Would you go to sleep with your doors unlocked?

[Fly320s]

Simple question.  Should be a simple answer.

I live in a very low crime area, but I feel the need to lock my doors all of the time.  What about you?

[Kingcreek]

I didn’t see a hell no option.
I live in a rural no/low crime area. I have a monitored alarm system, a big dog, and a post menopausal wife with a gun. Doors are locked, system is armed, locked and loaded.
If nothing else, I sleep better.

[Boomhauer]

My doors are locked to slow down an intruder long enough for an armed response

[dogmush]

Sure. I don't normally, but if the lock broke or something, I wouldn't post an armed guard until I could get it fixed.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Dad was the door locker.

In the summer, because there isn't AC, I always have the door open to the screened storm door with a fan in front of it. When the main door is shut, I do try to remember to lock it before bed. *shrug* It doesn't worry me all that much. It's hard to sneak up on this place without being noticed, especially at night.

I also have a kind of large and imposing dog. 

[Ben]

Also now live in a low/no crime area, but the answer is no. I've acclimated enough to be like the rest of the neighbors and leave everything unlocked during the day, shop and garage doors open, and I leave the keys in the vehicles in the garage now. I even leave things that way if I go into town for a bit (though if I'm gone a longer while, I still lock up).

Night is another matter though. I still have a, "What if there's a home invader?" mentality, and unlike daytime, I'm groggy even if the dog wakes me up, so I want as much buffer time as possible.

[RoadKingLarry]

I don't intentionally go to bed with an unlocked door but it happens on occasion.
So far, after almost 25 years here I haven't been murdered in my sleep.

[Jim147]

Unlocked doors keys in the truck. Big dog in the yard and big pistol by my hand.

[MechAg94]

No.  Can't say it has never happened, but not knowingly.

I realize the odds are very low of anything happening, but I at least want a second or two warning before someone is fully into my house.  www.Selfdefensegunstories.com has discussed stories where the first the homeowners knew someone was there they are already in the house beating on them.

[Ron]

I live in Dupage County but can walk into Cook County from my house.

Cook County is the County dominated by Chicago.

Frequently I forget to check and go to sleep with the door unlocked.

Crime is unusual here, a black swan event when it happens.

[Regolith]

I don't go to bed without my bedroom door locked, let alone the doors in the rest of the house. 

[HeroHog]

Door locked, alarm set, pistol in easy reach on my right, assisted opening knife right next to it.

[230RN]

No.  Crime is spreading out from the "sanctuaries" to the "burbs."

I've always had firearms within reasonable reach, along with a bunch of cheap 10" $2.99 kitchen knives from the dollar store squirreled away around the house.  I don't worry about the quality of the steel and sharpenability, they'll only be needed once and hopefully not at all.

I'm in an apartment building and though I have a deadbolt on the front door, I hang a noisemaker from the top edge of the door anyhow so when it opens it goes clanging to the floor.

In the long history of sometimes shady management changes, etc, who knows who's wandering around out there with duplicate keys.  Additionally, the previous tenant of this apartment used to keep spare keys under the welcome mat.

Back door is on a balcony 12' above ground, but even so, I have a simple barricade I place there anyhow.

Paranoia is a survival trait.  And you don't get to be 81 yo without developing a couple of suspicions about the rest of the people in the world.

See also, http://www.armedpolitesociety.com/index.php?topic=61672.0
Terry

Door clanger --an old automatic ashtray bottom, pretty noisy, hung from a thin piece of sheet metal stuck in the crack.

[K Frame]

I live in a fairly low crime area, but it's still urban sprawl outside of Washington, DC.

When I was a kid I grew up in a very safe, semi-rural area of Pennsylvania. We still locked our cars and our doors.

[Hawkmoon]

Several years ago, the family of Dr. William Petit lived in a safe, suburban town. They went to sleep one night with the doors unlocked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire,_Connecticut,_home_invasion_murders

The incident sticks with me because, some years before that my brother and his first wife lived less than a mile from where the Petit's house was located.

[Ben]

Several years ago, the family of Dr. William Petit lived in a safe, suburban town. They went to sleep one night with the doors unlocked.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheshire,_Connecticut,_home_invasion_murders

The incident sticks with me because, some years before that my brother and his first wife lived less than a mile from where the Petit's house was located.

I'd forgotten about that. *expletive deleted*ck Connecticut for not killing them. I've made my views of the death penalty and innocent people and DNA very clear, but I've also said when there's concrete, irrefutable evidence, burn the bastards. That should have happened here. Instead we have (from Hawk's link):

In October 2019, Steven Hayes was revealed to be transgender and to be undergoing hormone therapy in prison as part of his transition into a woman.[85] He also revealed to be suffering from gender dysphoria.[85] In the same month it was revealed that Komisarjevsky was seeking a retrial.[86]

How much have these, and will these, bastards cost us?

[Hawkmoon]

I don't think prisons should be treating so-called "gender dysphoria" at taxpayer expense. Hayes is a poster child. He was "man enough" to rape Jennifer Petit, why should taxpayers now pay to help him transition to a "female." And what happens next? If he starts singing soprano and wearing dresses, but still has man parts "down there," does he (it?) stay in a male prison or does he/she/it get transferred to a female prison?

[lee n. field]

Simple question.  Should be a simple answer.

I live in a very low crime area, but I feel the need to lock my doors all of the time.  What about you?

In this neighborhood, <expletiveX3> no.

[Perd Hapley]

I feel the need to lock my doors all of the time...

I don't feel the need. I just think it makes sense. It's something that might keep me or mine from getting hurt/killed/robbed, and it's fairly easy to do, and without much of a downside. Or, more succinctly, if something goes terribly wrong, I'd feel pretty dumb for not locking the door.

[tokugawa]

Once it happens, you will never leave doors unlocked again, or sleep without a weapon by your side. Assuming you survive.

[MillCreek]

In this area, with all the drug-fueled property crime, anyone who leaves a vehicle or home unlocked is asking for property to be stolen. I lock everything.

[Jim147]

This thread makes me feel good about where I live. Every week I have customer call and say this needs fixed doors are unlocked if we are not home show up when you can.

[Perd Hapley]

This thread makes me feel good about where I live. Every week I have customer call and say this needs fixed doors are unlocked if we are not home show up when you can.

That's awesome.

[RocketMan]

I don't feel the need. I just think it makes sense. It's something that might keep me or mine from getting hurt/killed/robbed, and it's fairly easy to do, and without much of a downside. Or, more succinctly, if something goes terribly wrong, I'd feel pretty dumb for not locking the door.

^^^^ What he said.
Considering that there have been two murders* within two hundred yards of our home in the six years we've lived here, there is no way I would not lock our doors.

*It's not a high crime area, per se.  One of the crimes occurred under somewhat unique circumstances that will never be repeated.

[kgbsquirrel]

Locks are the due diligence of physical security for your family, yourself, and your property.