Does anyone not lock their doors at night?

The Juggler

i gotta move to communist china to feel safer.

chadwick

when i lived in Iowa we did not lock anything.
houses and cars... good to go unlocked.
key in the ignition out in the driveway.
key in ignition while at the grocery store or wherever.

now im living in western Washington...
a little bity bullshit town
i usually lock the doors at night
throughout the daytime my house is unlocked when i am gone.
my car's ignition is rather screwy and almost busted so the key has been in it for about a year or so.
i love leaving the key in the ignition of a car, its something you dont have to look for, keys, they're in the car.

i miss how perfectly safe it felt living in Iowa; not that i am terrified living out here, it's just not the same.

comebackgirl

When I lived with my parents we never locked the doors. Someone was always in and out and we had large dogs so there didn't seem to be a point to locking them. Now I keep my doors locked. Someone randomly walked into my neighbors house one night :? Seemed like an honest mistake, but I don't need that. Although one night my husband left the door to his car wide open all night and the car was still there in the morning with everything intact.

chadwick

comebackgirl wrote:

When I lived with my parents we never locked the doors. Someone was always in and out and we had large dogs so there didn't seem to be a point to locking them. Now I keep my doors locked. Someone randomly walked into my neighbors house one night :? Seemed like an honest mistake, but I don't need that. Although one night my husband left the door to his car wide open all night and the car was still there in the morning with everything intact.

but was the battery drained dead?
dome lights and all going all night
i just did this same thing.
had to ask my neighbor if i could use his battery charger.

chadwick

gearboy wrote:

I lock my door as soon as I walk in the apartment, every time.
I then double check before I go to bed at night, I'm just paranoid I guess.
I live on the second story so I don't lock my windows.

eyed is a trained samurai ninja master
he can be up the side of your building and standing in your bedroom within 2 seconds

comebackgirl

chadwick wrote:

comebackgirl wrote:

When I lived with my parents we never locked the doors. Someone was always in and out and we had large dogs so there didn't seem to be a point to locking them. Now I keep my doors locked. Someone randomly walked into my neighbors house one night :? Seemed like an honest mistake, but I don't need that. Although one night my husband left the door to his car wide open all night and the car was still there in the morning with everything intact.

but was the battery drained dead?
dome lights and all going all night
i just did this same thing.
had to ask my neighbor if i could use his battery charger.

No - fortunately for him he knows he is very forgetful so he has the dome light set not to turn on when he opens the door

Pepe Silvia

no, but we have three dogs

Jo

I have 7 doors into my home and I haven't seen my door key for over 6 years.
And if I can't find my car keys it's because someone took them out of the ignition.

Who Princess

Media hype? The way we were taught?

Let's see, in 1980 a close friend of mine was raped by a man who got into her apartment while she was at class and waited for her to get home. She moved out immediately and moved into a house in a "nice" neighborhood. Six months after she was raped, either she or roommate forgot to lock the back door. A different man entered the house during the night and attempted to assault her but left after being startled by her roommate.

Several years ago a retired couple were robbed and murdered when a man walked in through their unlocked front door. He later told police that he had gone door to door, looking for one that was unlocked. This couple lived 3 blocks from my parents, in what is also considered a nice, safe neighborhood.

Crime is often random and I do not allow the fear of it to take over my life. But I am a cautious person and I take the kinds of precautions that help me prevent being victimized, no matter where I am. That includes locking the doors of my house, just as I carefully choose where I park when I go shopping. (I was mugged in a grocery store parking lot in 1991 and I've learned to be aware of my surroundings.) It doesn't include extreme reactions like owning a gun, even though I live in a right-to-carry state.

Lest you think I'm some sort of paranoid wuss, I've been a caseworker and made home visits in what most people consider very bad neighborhoods. This doesn't bother me. I know how to watch out for myself.

Suggesting that we were all better off back in the good old days when nobody locked their doors is naive and unrealistic.

musicismylife78

im not suggesting anything friend. you are. I pointed out that in china and in canada and apparently in australia people leave their doors open at night and nothing bad happens. yet in america people obsessively check at night to make sure their doors are locked and alarms are on. that to me is a major disconnect. Is their really less crime in australia and spain and china and canada than in america? Do only nonviolent and non threatening people live in those countries?

No doubt horrible things have happened in america, people have been murdered and raped and robbed and assaulted.

my point is, i think alot of it is media hype and horror movies. are people sometimes murdered and raped in their houses, yes. but to the extent people seem to suggest? hell no.

but as i said, i lock my doors at night as well. im part of the system as well.

SPEEDY MCCREADY

4 pages devoted to this topic???

Do I lock my doors at night???

Really?? 4 pages???

UMMM...Yeah...I lock my doors at night...

Yellow Ledbelly

When I was a kid the doors were rarely ever locked but not the case now.
At my house, I leave the door unlocked all the while I'm not at home night or day, but I lock it when I go to bed without fail. I don't feel there is any real danger if I don't lock the door, but really no reason not to.
There was a rather violent murder in my small community just about 3 months ago. That certainly changed people's habits a bit I'm sure.
Is the media to blame for creating the perception that we are not safe in our homes? No.
Because the senseless crime in america is not an illusion. It is fact that lots of bad things happen and bad people are just as prone to do bad things in rural mississippi as they are in NYC. That's proven out by the murder near me this summer

jshin

"I pointed out that in china and in canada and apparently in australia people leave their doors open at night and nothing bad happens".....ever?

RKCNDY

I lock my doors. I don't need kids running around trying the doors to see if they are unlocked or not. We have had trick-or-treat-ers ring the doorbell, and if the door isn't opened within 2 seconds, they WILL open the front door... :twisted:

When I lived in an apartment, my ex had left the doors to the car unlocked, I warned him he was inviting people to steal from him. He said 'everybody locks their doors, so why would they want to even try?' Ok fine. One night someone DID try his doors, and because they were unlocked, they stole his amp box and stereo. He called the cops, and they came. Their first question was, "Were the doors locked?" He said, "no" the officer then finished filling out the report and said, "Well, since the doors were not locked, we don't consider it a crime, because you were basically inviting someone to enter your car. You'll find your stereo at a pawn shop most likely...good luck" This happened in a 'nice' neighborhood, so I cover my butt and lock up.

musicismylife78

jshin wrote:

"I pointed out that in china and in canada and apparently in australia people leave their doors open at night and nothing bad happens".....ever?

read my post. does robbery, rape, murder occur? yes. But to the extent that its shown on tv and talked about on the news, and shown in movies? no.

musicismylife78

i think its highly unlikely that their are millions and billions of murderers rapists and robbers waiting outside our houses each night and that locking our doors is the answer to our problems.

i didnt make it up. people have posted on here with more knowledge than myself. they live or have visited other countries and in those countries people leave their doors unlocked and magically no one rapes and murders them.

my question as a conscientious person, as a person who is interested in society and culture and how we interact with each other, is why that behavior is viewed as normal in spain or canada, but is seen as rare and odd even bizaare here in the U.S.? And whats to explain the lack of crime?

Its one thing to talk about people in spain and canada leaving their doors unlocked and then there being this HUGE spike in crimes at these homes or in these homes. But that crime spike doesnt exist.

blackredyellow

Nobody is saying that if you don't lock your doors, then you will be attacked or killed...

But what is the problem with people locking their doors? Some people do as a matter of routine, others do it out of paranoia, others do it just for the feeling of safety...

We usually lock our doors... Our neighborhood is relatively crime free and we have two dogs, so nothing would probably happen to us if we left them unlocked anyway... but what is the problem with trying to eliminate that possibility?

I'm 36 and have never gotten in a serious car accident in my life... but I wear my seatbelt. Am I caving into media hype or just doing something smart that takes 2 seconds that might protect me?

If I am in a shit-packed subway station or concert venue were people bump into everyone, I'll usually put my wallet in my front pocket.... Am I caving into media hype or just being proactive?

Just because people do things to protect themselves from things that probably wouldn't happen anyway isn't a bad thing.

musicismylife78 wrote:

i didnt make it up. people have posted on here with more knowledge than myself. they live or have visited other countries and in those countries people leave their doors unlocked and magically no one rapes and murders them.

my question as a conscientious person, as a person who is interested in society and culture and how we interact with each other, is why that behavior is viewed as normal in spain or canada, but is seen as rare and odd even bizaare here in the U.S.? And whats to explain the lack of crime?

Are you suggesting that people are saying that unlocked doors would cause crime to start? No one is saying that...

If anything how you are thinking about this is backwards... In the US, the crime rate is higher so that causes people to lock their doors... Crime didn't start to happen because of unlocked doors.

If there were crime sprees in Spain or Canada, then people would probably start locking their doors (at least in areas close to the crime sprees).

UpSideDown

musicismylife78 wrote:

if people can leave their doors wide open in china and canada and wherever then it must be media hype and media created fear right? Why do people in china feel they can leave their doors unlocked and people in NYC lock their doors? Whats the disconnect here?

Are you comparing similar types of communities, population sizes, and overall standards of living? I think this question needs addressed before you can really start to dissect the topic.

Who Princess

musicismylife78 wrote:

im not suggesting anything friend. you are. I pointed out that in china and in canada and apparently in australia people leave their doors open at night and nothing bad happens. yet in america people obsessively check at night to make sure their doors are locked and alarms are on. that to me is a major disconnect. Is their really less crime in australia and spain and china and canada than in america? Do only nonviolent and non threatening people live in those countries?

No doubt horrible things have happened in america, people have been murdered and raped and robbed and assaulted.

my point is, i think alot of it is media hype and horror movies. are people sometimes murdered and raped in their houses, yes. but to the extent people seem to suggest? hell no.

but as i said, i lock my doors at night as well. im part of the system as well.

Au contraire, dude. By no means am I suggesting that we go back to the those happy days of yesteryear when people didn't lock their doors at night. And if you're not suggesting that it would be a good thing for us all to live in that kind of harmony, you're doing a pretty good approximation.

As far as people being influenced solely by the media, movies and TV, I'm sure there are some gullible people who buy that but not everybody just because they lock their doors. You say as a child you were frightened by the kidnapping and murder of Polly Klaas. My mother has told me of being terrified as a child after hearing adults talk about the Lindbergh kidnapping. She damn sure wasn't getting those messages from movies and TV in 1932. The world has always been a dangerous place.

How about medieval castles, built in inaccessible places, with moats around them? Walled cities, with doors that could be barred? Think those people were succumbing to media hype? Maybe they weren't worrying about serial murderers but I'll bet the underlying principle was safety.

People who lock their doors have not been brainwashed into believing they are in constant danger. It's called being careful.

d1witdafunk

the town i live in has many bars around and more then once ive heard of people waking up to some drunk on there couch or porch thinking it was there own house.I have a dog but still dont feel like chasing some drunk outta my house at 3am. So yeah lock em up people cause the best offense is a strong defense