Vault or no vault?

[Sunset]

Dusk to dawn lights on , and motion lights for our backyard which is fenced and gates locked all the time (so nobody should ever be there).

I close the blinds at dusk so folks don't see us walking around.

The doors always remain locked, and garage door closed unless we are in the front yard or garage.

We don't have a dog to warn us if someone is prowling around, which has happened before, so I'm thinking of getting an exterior motion device just so I know somebody is at the front door, would help for deliveries too.

I made a short stick from a broom handle to put in the patio door, so we can at times (but not night) leave it open about 6 inches, yet nobody could further open the door to enter. Helps with the cross breeze to the upper windows we sometimes open.

[Ronstar]

No need to lower the blinds- our windows can't be seen from another house or from the road. Sometimes I lock the gate, most times I don't. My workshop exterior lights are always on. Doors are locked and DW activates the alarm. We leave no exterior or interior lights on. Exterior cameras are in night vision mode



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[RE2Boys]

Only thing we do is make sure all doors are locked. Front windows have shears, they don't move. All other windows have high sills, about 4 ft up, so we never bother with curtains and such. Back has a 10ft tall hedge giving pretty good privacy.

[brewer12345]

We lock up at night and curtains are our friends. A big part of the curtain thing is that the western exposure on the front of the house really heats things up in the afternoon. We leave the porch light on at night, have an ADT sign out front, and if the right dog barks (the other is an idiot barker) I would investigate. We live in a safe suburb where the police have nothing to do.

[Gumby]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DFW_M5 Are you referring to hand size?

Of course.

I'm reminded of an incident long ago, when I was a sprightly young fellow. I met a girl and things went very well. As we were getting to know one another a little better, she giggled and asked

"Who do you think you're going to please with that little thing?"

I responded forthrightly,

"Me."

[cathy63]

We lock the front door and the first floor window at night. Second and third floor windows may be open on warm nights since we don't have air conditioning. We do close the shutters in our bedroom to prevent the runway lights at NASNI from waking us up on cloudy nights when they tend to reflect off the cloud cover in a blinking pattern.

[Another Reader]

We installed a security door on the garage side entry door about 10 years ago. The lock and the deadbolt are locked unless someone is working in the garage or yard and needs to go in and out. Garage doors are kept shut and the openers make it impossible to open manually without disengaging the opener from inside. Deadbolt from the garage to the house. Locked unless someone is going in and out of the garage. Doors and windows are closed and locked unless the house is being cooled off in the evening or early morning. The security system is old but it allows several windows to be open about 5 inches. If the windows are opened more or shut, the monitored alarm is tripped.

One side gate is locked, the other isn't always. We have a wandering autistic teenager in the neighborhood that goes in back yards. So far, no harm. The parents have people that watch him, but it's not effective.

There have been a number of home invasion robberies in the area. Mostly targeted at Asians that keep cash and jewelry at the house. Doors have been kicked in, guns drawn. Police response time averages 9 minutes here, so it's rough up the occupants, get as much as you can, and get out in a couple of minutes. These have even occurred in the nearby gated community. It helps being on a cul de sac.

Nothing worth stealing in this house. Old TV and basic computers. Nothing flashy or with a high resale value on the street. Rarely have more than $20 cash. Hope the people casing houses notice the lack of money and toys.

[HFWR]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 We live in a safe suburb where the police have nothing to do.

Yeah, Stepfordville is pretty safe, and I'm a low-value target considering the median home value is north of $300k.

All doors stay locked, including the car in the attached garage. Windows rarely opened, and are locked by default. Blinds generally open during the day, closed at night. Landscape lighting, including one lantern-style with a LED bulb by the front door. Alarm system and the accompanying window stickers, which might or might not be active.

It's doubtful any of this would actually stop a determined intruder, but might slow them enough to give me time to chamber a round...

Mostly, any undue hassle to an alleged perpetrator just might send them toward an easier target.

[brewer12345]

Quote:

Originally Posted by HFWR Yeah, Stepfordville is pretty safe, and I'm a low-value target considering the median home value is north of $300k. All doors stay locked, including the car in the attached garage. Windows rarely opened, and are locked by default. Blinds generally open during the day, closed at night. Landscape lighting, including one lantern-style with a LED bulb by the front door. Alarm system and the accompanying window stickers, which might or might not be active. It's doubtful any of this would actually stop a determined intruder, but might slow them enough to give me time to chamber a round... Mostly, any undue hassle to an alleged perpetrator just might send them toward an easier target.

For sure, none of the usual would stop a determined intruder. Most locked doors will bust open with a solid kick unless you have gone through some effort to reinforce them. Windows, for sure. Happily, most intruders are not that determined. My goal is to simply make it seem like there are easier targets.

[swakyaby]

Yes we do lock up at night. We live in a low crime gated community, but had a series of home invasion robberies occur on our street 2 years ago. The perps would check the homeowners backyard gate and eventually find someone who leaves it unlocked. They then had access to the backyard and would check the windows and sliding glass doors at 4 am while homeowners were sleeping. Often they would find the side door to the garage unlocked and enter the house through another unlocked door. They would take any electronics they could carry out--computers, phones, jewelry, stereo equipment, etc. They robbed at least 4 of my neighbors before a person on a nearby street who had a neighborhood watch saw an unfamiliar person enter a side gate of his neighbor across the street and called the police.

Although I lock the doors and draw the blinds at night, I have been guilty of frequently leaving some backyard windows open at night, and often not locking the door from the house into the garage. I finally installed a combo lock deadbolt on 2 doors--the side door into the garage, and the door from the garage into the house. Now the 2 doors are locked all the time, day and night, because it is so easy to lock and unlock without fishing for a key.

[donheff]

Been living in the city for my entire life - this location in DC for 33 years, Chicago before that. We keep the doors locked at night (front door during the day) but don't close the downstairs curtains or worry much. We do have Golden Retrievers who bark up a storm but would lick an intruder. We had an alarm when we moved in our current location which we disconnected about 30 years ago. The sign is still in the front yard. I think a home invasion is more likely to involve opening a door to bad guys than someone breaking through the windows because they can see that no one is in the living room.

By contrast, we had a rural river front weekend house for 23 years. Loads of windows, no curtains. Someone did break in once, undoubtedly because it was obvious no one was home and the location was isolated enough to break in. The only thing they found worth taking was a 38 special and a 22 target rifle - so keeping weapons in the house ended up arming the bad guys.

[ElizabethT]

We close the front facing shutters and lock all doors and windows nightly, save our second floor bedroom windows. We have locks on our bedroom doors as well, which we use nightly. And finally, we kept one car key fob in our nightstand so we can set off our car alarm remotely should we ever think we hear an intruder.

We live in a very low crime community, however I read way to many thrillers in my youth, (In Cold Blood comes immediately to mind) so the above allows me to sleep through the night.

[MichaelB]

A question to all those that leave the windows unclothed. Does the morning sunlight bother you in any way? As I age I am waking earlier, and morning sunlight just exacerbates that. We close the shutters in the bedroom, not out of any sense of privacy, but just to keep the light out in the morning.

[audreyh1]

Yes we lock up at night. Close exterior gate to covered parking. We've had periods of illegals trekking across our back yard and even border patrol agents running all over the yard with flashlights, search dogs. It's no threat to us, but illegals have been known to take refuge in unlocked shelters, climb on top of RVs to hide if the ladder is down, and swipe unsecured bicycles. We sleep safe and sound and mostly undisturbed. We do have a backyard motion sensor light which is a deterrent, but not always.

We don't turn on our security alarm unless we leave the house overnight.

[Nodak]

The more of these I read the more I appreciate my little town. In the last year the only time, day or night, all my doors have been locked is when I was out of town for a few days.

[MRG]

Quote:

Originally Posted by brewer12345 For sure, none of the usual would stop a determined intruder. Most locked doors will bust open with a solid kick unless you have gone through some effort to reinforce them. Windows, for sure. Happily, most intruders are not that determined. My goal is to simply make it seem like there are easier targets.

My goal is to make them better, slower targets.

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nodak The more of these I read the more I appreciate my little town. In the last year the only time, day or night, all my doors have been locked is when I was out of town for a few days.

When we were looking for a retirement location, our feeling was that the truly low crime spots in the US most often were in very cold climates such as yours. To us this just illustrates that climate is not everything! I think the low crime rate in many little northern towns like yours is a huge advantage.

The main problem with living in New Orleans, and the only problem that might inspire us to leave some day (if it worsens), is the crime rate. So far we can handle it.

[Alan]

Where we live now we close the curtains when it gets dark and lock the doors before we go to bed.

[Nodak]

Quote:

Originally Posted by W2R When we were looking for a retirement location, our feeling was that the truly low crime spots in the US most often were in very cold climates such as yours. To us this just illustrates that climate is not everything! I think the low crime rate in many little northern towns like yours is a huge advantage. The main problem with living in New Orleans, and the only problem that might inspire us to leave some day (if it worsens), is the crime rate. So far we can handle it.

There's an old saying in ND - "40 below keeps the riff-raff out."

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MichaelB A question to all those that leave the windows unclothed. Does the morning sunlight bother you in any way?

I'm an early riser and I enjoy it when the sun gets up at the same time.
In the winter I'm up long before the sun and that's kind of nice too.

DW is perfectly able to sleep late and the light doesn't bother her a bit.

On the very rare occasions when I want to sleep late I'll use my nighttime bathroom visit to put on one of those airplane sleep masks to block the light.