Vault or no vault?

[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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

 

[Cobra9777]

We live on 2.2 acres, heavily wooded. No curtains or blinds. No one can see in. All we see is trees when we look out. We have a monitored security system which is armed at night and anytime we leave. Porch lights stay on all night. Also have flood lights with motion detectors and a loud dog who barks at anything unusual. Garage, doors, and windows are closed and locked at all times unless we are airing out the house. Gates to the backyard are locked. We live in a reasonably safe small-ish town but there have been burglaries in our neighborhood. So we try to make our property a troublesome target.

 

[GravitySucks]

I don't sweat it if I forget to lock up. It's a safe neighborhood and I have an 85 pound Shepard living with me along with a vicious Calico cat.

Dogs are way better than alarms and locks.

I do remember the first time I heard a fox scream here. Scared the bejezzes out of me!

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

We only close the shades on the view windows when the sun shines in (west-facing). The front (street) windows are a small kitchen window over the sink (no blinds) and master BR (blinds always down).

All doors locked at all times.

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[kcowan]

We have the curtains and windows open everywhere. 19th floor penthouse in West Vancouver and 8th floor condo in PV Mexico, partly because of our indoor/outdoor cats.

But everywhere in Europe we had the windows open. A couple of places had to have the concierge called to unlock the windows. But they all obliged.

When we had a ground floor villa in PV, we had sticks for the sliding doors to enable them to be open 6" but remain secure.

 

[Mulligan]

I live on the edge of city limits in a town of 5k and some city "woods" area butting to my backyard. My blinds on my french doors havent been used in years, and my window blinds have been pulled to the top untouched for years also. Occasionally I forget to shut garage door at night. Nobody has ever paid me a "visit" though I try not to let it happen too often.


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[Just_Steve]

Front bay window has shears, slider has between the glass vertical that stay halfway open also has a built in stop to leave open about 6 inches so no stick needed. Since I'm the last one to bed most nights sometimes I forget to close and lock up.
Now my bedroom has blackout drapes as I worked overnights most of the time and slept during the day. I think I will keep them, I don't mind waking to a dark room in the morning.

 

[brewer12345]

My goal is to make them better, slower targets.

I simply depend on the dogs to give me a 60 second head start if it ever becomes necessary. After that, 00 buck will go where it goes...

 

[Walt34]

Being retired law enforcement and having written what I thought was an impressive stack of theft/burglary/robbery reports this place is locked up tight even when we're home. Every side of the house has a light on it that stays on all night. No alarm though, I hate those things and I know the police make them a low priority because of all the false alarms. The objective is to get any potential miscreants to go to an easier target next door and not bother with our place.

The curtains are drawn, more to keep the morning light from keeping me from my beauty rest than privacy since the bedroom windows face the woods.