Do you lock your doors?

Keypad doors that just auto lock.

 

Back in '88 when we were living in Dunwoody, GA - a suburb of Atlanta, I remembered I was missing an essential ingredient to something I was going to be cooking that afternoon. I had to run to Kroger for what was needed but my 4th grader was due home and he had no key. Some months before this incident he had come home on the bus as he normally did, but found all the outside doors into the house, including the garage door - locked. The last door he had checked was the front door. In a fit of temper he gave one of the lower panels on the 6 paneled door a strong kick and the lower panels cracked, seriously damaging the door to the point it had to be replaced.

In a similar situation some months later, I again had to run out to pick up something urgently needed for that night's dinner. No wanting to risk further damage to the yet to be replaced front door should I not make it back before he arrived home on the bus, I decided to leave the garage door open.

Mistake; Big mistake. Gone less than 30 minutes, beating kid home, to find my bedroom ransacked and a number of valuable pieces of jewelry, watches, and 20 or 25 non sandwiched solid silver Kennedy half dollars - missing. No riders on anything and loss exceeded $10,000 in replacement value. A State Farm claims adjuster asked for and was provided receipts or other proof for what was stolen and gave us the maximum we were permitted for items individually uninsured. I think it was $3,000. Might have been 5,000.

Either the claims adjuster or the policeman who came when I called to report the theft gave me this advice: If it was absolutely necessary to leave the house unlocked the best door to leave unlocked was the front door - as it is the door most visible to neighbors who might notice something amiss. I had left our side facing garage door wide open and both cars were gone. An open invitation telling people with ill intent to come on in - nobody home.