Back as a kid, not one of of our neighbours, us as well, lock their front doors, except when no one's home or going on vacation. Once moved out, housemates were locking the doors, so followed their lead.
It's a question of safety of course but what would have changed this habit?
Depends where you live.
Yes that's the part to it. Inner city? Yeah you'd be locking every day. For me I grew up in a small regional town with it's own cult farm and everything (I wasn't a member) but everyone still locked up.
Which city tho, Johannesburg?
@Kangal: District 9. Nah it was in Australia but I won't mention where. The cult farm is still booming but the nuns across the road are long gone.
The notion sounds completely ridiculous.
I cannot recall a time when people did not lock their doors.
I think OP is referring to while people are at home.
I never lock my house at all haha. Might start tomorrow before the bargain hunters start coming.
See that guys - "might". There's still a chance!
Growing up in suburban Sydney in the 1970s and 1980s the back door was almost always unlocked.
We’d lock it if we went on holiday, or sometimes if nobody would be at home at all that day, but not to go to the shops, an appointment etc.
When I moved into a flat in a street with a lot of higher density my car was broken into 4 times in the first few months, so we locked the doors and windows to the apartment.
I think it just boiled down to if your place was on a thoroughfare, or with a lot of local foot traffic, then the odds of getting burgled go up. If you live in an out of the way place nobody much goes past, the odds are low.
^This.
Best defence is a good offence.
Unlock the doors all you like, just boobie trap the house like in Home Alone ; )
Grew up in small country town. Only time u locked doors is when going away for holiday. It is still the same now( mother still lives there)
I've never locked my house, if they want my LG c1 they will have to fight me for it
and smash a window to get it out. Although all our external windows are glass brick and our courtyard ones are laminated; so, best of luck on that as well.
Maybe for people living in the regional areas, rather than city folk.
I only lock up when no one is home and that's only for insurance reasons.
More than happy for an intruder to meet my 3 dogs.
More than happy for an intruder to meet my 3 dogs.
It's the opposite for me, my dog would love to meet intruders :/
Beagle? :)
Lab actually, she's just way too friendly lol
@upended: We have a cat who is our door greeter. As soon as someone rings the door bell she wants to be let out into the porch to say hello to them. She runs from anywhere in the house to be let out as soon as she hears the doorbell.
@YeemaiI: Yeah our lab was like this, he would befriend anyone as long as he could see their face. He would occasionally be a good guard dog if he heard something outside and didn’t known what it was.
Would love to intrude and pat your dogs.
My German Shepard all bark and not bite.
When they are in the driveway she barks and growls like she is going to kill.
When they are 30cm away she rolls over expects them to rub her belly or she will go fetch a ball.
She would probably carry stuff out of the house for them if they asked.
depends where you live…
i rarely lock the house even when i go out and no one is home, there are windows that are open, side gates that is always accessible. i could leave the key in my car in my driveway and no one will touch it… except the neighbour who wants to move it and let their kids play with ort basketball ring on our driveway.
i have a electricians and plumbers that live on my street and they have their vehicles full of tools parked on the street,
couldn't do this if i lived where i grew up. you would need to to lock the lock in order to stop someone walking away with your stuff
front door is always locked… i never use it.
Where do you live again? (asking for a friend)
Sounds like a nightmare existence. Why wouldn’t you want to lock everything up?
Because I don't stress everytime I leave the house whether or not I've closed and locked every window and door in the house.
Is that just the nature of the town (or 'burb) you live in?
My best mate lived 100% like this when he was still with his folks in Croydon VIC — even had the front door ajar many times I reckon 😂 Not sure about the rest of his street, but they were just so relaxed… with minimal/no consequences I'm aware of. They had a dog, but he was frequently in the backyard with (I think) no indoor access.
just the overall feeling of the suburb and street we live in…
we moved there about 5 years ago, and when we did one of the neighbours said that, as far as he knows there was only 1 report of break and enter and that was a car a quite a number of years ago and he's lived on the street for almost 30 years.
all neighbours are friendly and get along. we know most people by their first names and names of their kids and grandkids…
heck my neighbour phoned me the other day to see where i was and if i could drop past and pick up his 16 year old daughter from work because he was stuck at his work.
hard to find good neighbour hoods and good neighbours… especially when you hear so many horror stories here
heck my neighbour phoned me the other day to see where i was and if i could drop past and pick up his 16 year old daughter from work because he was stuck at his work.
Wow. That's just wow.
While I haven't asked / haven't been asked to do that yet, we're on great terms / know each others' names / have a good yak with our neighbours up to two houses away, and have had a few over for a cuppa.
@Member 0230: happens quite often,
we stand around with beers or scotch in hand in the front yard with 4 or 5 of the neighbours and chat away,
@Archi: Update: just had a chat with my best mate’s folks - full of energy though now in their 70s - and they still keep their doors unlocked (unless specifically asked by their collocated tenant at the time to do otherwise).
My sister would do this with her house in Penrith. They did eventually start locking the door, but for years they'd go out without locking up.
Always lock unless I'm expecting friends or family over and I'll be too busy to go open the door for them eg cooking. I didn't lock the door as a kid but we had a deadlock so it locked on its own
Back as a kid, not one of of our neighbours, us as well, lock their front doors
That is because nobody is coming into your house to take you expensive heavy CRT TV and rotary phone.
Now people have so much expensive electronic gear at home. Easy to walk out with a 43" tv under one arm, a few ipads and iphones in a shopping bag. That is like $2k of stuff.
Drive around and any house with metal bars on windows from 20 years ago are probably former business owners who had a lot of cash stashed in the house.
No one is stealing your big flatscreen unless they are taking everything.
This is why I have a 75. No one is stealing that unless they're determined
This is why i have a 85. No one is stealing that unless they're very determined
Meh, my house is small enough that when I am home, I can see the front entrance, so normally when I am home, it is unlocked. The front door is only locked when no one is home.
While locks only keep out honest people I've always locked doors and windows when going out..
Whilst you are correct in it only keeping out honest folk, it also makes your place less appealing to dishonest folk and thus they're more likely to try someone else's place.
And if they're set on getting into your place, why make it easier for them?
Yeah - not really true.
Most crime is opportunistic. Your house doesn't need to be Fort Knox, but if it is harder to get into than your neighours, chances are they'll move onto easier targets.
Not to mention, it's a lesser crime to open an unlocked door and waltz in vs breaking and entering.
Breaking in this context means "breaking the seal", as in opening a door that you're not supposed to. The door can be unlocked.
It doesn't mean smashing something.
Thanks for correcting me.. TIL something new.
I lock my house, but not my car. If you find something in my car worth anything, congrats.
I've got friends who do that. They would rather someone rifle through their car than smash their windows.
I had a friend who left his car unlocked one time. Thieves still smashed the rear window to get into it and steal whatever they could find (wasn't much)…
Yeah, I suspect your average car thief isn't a Mensa candidate but, you would think, they would at least check if the car was unlocked first. Unfortunately you, also, get the vandals. We've had our cars vandalised on a number of occasions. The roof stove in, side mirrors smashed, etc. I can, sort of, understand stealing stuff but mindless vandalism is just being an antisocial (profanity).
Left my car unlocked and in Summer, the windows down. Thieves got into it one night and found junk I had lost years ago. I was delighted.
Yeah I'm always worried that some fool will do something stupid like piss on me seats or something.
Depending on what state you're in it might be illegal to leave your car unlocked.
I've got a side one on this. If your garage has a door from the garage directly into the house do you lock that door? We don't tend to but it would be a bit of a security hole if someone got the garage door open or, as sometimes has happened, the garage door bounces.
Don;t lock the shoppers entrance during the day, but always do at night for this very reason (and also having watched a CSI episode where some creeper clones garage door clickers and enters that way).
I have my smart lock on this door, so it opens when we get home and locks by itself. Very handy, plus it means I'm not just relying on the smart lock (there's still the garage door)
Although I shouldn't, I leave it unlocked for the convenience.
Yes, we do lock it. It’s a very common entry point. Lots of break ins happen this way on the Gold Coast. They grab the car keys which are often nearby and take the car and a few valuables too.
I have never left my house unlocked.
Why would you?
Even if you are in the safest place in the world in 1960 there is no reason to not lock your house.
If there is no safety concern then the narrative can be privacy concern.
One of the reasons to lock your house is because your insurance company might deny your claim if the house is unlocked and you aren't home.
This raises the whole issue of security. I lock my doors, but I leave the keys in the locks for my upstairs windows because I cant be arsed finding them.
It’s nice not to live in Fort Knox, to be able to tell your friend to go right in, you’ll be home soon, or sure you can use the printer, even though I’m not there. It’s handy when a kid forgets their key that they don’t have to sit on a doorstep waiting for you to get home.
If you get burgled, you probably have different concerns, and I locked the house pretty religiously after being burgled when I lived in the inner west in Sydney.
I have those touch pad key code locks on entry door and remote alarm system. I don't even have a key to my own house. Full security and full accessibility to those welcome.
We still have keys to the porch area but we are PIN and card access for our front door. Our Samsung lock allows us to configure access using our MYKI cards so we don’t need to buy extras.
See an open Gate, leave it open.
Gate is closed, shut it behind you.
It only takes 2 seconds to lock the door, why wouldn't you? No reason not to, besides 'inconvenience'. Better to be safe than sorry.
Oh let me guess, this is race hate bait question.
Damn, thought it was an Intervention for SlavOz… lol
What?
American (possibly Russian) conservative hate troll. The answer troll is looking for is "when brown people moved in"
Same as other post, why petrol so high cause Obama "brown person", typical GQP BS
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/688852
not so much a question of safety, as preventing the MiL from just walking in unannounced when I have no pants on…
I've always locked any external door at all times unless I'm in the direct vicinity (e.g. doing garden work adjacent to the relevant door).
I take the view that someone will steal anything that's not nailed down, being directly supervised, or otherwise behind a locked door.
When our home was broken into. All doors are now dead bolted now.
Quite shocking for me as a kid, after returning home to see that front door had a large shoe imprint of where it was kicked in .
I grew up in a Wollongong suburb. We had a lock on the front door, but us kids never had keys because it was rarely locked, and there wasn't any lock on the back door. We did have a dog in a back yard, but it was more likely to lick an intruder to death than bite them, unless it was a dog or a cat. In terms of security our biggest concern was the dog getting out, not anyone getting in. Of course back then wives didn't work, and they didn't transport their kids to and from school, but they still went shopping and stuff like that. But we just didn't have all the stuff that people have these days that's worth stealing.
(Actually now I think about if you asked me where my mother did the shopping, I'd have to say I had no idea. There wasn't any local shopping centre, and she never learned to drive until dad died. I guess he must have taken her. Somewhere.)
So I never carried a key until I bought my first car in 1969 - a brand new Mazda for $1900 - and I never carried a house key until I moved out in the 1970s.
My answer to the OP would have to be that I only lived in places where we locked the doors after I moved out of home where mum was there most of the time, which was about the time people started buying all the things we have these days that are worth stealing.
Always. Every rental I’ve ever lived in I’ve had to replace the security door lock myself as well, they are always for whatever reason missing. Extra protection because you never know if someone who had the keys prior wants to have a look inside when you aren’t at home…
Lock when not at home. Lock the front door if we are out in the backyard, back door is often left open as is the garage while we are home. Actually, front door is usually locked because we use the garage as the main entry, largely because it has a remote.
If you do not value your items enough to secure them, someone else will.
We deadlock our doors now, not just door knob lock. Years ago the thieve/s stole our passports, birth certificates, bank statements, ATO notice of assessment, council rates, and vehicle registration paper… basically identity theft, still sends chills down my spine. Police said if the deadlock was locked, they (thieves) would've moved on.
Also make sure the hole for the deadlock is deep enough for the bolt to click into the locked position. this makes the door much harder to kick open.
Always
I’m 40 and have always locked the doors. My mum showed us the security door chain as soon as we were old enough and told us to use it if someone knocked on the door that we weren’t expecting. Burglaries and assaults have been going on for at lot longer than anyone here has been alive. Locking the door is a small layer of security that’s easy to do.
I live in suburban Sydney and never lock the doors when I am at home. As said earlier most thieves are opportunistic and aren’t going to risk it when someone’s home. For those that would be willing, I don’t think a door would slow them down much.
I’m surprised the mood here is locking everything is good. I see it as a pretty sad state of affairs.
I’m much happier living in a place where it isn’t particularly necessary, and I think you would be too.
The way to reduce home break ins from occurring isn’t locks and cameras and guards.
It reminds me of the constant argument in America that guns are essential for personal protection.
We’ve proved in Australia they aren’t, if you remove the circumstances that lead to people shooting at others.
I’d like to see property crime also reduced by eliminating the need for it.
Jamie Packer never breaks into houses to steal TVs (as far as I know). I’d suggest it isn’t that he is some morally virtuous person, but that he doesn’t need to do so to have what he needs.
I’m not sure if people are saying that locking everything is ‘good’ rather that it’s a reality if you want reduce (but not eliminate) the chance of your house being broken into. Whilst your comments on poverty and society are accurate, as individuals we have little power to change this.
Also not all break ins are by people who are poor, the family on our street whose teenager was doing break ins had a lot of money, from criminal activity. The kid went to the most expensive private school in the area (until they were expelled), they drove a flash car and owned the house. The trouble only stopped when the dad went to prison and they moved out of the area. They weren’t financially disadvantaged at all, socially maybe, but the criminal activity was something they chose to do far longer than they needed to than just for financial reasons.
There’s also people who break in to sexually assault women. There’s actually at least one guy who has been suspected of committing a string of serial rapes in my area who to my knowledge still hasn’t been caught who enters via unlocked windows and doors. https://www.news.com.au/national/queensland/crime/one-year-o… Whilst it would be great to get rid of the cause of people becoming psychopaths (typically childhood trauma), whilst these people still exist it makes sense to lock doors and windows, as sad as that is.
lock the door? I dont even do my fly up!
Have people mis-read the question or do this many people really lock the doors always when they're home???
the standard locks might keep a 12yo out.
most door locks and deadlocks can be breached within a minute, unless you have some three way bolt mechanism with auto re-lockers, like a safe door.
I love it when people ask questions that make you wonder what world they're living in.
It's always a good idea to lock the doors and windows. You just never know what will happen.
Growing up, a guy walked into our back yard and tried to open the garden shed. My dad saw him and told him he was calling the police. The guy says "Sorry, wrong house", and ran off.
A few years ago, a neighbour's back door was chain-sawed off and the house burgled. I think it was someone who knew the people living in the granny flat out the back. It was New Years Eve and the neighbours were not home. I didn't see anything either.
My brother in law who used to be a police officer said, if someone wants to break in, they will find a way - locked or not.
I always lock my doors and windows. There is always suss people walking around. Going through my bins looking for bottles. I even have a lock on my mail box.
Honestly, the day of my wife’s funeral. Why? Because some cockwomble stole my e-bike and trailer I used to take my toddlers for an outing- the night before her funeral. I now have multiple cameras set up.
We live in a great and safe community, but sadly crackheads be crackheading.
To all you folk who don’t fully lock up your house when you’re not home… you only need to get seriously burgled once to become totally paranoid about fully locking up your house until the day you die.
Back as a kid, not one of of our neighbours, us as well, lock their front doors, except when no one's home or going on vacation.
Why are so many people answering a question that was not asked?
The question was clearly about locking the doors when you are in the house.
I always leave front and rear doors unlocked when I am home but with the screen/security doors latched. Overnight I do deadlock the doors but the key is readily accessible near all external doors.
When there is no-one home the house is left as securely as it can be - not Fort Know but enough to deter the casual break-in.
I lost a friend in a house fire due partly to them having deadlocked all doors and windows when they were home and being unable to locate keys when they needed them.
Security screens on all windows without emergency egress fittings were also a contributing factor.
Why deadlock the front and back doors when you’re home? The police and fire brigade are forever telling people not to do this. It’s a death trap. Countless people have perished doing this. People don’t realize how incapacitating a house full of smoke can be, or how quickly a fire can spread making access to the front or back door impossible. Yes, lock the front and back doors at night - and during the day when you’re home if you wish - but don’t deadlock them. Deadlocking doors is for when no one is home to make it more difficult for thieves to exit with large items. It’s primarily an insurance requirement.
My house is rarely fully locked and hasn't been for years.
I used to live in South Africa, which is insanely dangerous and refuse to live in fear here.
My parents immigrated from Hong Kong to Australia in the mid 70's
It was a cultural shock for them
I heard many stories from them. One time they came back from work and it was raining on the way home, (because no one locked their doors they just followed the same). They come home and mums like damn it, I need to wash the clothes again! Come greeted with all the laundry folded neatly on the dinner table with a note from the neighbour.
One time they forgot to put money in the mail box for milk that week, some neighbour paid for it.
My parents were extremely grateful and was mind blown how nice Australians were.
They said it's sad seeing it change throughout these years. The easy going generation of Australians lived pretty simple lives.
Great stories.
Nowadays, if my neighbour paid for the milk, I'd be suspicious what their motives were.
Clarify if it is deadlocking your house or just the simple privacy soft door lock that you can card or open from the inside, and I think the poll results would be vastly different.
No I don't deadlock any doors when I'm inside, even at night. I only do that when I leave out the front door. Plenty of annoying times when I was a kid and I couldn't go outside briefly cos it was deadlocked and not opened all day, even otherwise closed off backdoors. Parcel guy rang the doorbell? Oh sorry it's not unlocked yet. Not to mention the obvious fire risk.
If someone breaks the door glass to open it from the inside they are probably after me in some way other way :P.
I have always locked my doors when at home. It just seems like the sensible thing to do, even though the chances of someone entering are extremely small.
A friend had his house broken into at night while the family slept upstairs. The thieves took a heavy plasma TV from the living room. This was back when such TVs cost almost as much as a new car. The locks were upgraded soon afterwards, but if you've ever watched a Lockpicking Lawyer video on Youtube, you'll know many locks can be picked within seconds.
that reminds me of when I was a kid. My brother and I used to have lock picking competitions. this was before the days of the internet so we designed our own lockpicks using old hacksaw blades and a grinder. there were very very few locks that were actually very difficult. luckily we weren't thieves and the worst we did was go around town unlocking padlocks and doors, most locks were at most a 5 or 6 second job.
How long ago was this? For me I've heard this from Baby Boomers and Gen x but not Millennials and above.