.
First, some things we know about you from this board:
Now, the question: Why the hell are you still living with a roommate(s)?
Don’t tell me you can’t afford an apartment of your own. I don’t buy it. You might have to step down your standard of living a notch or live in a slightly less-nice neighborhood, but grown-ups do these things on the way to becoming independent people. I’d wager that you will be a much happier person living alone. I recommend it.
Around these parts, most power outages are when the weather is bad. I’d rather not be stuck outside when the weather is bad. Also, at least with my luck, if the weather isnt bad, the garage door will quit working when I need to get in the house RIGHT FRACKING NOW, not when I’ve got a half hour or more of free time to kill while I try to break into the house with minimal damage or wait for somebody to rescue me.
Windows are expensive, call a locksmith. better yet, live in a decent neighborhood where you don’t have to lock your doors until you go to sleep at night.
It doesn’t really solve the problem for those who refuse to carry keys.
I had a garage door with one of those, now I realize why. It was in a condo complex, and the garage was detached, there is no access door to the home, the only way to get in was the garage door. So, if the power was out, or the opener was on the blink, you would have no way to get in whatsoever.
This. Burglars look for this. It’s so easy to walk into a closed garage, open the door and walk right into the house and clean you out.