Locking Doors.

only if we are gone and at night. We will leave the front door with the screen door unlocked a lot of the time if we are home.My dogs are quick to let me know if there is anyone approaching and pretty much lets anyone know if they are coming in without approval it wont be good. Although if they would actually do it I dont think they would but they are great alarms

I don't lock the doors when I'm home. I leave them wide open, usually. The front door is open right now, as I sit in the kitchen typing. You have to walk up stairs to get to the front door so people can't just prance in. I probably overestimate my ability to handle an intruder.

I didn't until my daughter's ex began stalking her. Now they are locked and deadbolted at all times. He hasn't been around in a while, and I think he may have finally gotten the message that it's over, but I'm not taking any chances. I really don't want to have to shoot him.

Little of column A a little of column B. We keep doors not in use locked because we do lock them at night and it saves the trouble of running around checking every lock.

I am at work right now but if I had to guess the patio door is unlocked. Teens are home by the way.

Oh the door to our garage is never locked because the garage door has a pretty secure system on it. Like if you are going to go through the bother you would probably just bash in a window.

We leave windows open in the spring and fall whether we are home or not but then we also have a nice alarm system as well. Looking at the other answers it seems like a lot of this depends on where you live. I live in a very low crime area.

I'm a retired police officer. People do walk into houses uninvited and not necessarily to steal. Nearly as often it's a drunk or mentally ill person. Happens in good neighborhoods and bad.

Years ago, while I was at work during the day, a neighbor boy from a good family came into my house thru a window with an air condtioner. He stole jewelry, a gun and made a mess looking for things. It was summer. He turned on the furnace full blast because drugs made him cold.

Two neighbors have also been burglarized. An elderly couple who didn't lock their doors had a daytime home invasion burglary during which they were tied up. Both of those homes were modest.

Another night a young man cut through the plastic panel that filled the window with an air condtioner. Our dog barked which woke us up. The would be burglar rang the door bell, checking to see Iif anyone was home. Through the door at 1am he asked for an unknown person.

I not only always lock my doors during day unless I'm alert while moving in and out and at night. I've installed security doors, bars on my flimsy basement windows and a cage around my air conditioner. I have stops on my windows so that they only open a short way.

I live in a very good neighborhood. My house is very ordinary and low in value as are many other houses. However there are a few really expensive homes just a few blocks away. The son of a lawyer, a high school senior living in the house on the corner was arrested for selling drugs. He was a good student with promise. The teen who broke into my house lived behind me in a home worth a half million. The man who tried to break into my house was not from my neighborhood.

A friend had a stranger walk into her front door while she was working in the back yard. He was walking by (not from tge neighborhood) and quickly left when my friend confronted him.

All these homes are modest. Only the friends could be said to be vulnerable because her house faces a through street. I believe in being careful; not fearful; just careful.

Of course I've been to many homes that were burglarized. There really isn't such a thing as a safe neighborhood. Some are more safe than others. My neghborhood is a low crime neghborhood. The events I described happened over a 20 year period.

Given a choice between going into an unlocked house and breaking in the burglar will choose the unlocked door or open window. This is straight from burglars mouths.

And for those who leave the door between the house and garage unlocked this is often the way burglars enter the house. It's easy to get into the garage.

I always have my doors locked, ALWAYS! To me regardless of the neighbourhood and its crime rate you live in, crime can happen anywhere at anytime so why chance it. You just never know so why not. Its free insurance in my eyes.

I do not lock the doors during the day , if I am home.

I was never particularly concerned at night, until my neighbor became a bit 'un hinged'. (see my recent post). Now I do lock at night, and will be getting a 'game' camera tomorrow just to keep track of this neighbors particular brand of lunacy.

I DO lock (and always have) when I was away from home - either a trip to the store, or away for a few days.

There are few windows here that DO open (they are the original 1923 windows...painted shut MYRIAD times! lol). New windows are the next project on the list, and depending on how things progress (or regress) with neighbor, I may have a full alarm system installed then.

**sigh**

If not for this neighbor, I am sure I would leave windows open LOTS during the summer.

We live in a small town and have two large outside dogs that bark at anyone in the general vicinity of our property.

We lock the doors at night, if we're leaving town or gone for an extended period of time during the day. The sliding door is locked unless someone goes out of it during the day and its locked at night.

I will lock the door if my daughter is still sleeping when I leave for work.

It would drive me crazy re-locking the door going in and out

We, like you, live in "a decent house in an OK neighborhood." In fact it's a neighborhood in what's a very desirable area, lots of very nice homes being built, good local police force, very low crime, almost zero violent crime at all, etc. ..

But if you read the crime reports for our desirable suburban town, most of the crimes are crimes of convenience -- someone goes into an unlocked car (even in the daytime) and grabs something that was inside the car. Or someone goes into an unlocked shed or garage, or, yes, even into an unlocked house. And the fact my neighborhood is quiet also means there may not be others around (I am home alone a lot for much of the day) to hear and see if someone decides to try my basement door just on the chance it might be unlocked. And strangers do come to my front door, soliciting for yard work etc.

Have you checked the crime reports for your specific area? Many newspapers carry them weekly. You may find a lot of "jewelry stolen from unlocked house" or "phone stolen from unlocked car" reports. In low crime areas.

So I always lock the doors when at home.

I also have done it long before moving here. There was a case some years back here that got my attention: .A young professional single woman -- like I was at the time -- was home sick from work, alone, and someone entered her apartment (again, in a "nice" area) through an unlocked sliding glass door, looking to steal things, and found her home and raped her in the middle of the day. A crime of convenience. Since that crime, I have always locked the exterior doors when home alone. A locked door could have turned that rapist away, especially as it was daytime and breaking in might have attracted more attention than he wanted.

It's not paranoia -- it's simple and realistic recognition that an unlocked door is an invitation to anyone who's roaming looking for that one house or apartment or garage they can just walk into easily. I don't sit around worrying about someone coming in because...it's not going to happen, because I lock the doors.

Even the nicest areas get break-ins or walk-ins. Our local police also advise everyone to lock doors even if they are home at the time. Ask your local police -- they will side with your husband on this one.

Locked all the time, despite the fact that we are on the fourth floor of an elevator co-op. Locked, even if I go within the building to get mail, or to do the laundry. It takes two seconds, and it is no big deal to lock the door. Our home owner's insurance offered us lower rates if we have door and window locks. In addition to not wanting to invite theft or harm, I would hate to have a claim declined because we couldn't be bothered.

Best,
F. B.

Oh good heavens if I agreed to lock the doors when we're home we'd be locked out all the time! We only lock up everything when going out of town for the weekend. Every now and again there will be a rash of break-in in the neighborhood, kids (really young adults) looking for quick things to grab to sell for drug money and my little, modest house isn't a target compared to the beautiful homes in the neighborhood. When the break-ins happen, we lock the doors at night and I'll lock the front doors when I leave for work, then the older kids will let themselves into the backyard and in the basement entrance and unlock the front doors for the afternoon. I live 5 houses down from the police station, both of my immediate neighbors are retired, the guy across the street is a police officer who works nights, the other house has an at-home mom who runs a daycare so she's pretty alert all day too so the chances of someone pulling a truck up into my driveway and driving off with anything valuable unnoticed are pretty slim. And we have a dog who barks like crazy whenever anyone comes near the house. I'm not worried about it.

i never lock the doors when i'm home. i leave the house open if i go running or riding around the neighborhood too.
my husband is more concerned about it than i am. sometimes i forget to lock up before going to bed and he'll remind me before he goes to bed the next night.
when we lived in apartments we (i) were more careful about it, it was a more urban lifestyle. but out here in the sticks? nah.
khairete
S.

Locked at all times unless physically going in and out of the door... I mean, why not ? What's to be gained with an unlocked door?

Eta: wanted to add that we live in a VERY low crime area,, in a very nice neighborhood, I've never been the victim of a crime, nor do I consider myself paranoid or living in fear of a home invasion... I'm a sahm of three kids and I have a very large Doberman, but just see no reason NOT to have my doors locked... I only arm my security system at night or when we are gone.

Windows open, front n back door u locked. If husband goes on fire call late in evening, I lock doors. We live all winter with everything closed. Live for spring and summer so I can open everything.

Locked.

We live in a very nice neighborhood. I am neighborhood watch coordinator and the sherriff explained to me that we ALL need to lock the doors, ESPECIALLY during the day. I was surprised to find out that most burglaries occur during the day when criminals are expecting you to be out.

I isolate my house key on the ring before I get out of the car and load my hads with "things". I have placed a cute bench by the front door, so that when I come home and am hauling gorceries, etc, I can set them down and easily grab them after I open the door.

We keep a spare key well hidden in the garage so that if we go in the yard and get locked out, we can get back in using the keypad on the garage door.

It is the reality of the times. While it is inconvenient, I think it's a small price to pay for making it a tad harder to be a victim. When I don't want to do something like this, I ask myself, how would I feel if something bad happened and I could have averted it so easily.

Nope...... but I live in a fairly safe area, also.

And, for a long time, the back sliding door didn't work right...... the lock didn't work. So, a lot of times, the back door wasn't even locked. Sometimes we put a bar down in the bottom channel, but most of the time, we didn't bother. That was an easy way for the kids to get in if they didn't have their key.

And yes, it is secured all the time now...... the lock works, and if we leave the house, it IS locked AND a bar down in the channel.

I grew up on a farm, we even left the keys in the cars parked outside, sometimes in the garage. My parents did lock the doors before they went to bed, I'm assuming most nights, however, when my sisters and I would go out, the doors would be unlocked when we got home at midnight or later. But our parents were usually up waiting for us, at least mom was.

Now my husband likes it locked most of the time. Our front door is always locked, our back door is unlocked if someone is home. We come in and out of our back door more. But when we all leave, he locks the house up like Fort Knox, put pad locks on things like we have something to hide. I think it's extreme but it's not worth an argument over, just make my paranoid comments to him.

Our doors are unlocked and our keys are in the cars in the driveway. Honestly, any time we go away over night I have to really dig around for the keys to the house.

We only lock our doors when we aren't home. We don't lock them at night, and I rarely lock them when we go down the street to a neighbors.

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Locked at night, open during the day, and our neighbors have an alarm on their doors so they know when it's opened - it never lets anyone sneak up on them.

I do, when everyone is in the house to stay. It's a habit, flipping the lock behind me. I grew up with unlocked doors and friends/family walking in without knocking, etc. I don't constantly check the lock or anything. My kids are in and out all the time during the day so that is just not practical.

I started locking my doors in the neighborhood we used to live in.During the day kids would just walk into our house. They were kids that would play with our next-door neighbor's children but they had no reason to be in my house because my kids were babies. We also had a wandering angry drunk guy show up one evening. He was confused and tried to come in the house, so I'm glad the door was locked!

We live in a very good neighborhood now, with modest homes, friendly neighbors, etc. Everything Marda P said is true. An unlocked door is an open invitation to a burglar, and a locked door may not deter one from breaking in through a window. We experienced it.

Living in a rural area doesn't prevent it either. My son's friend's family lives several miles out of town and they've been broken into three times. When you have no close neighbors and live on a low-traffic road, your house is perfect for thieves. They have an alarm system but when you live out of town it takes awhile for the police to arrive so the burglar(s) have time to grab stuff regardless of the alarm. They have dogs, but they are more likely to lick you to death than protect the house.

Added: When you don't lock the house doors when you're away from home, or if you leave your unlocked/running car unattended, insurance will often not cover the theft or damage because you didn't take the most basic step in protecting your property.

We lock our doors all the time. Mostly to keep up the habit of it. You never know... My kids are young now, but one day they won't be. I want my kids to lock the doors when they're home alone when that day comes. So we're going with, "we all, always lock the doors, and remind each other to do the same." We keep a lock box outside with a key of we get locked out. It's modern times. It's not the same as when we all grew up. So why pretend it is and be a potential victim?

Our doors are locked all of the time. It's just habit. I'll put the dog in the back yard and lock the door. Some days my husband leaves around 6am for work, and he'll reset the alarm before he leaves. We live in a very safe community and neighborhood.

Our garage door is always down, too. I'll park in the garage and put the door down--even if I know I'm going out in 15 minutes:)

Yes. We have a security screen door on the front door, it is kept locked at ALL times and my kids have been trained from day ONE to lock it behind them when they come in. We only lock the actual front door at night when we go to bed, so then, both the security screen door and front door are locked. Every other door in the house is locked at all times. The kids also lock the sliding screen door every time they come in as well. We have lived literally in one of the safest towns in the US for the last 10+ years. However, my husband has a crazy ex and you just never know. So I want to feel confident that when my door bell rings and I open the front door, my security screen door is locked so I don't feel threatened. JMO. Good luck.

I grew up in what would be considered the ghetto, but we never locked our doors during the day.

Now, living in a comfortable and mostly safe suburb, our doors are locked all day.

I live in a very safe, cute little town, though there was a spate of break-ins recently. And, I lock my door pretty consistency, but that's as much a force of habit as of necessity. It's like, if I don't automatically lock it when I come in, I won't remember to lock it before I go to bed. By that time, I'm a zombie. I do have the windows open whenever the weather makes that seem like a good idea. I'd hate to live in such fear that I never got a breath of fresh air.

I lock either the front door or the storm door when I'm home and inside. We have just enough people who sell stuff and come up to the door that I like an extra layer of 'protection'. Our neighborhood has also had people who just try doors, find the ones that are unlocked, and go into the house to steal whatever they can get to easily. I've actually tailed someone who was doing it, sort of floored that they didn't even notice me, and I did call the police.

Having seen it with my own eyes, it would be just foolish of me not to lock the door. Knowledge is power. :)

I would *never* live somewhere I didn't feel safe. Ever. It just makes no sense to me.

We live in a great neighborhood, right down the street from the school, police, and fire station. Our neighbors are a nice mix of elderly/retirees and families with children. We live close to fields, cows, and horses. But only a few minutes from big city Greenwood.

In 2 years of living here we have forgotten to lock our door many times. We've also accidently left the door completely open. Once or twice my husband left the garage open over night. Our close neighbors never even bother closing their garage, let alone locking it.

So do I lock the door when I'm home? No. A criminal wouldn't break-in during the day while you're home. Not a smart one, anyway.

We have an outside door that separates the garage and utility/entrance room from the rest of the house. My daughters locked me out once, so now the keys to that door hang next to it. Obviously if someone wanted inside they would just break the door. So what is the point of hiding the key?

I do lock the front door when we leave the house. That's mostly out of habit, though. We have left the windows open many times.

Living in fear serves no purpose. Will the door being locked really keep someone one? I highly doubt it.

Our door is always locked...all doors are, unless we are in the front yard or the back yard, then those doors stay unlocked.

We have a keypad to unlock the front door, and so that's easy for us and the kids. We plan on installing the garage door openers in the next year, but our garage stays a bit drafty and we'll still lock that door, so the alarm doesn't go off when it's windy.

Cars are always locked too. I always wonder why people get mad when their unlocked or open things get broken into so easily. Not to say my house/cars are protected because they are locked, but the bad guys would have to work a little harder to get in if they really want something.

I always lock the doors to my home and the cars.

Here if you leave your keys in the car and it is stolen, you can be ticketed and insurance can drop you.

But my husband works for the Police Dept. He has seen and heard too much to live any other way at this point.

Locked.

We live in a nice suburb of Houston, but even nice suburbs are getting hit by violence.

I do open my windows (when you can in Houston) =) but generally speaking, they are locked and so are the doors. Although we did forget to lock the front door recently. Ok, my husband forgot to lock the front door recently. Opps.

We always keep our doors locked - the house and the car. I once had my car stolen out of my driveway while it was warming up in the morning. I ended up getting it back but I felt so violated. We live in a middle class established neighborhood where I feel relatively safe.

The question I ask myself to guide my decisions is: how would I feel/could I live with myself if [enter any scenario here] or in this case: someone broke into my house and hurt me or any one in my family members just because I didn't bother to lock the doors? It takes but a moment to lock the doors, so why not?

The doors are always locked at night. The door into the house from the garage is never locked. Mainly because the kids can come and go through there using the garage code. During the day the front door is hit or miss.

As for me and my house. We lock the doors.

I lock the doors at all times. I don't "like" doing it but feel it is a much safer choice in this crazy world of ours.

The front door stays locked unless we're expecting someone ... Mostly because that's all it's ever really used for. It has a deadbolt lock. If it's open, the screen door is locked to keep the toddlers from escaping.

The door into the garage stays mostly unlocked. I sometimes lock it at night if it's just the kids and I at home alone, but not always. Since the oldest can now open it, it has a door handle cover to keep him out of the garage.

The door to the backyard stays locked unless we're going in and out to play on the deck or in the yard ... Again to keep the toddlers from escaping.

All 3 doors have deadbolts. The garage also has a key pad. Cars stay in the garage and are usually unlocked. Windows stay closed and locked 95% of the year and always at night or if we're gone.

We live in the back of a fairly safe neighborhood and know all of our neighbors, but it's just habit.

I live in a very safe neighborhood and I still keep all the doors and windows locked. But there are times when it's really nice outside and I will open my windows for fresh air, like right now :)
My car is always locked.

There is no such thing as a "safe" neighborhood. You can live in a nice neighborhood with wonderful neighbors. People with drug problems are found in every town in the US - even the nice ones. My life and my family are too precious to me to leave the door open for anyone to walk in. You only need to turn the news on in any city to see that human life doesn't mean much to some people who are mentally ill or high on drugs or just bored. People shoot people for no reason these days. My doors are LOCKED.

I live in the safest city in America (seriously, we win that title pretty much every year) and I always lock my doors. I lived a 1/2 mile away from here as a child and we always locked the front door at night, but not during the day. I guess times have changed in 30 years. Break-ins here are very rare, but not completely unheard of.

All outside leading doors are locked unless the kids are playing outside and need to come in and out. When we leave all windows and doors are closed/locked. I will leave the door leading from the house into the garage unlocked if I am going up and down to carry all the laundry from upstairs into the garage. The door will stay unlocked while carrying groceries in and will be locked as soon as I am done. In that case it stays unlocked for a short period of time.
We get a lot of door to door scammers in our neighborhood. When I answer the door I leave the bottom lock locked and unlock the deadbolt so I can open the door just a crack to tell them to go away. The knob can be turned from the inside while still locked. I close the door quickly and rebolt it.
We know our neighbors, it's the random people we get milling through that's the issue.

Ours is a very nice neighborhood. But you what? Sometimes the nice neighborhoods are quite the target because so many people hire out work for their yards and for work being done on their houses, especially in the summer. There are companies that bring in sub-contractors, and not all those guys are on the up and up. They scope out the neighborhood and try to break into basements, back yard windows that are obscured by bushes, etc. I've seen guys walk through people's yards WITHOUT having asked. Like lightening, someone sees and calls the police, goes outside and takes a picture of their vehicle and tag #, sends out an email to the entire neighborhood, and very quickly, the guy either gets the heck out of there or he's explaining to the police why he's walking around people's yards. I like that my neighborhood is so proactive about this.

Another thing that I learned to do was to check the windows in my basement and first floor after workmen came. One time I found a window unlocked after someone came to give me an estimate. I was lucky to find it. I don't know who unlocked it. It WAS around the time that people were calling the police about lurkers and vans parked around. Did they come back and try to get in? I don't know.

I agree with the poster who said that you'd never forgive yourself if someone walked into your house because you provided no barrier to it. Better safe than sorry...

My doors are locked at all times...home, away, asleep. I also lock my car doors outside of church and would outside of a police station, if the occasion arrived.

I don't care what the local crime statistics are or the socioeconomic status of my neighbors or community. They would not change my habits.

Don't keep the doors locked. We have a big dog, and live in a small town.

I asked this question on here ages ago and if I recall correctly most people said they keep the doors locked.

We don't keep them locked during the day when we are home. Our doors have glass so really if someone wanted to get in, lock or no lock, they could. We are in a safe, low crime area and feel comfortable leaving the doors unlocked. Growing up we left them unlocked as well so maybe that has something to do with it.

My kids are usually playing outside, so I can't lock them out. ;) If it's late and we're all inside, I keep them locked. I also arm our alarm when we leave and at night. If I'm alone in the house during the day, I usually keep the doors locked.

My husband would leave the house unlocked if I let him. He grew up that way. I have experience a couple of break-ins, so I lock things up tight when I can.

We keep them locked unless the kids are playing outside or we're working in the yard or something around the house. We have security doors too. We're not in a bad neighborhood but you just never know. When I was growing up we were in a rough neighborhood and were robbed quite a few times. We didn't even have nice stuff, but they always took the TV. At one point my mom was locking the TV up in the closet when we weren't home.

I live in a very low crime neighbourhood. I have always lived in this neighbourhood and I have always locked the doors. I lock the doors to the vehicles also. We don't have any sort of security system. I thought everyone locked their doors. It's habit, I don't even think about it.

I keep the doors and windows locked all the time. I'm actually pretty paranoid about it. I think it's just leftover habit from when I was single woman living alone.
My husband is the worst for running out and leaving the doors open. I came home one windy night to a dark house to find the back door wide open. I put the kids back in the car, got the rifle, and did a sweep of the house. My husband thought that was funny (me not so much). I was sooo pissed- this wasn't his first offense. :/

All doors and windows locked at all times. When my husband is away even during the day, I set the house alarm as well. My brother in law is a cop which will make anyone cautious. Our motto as reinforced by my BIL - better safe than sorry.

My sister's town (up in the mountains near a lake) used to be such a safe neighborhood where generations of families grewup and stayed to raise their own kids, and they never locked their doors - even when they were away from their houses. I knew that if I was in her area and needed to use the bathroom (or anything else) I could get into her house. But there are now some young adults who've moved back in with their families who have drug problems and have been breaking into houses - so now they have to lock their doors.

We live on a cul-de-sac and our backyard is fenced with 5' stockage fencing. We know everyone on the block pretty well, by name, their extended family members, we know when they're on vacation, etc. But if I'm home alone and want to have the windows open, or heavy doors open I will lock the storm doors and pop out the guard thingees that keep the windows from opening too wide. I think it's about not making it too easy for someone to get it. But if everyone's home and we;re coming and going in and out of the house I have all the doors and windows open and would lose my mind if I had to lock it all the time. My mom, when she was an empty nester, had all her doors set up to lock automatically and she got caught out on the deck, in her bathrobe in winter - while everyone with a spare key was at work. she had to go sit in a neighbor's kitchen / living room for a coupld of hours until someone could get there to let her back in!

M.:
I live in a very rural area. I grew up here and we NEVER locked our doors. Always left windows up when we were gone or at night,always left keys in the car, etc. I now lock my door as soon as I walk in. Many people here moved in that we do not know, some theft has happened. It is still pretty calm, but I raise my nephew and unfortunately, the world has changed for the worst. i do not trust people. Just watching the news tells you what could happen. My doors are now locked almost all the time. Sometimes if we are home during the day and going in and out or expecting company, etc we will unlock. Otherwise the policy is lock the door. I do not want to have a guilty conscious if someone would come in and do something and door was not locked. People still come up and knock on door to use phone, etc. that is even scary to me now. I know that sounds crazy, but you just never know. Better to be safe than sorry.
A.

I always lock home and car, and it doesn't make me feel paranoid or inconvenienced. It's a habit that I am more than okay with. I also rarely shut off my motor before the garage door is completely down, especially at night. The garage door stays down unless my husband or I am out in the yard. Now with a little one at home, I am more vigilant about setting the alarm while we're home.

My doors are generally locked all the time unless I forget to lock them.

I am not paranoid about locking. When I am home alone, the front and back doors are usually locked and the garage doors down.

I never lock the door from garage to laundry entrance to the house or my car.

When we are both here working, the doors are usually unlocked and one of the garage doors open. Hubby is NOTORIOUS for getting up and working at all hours of the night, let the dogs out and then not lock the door. I do prefer them locked at night. This is where I have an issue.... sleeping and not knowing my house is open.

We are in a very nice neighborhood and it is safe but we get a lot of handbills, solicitations, etc that I believe case out the homes. I told one guy no to purchasing magazines and he referenced my sports car in my garage and proceeded to call me a f'ing b--ch as he stormed up the driveway. I promptly called the non ER line of the police to have him checked out and closed my garage door.

Last year, we got our new washer/dryer delivery and a pipe broke (not bad) when hubby was prepping the laundry room for the new delivery. He got up during the night to check on it, let the dogs out, etc and to help dry the sheetrock he left the door from laundry room to garage open and closed the door from laundry to the rest of the house. In the mean time, the new washer and dryer were in the garage. He went upstairs for something and as some people do, got sidetracked and ended up going back to sleep... this was around 3am. About 630am I hear a noise that woke me and I jumped up to check it out only to see 2 uniformed police officers with guns drawn ordering my husband down the steps with his hands up. He had to show them id as well. Someone saw the doors open and alerted the police. My hubby was a bit irritated because what if he had come down the steps with a gun or something when he was startled and awakened? They would have killed him. They explained that it was completely legal for them to enter our house due to a concerned call. Then they explained that the last time they entered a house in a situation like this... the entire family had been duct taped to the furniture. Not my neighborhood but close enough.

He is better about closing up at night now. We are still pretty lax during the day when we are both here.

Yesterday, my dogs alerted me that someone was coming down my drive. Well, I heard a knock at the door and when I went to look out my window, the person was standing such that I couldn't see him. I am sure it was an innocent sales guy but I am glad my door was locked and garage closed.

I only set my alarm when hubby is out of town and during the night.

I don't think a habit of locking the door day or night means someone is living in fear. Most break ins DO happen during the day when it is thought that someone is not home. A young mom in my neighborhood had left the front door unlocked and when she stepped back in through her back door, she walked in on a robbery in progress. Crime happens everywhere (the best and the worst neighborhoods) and you should not turn a blind eye to it.

Sorry for the novel.

We enter and exit our house through the garage so our front door is always locked.
The door from our garage to our house is never locked. (unless hubby is working out of town and then our house is like fort knox )
And during the day our slider to the back yard is unlocked.

Many blessings

I always lock my doors. It is such a habit, that I will lock it behind friends that come inside! I have 2 young children, maybe when everyone is a little older, I will leave it unlocked and we are home and there is a lot of coming and going. No matter what, I check them at night before bed or naptime or whenever we leave the house. You never know!

The front door is always locked, we don't really use it.
The back doog - Always when we are gone. And always at night/after dark. I usually lock it before I jump in the shower too if it's just me and kids at home.

I live in a very good neighborhood and yes Iock my doors during the day. I work at home in an upstairs room and although my dog barks like a nut when someone walks or drives into the driveway (gravel driveway so it makes noise) I still don't want anyone to just be able to come to the door and walk in.

My doors are locked and loaded with an alarm system! Ahhh, New York - what can I say?

It's just so much easier to leave them locked all the time. If we're outside we close the door almost shut because the heat goes in the house too much.

It's easy to not worry about "Did I lock the door"?

I always have my door locked. My neighborhood is middle class and low crime. But, if I'm home I have my doors locked. If I notice the door is unlocked I get up and lock it.