We have a code to the garage that we can change, But not to the house.

Hm. My inlaws have my key. Eek. But they visited a lot precovid and sometimes even dogsat. There is a keycode to our garage door. There's also a mansized doggie door. Go on burglar. I dare you. Go through a mansized doggie door. What could go wrong?

I know my parents have a key and possibly my father-in-law as well. I think that's it. Both have helped us with pet-sitting and house-sitting. I am probably overly neurotic about who I trust to care for my dog when we are out of town, so very few people have actually needed our house key. We do not keep a spare outside. I would really like to switch to some numerical keypads in case I ever get locked out. I should just stop thinking about it and do it.

Several of our neighbors have a key to our front door but we finally got a keypad for the garage door. When our neighbor walks our dog, she just comes in thru the garage now even tho her parents have our key. Before having the keypad, and before our kids were driving, we kept a key hidden outside in case they came home when no one was here. I got rid of the hidden key since we no longer need it.

This thread is like the Progressive commercial… Don’t be like your parents.

We have a keypad on the front door. Love love love it. Son and DIL have the combo and so does the neighbor across the street, But we are home most of the time, so have not had a need to five to anyone else.

LOL. A lot depends on where you live. If I felt I needed to lock the door (and I certainly have lived in places where I would/did), then I might give a lot more thought to how it is done. Though I kind of love old keys. I even bought a cute retro key chain for the house key in Maine.

BTW our insurer requires security systems no matter where you live for the type of policy we have, and so we have them. I know nothing at all about them. I should look into it because most people expect that!

No one

JT, omg, those are my all-time favorite commercials!

”Are we air-conditioning the whole neighborhood?”

🤣

Jinx, I could so see Progressive doing a commercial on ”Who has the Key”. Do you have the key? I don’t have the key. Did you look under the rock by the front door? It’s not there. Did you ask the neighbor? They can’t find it. Did you look under the planter? It’s not there.

Don’t be like your parents.

When my DSIL and her family were visiting, we talked about locking doors. DSIL turned to her husband and asked ”gee, hon, did we lock the door when we left?” He thought a second and wasn’t sure. They weren’t concerned. Their town had had one crime, a bank hold up, in 30 years.

The crime rate where our homes are is one tenth the national average and one seventh the national average.

My son has one and another is hidden outside. Sometimes I have to stop and think where it is. I intend to switch to a keypad in case i break my leg in the house and have to let the EMTs in. Heres hoping i dont crack my head.

Several people have had keys to my house over the years. I rented a room to friends/college students (who became friends) cat sitters, contractors, son, daughter in law, other friends, etc. I have one hidden outside that several people know is there. But when I completed my bathroom remodel recently, my contractor offered to replace my doorknobs because they were kind of wearing out. I had double key deadbolts in all the glass doors, including the front door, which still worked fine. But I decided I wanted a keyless entry, so he took off the deadbolts and replaced them with a deadbolt key pad and a doorknob with a manual lock that can be opened with a key. I don't usually lock the knob, as no one has a key, but there is one hidden in my usual spot. I LOVE the keyless option so much!

No one has a key to our house. Everyone has the code to the attached garage door and can let themselves in through my office. Friends and family use it - often, and occasionally a service person if we can't be here. More than once we've come home to friends having drinks here. DH loves the casual welcome at this house, and while occasionally I mind (if tired), he never does.

In our former neighborhood, we had a key to every house on the block - we were the keepers of the keys ;)

No one has a key to our house and there isnt one hidden. We do have one hidden in the outside storage room at our lake condo.

We also have a keypad by one of our garage doors and have been thinking about putting one on our front door.

Just looked up the crime rate for my town, not good. I was surprised by how much higher than the national average we are, which is odd since I feel incredibly safe as a rule.

As for who has access to the house, the children and the housekeepers.

No one has the key to our home, but we do have a garage keypad and would text the code if necessary. At our family beach house in Maine, siblings and I have keys but there is also a spare very well hidden under a dark exterior staircase. At the house at the lake DH and I hide a key outside. However the lock on the door is so old that we're having difficulty finding someone who can make copies, so we may replace that lock with some type of keypad. My guess is the crime rate is probably highest at our home, followed by the beach. Very low at the lake.

DD has a key and we have a keypad on the garage. Have not changed the code from that of the previous owner so maybe should get on that.

. I intend to switch to a keypad in case i break my leg in the house and have to let the EMTs in.

You lock the house when you are in it?

We lock the door when we are home. Stuff happens.

^^^ yup. Before we moved I didn't worry about it too much. But here we are not in view of any neighbors and crime here is different. Just prior to covid I had a young man knock at my door and I stupidly opened it. He was in a blood spattered t-shirt, asked to come in and use my phone and my brain finally kicked in. Turned out he was on the run from police and they followed the blood drops from my front porch down the walk, across the driveway and into the woods. When I'm home alone and gardening I keep all doors unlocked so I can get in easily from any point around the house. But when I'm inside the doors are locked.

DLM, wow, that gave me chills. Very scary.

Last house, we never felt the need to lock doors. This one, we do. We’re in a much more populated area, lots of houses and businesses nearby, busy main road turns into our street, and lots of foot traffic — salespeople, dog walkers, etc.

I miss ranch living, I don’t think we even had keys. Doors were never locked.

Yes, i lock it at night when i go to bed. I try to keep the front door locked when im home. We’ve had some day time breakins around here although never when someone was home. In that case, they break a window or look for unlocked doors. The worst break in on our street was when the family was asleep upstairs while burglars ransacked downstairs.

I lock the doors when im gardening . Burglars have been known to look for people working in the yard and sneak in a door on the other side of the house to grab stuff. One acquaintance had put her wedding and engagement rings on a windowsill while she gardened and a burglar grabbed them along witth her purse. Was in the house for less than a minute.

My daughter, my next door neighbor, my neighbor across the street, and a friend a few blocks away. I trust each of them implicitly.

The night of the Tubbs Fire in 2017, when much of my town was on fire, the neighbors all evacuated in the middle of the night. I was 500 miles away. My neighbors went into my house and got my cats and took them, along with their two cats, to a safe place. I will never forget what they did in a very scary moment.

I can think of more good things about having trusted people having access to my house than otherwise.

Mtn, the house I grew up in had multiple french doors that were essentially unlockable. I never had a house key as a kid because one wasn't necessary.

Our doors are sometimes locked when we are home, sometimes not. The front door is almost always locked (we never use it ourselves). It's a habit. We lock everything up at night and we do have an alarm system, even though we do live in a small, somewhat rural little town. But you never know. Bunny, that makes me think we do need to give a key to someone. Or a garage door opener. We don't have pets now, but in case of emergency, it would be good for someone to have a way to get in. My MIL used to have a garage door opener, but we took it back LOL.

our dog sitter and my daughter have keys. In upstate NY, I slmost never locked my doors . Now that we live outside Philly, we do even when home. But we have five sets of french doors so it wouldn't take much to break into our home. The intruder would be in for a big surprise.

Oh, and we never lock our summer cottage unless we sre going back to PA .

I’m breaking into Jo’s house just to steal the dogs.

Jinx, key’s under the mat Leashes are in garage. The white one * might* bark from time to time. Smaller one is neurotic as all get out.

The ruse in our area these days is someone comes to your door or sees you in the front yard, and says they are from any number of services and they need to consult with you about something in the back yard. While you're both back there, another person goes inside to the bedroom for the jewelry.

When we are working outside, we always lock the front doors and also close the garage door if we go in back.

My town's violent crime rate is very low. But I'm still a Chicago suburb and mostly live alone on a busy street, so I exercise caution and keep my doors locked.

When I moved in, there was Nest doorbell/camera thing that I haven't yet figured out. But because I'm on a busy street, if I exit my home using the front door, it's visible to any number of people. So my ruse is, I pretend like I'm punching in something on the Nest, while I'm using my key to lock the door.

Spare keys: kids, BFF, and one hidden on the property. I'll get the Nest thing figured out soon.

eta, DLM... your story unnerved me as I read it. I'm so glad nothing happened to you, and I hope I would be such a quick thinker under those circumstances.

My in-laws who live 35 miles away are the closest. They have bailed me out once and my DH once when each of us on auto-pilot locked our garage door to go outside and do something and come right back in. We do have a lock box now on the house with a key, but DH couldn't remember the code so he called the in-laws to come unlock and let him in while the rest of the family was out of the country. They now have the code to the lock-box too.

We have keypads with number codes. Our adult children and grandchildren have the codes.

What happened to us, just last week -

We hadn’t been to our lake cabin for quite awhile, months. When we arrived the battery to the keypad had died after 6 years. DH went to another door, but did not have his keys because we had used my car, my keys. We were starting to think we might have to run back into town (45 min drive one way) to grab the right keys. I realized there was a keyway (crossword word) hidden under the code pad and starting trying the keys I had. Luckily I had the right one.

Lesson learned, change those batteries.

Wait. what ? There‘s a key? Our laundry room door has a keypad entry and that’s what we use exclusively. I would be hard pressed to locate an actual key. Our housecleaner had her own code and SIL has her own code. We can arm or disarm the house from our phones.

We have a lockbox at our beach house and I think every one in the world has the combo to that. I could change the combo but given that no one seems to remember it as everyone always calls to ask for it, I would say we’re pretty safe. There’s nothing in the house to steal. This is a true beach house - styled for outdoor living.

I don't think anyone has keys to our house. Maybe my parents? It’s possible we gave them one when we moved in over 20 years ago, but I don’t remember, and they probably don't either! ;)

I have not seen an unannounced person at my front door, ever. Part of that is our gates, but part of it is that, nowadays, everyone, whether social or business, texts first. Ask anyone who has done political canvassing; you really can't just show up and knock on doors anymore.

One exception. My DH has a stepsister who is a PITA. She lives nowhere near us but has dropped in a few times, despite being asked to text first, terribly rude. I cannot summon the equivalent rudeness to stop her.

This convo reminded me; I expected/wanted a key to the girls' place. The property manager only gives keys to those who are listed on the lease as residents. It makes sense actually, to limit who has keys. Too bad, I wanted to mimic Oakley and drop stuff off when they are not home.

@bpath We lock our door at home too. There have been a few times when somebody walked right into a neighbor's house in full daylight. Our neighborhood isn't the sketchiest in our city, but unfortunately crime rates have gone up during the pandemic and criminals are getting bold.

Recent responses to this thread reminded me of a conversation I just had with my mom this weekend. Though they live in a relatively safe "bedroom community" my parents are elderly. They still live in my childhood home, an L shaped rancher with the garage at the opposite end of the house from the bedrooms and my dad's office. Ever since I was young, they were in the habit of leaving the garage door open all day when they are home - the interior door to the house is the door we/family always use. They would leave it open even after dark, not closing it until just before they went to bed. This didn't worry me until more recent years when most of their long-time neighbors either moved or passed away, such that they don't know anyone well except for the family across the street. I finally started pestering them to keep the garage door closed during the day - anyone could come inside and if they were at the other end of the house, they would have no idea.

Anyway, somehow it came up this weekend what prompted them to finally start keeping the garage door closed about five years ago. My mom never told me this, probably b/c she thought I'd say, "see, I told you!"

She was sitting in her family room, which is adjacent to the garage, when a woman came in thru the garage and walked into the family room. She was clearly having a mental crisis of some sort and asked my mom for money, saying her family doesn't feed her (my mother said the woman was around 50, dressed normally, etc). My mother would not give her any money, offered to call her family (no! she said) and finally the woman left on her own, but not before mentioning where she lived a few blocks away. My mother called the police, who apparently were aware of her. From then on, my parents only open the garage when they are going out or outside working in the yard.

I don't keep my door locked during the day when I'm home and often leave it unlocked if I'm running a quick errand or out taking a walk. I have a 100 lb black dog that barks at anyone who comes to/in the front door, including us! He's pretty imposing, tho old and senile, but my 40lb dog is the one to be afraid of!

We have a key pad on our garage door, and a house key hidden in there. Both our kids have keys, but they probably don't know where they are. They always come in through the garage.

None of our neighbors do, but there has never been a reason for any of them to enter our home when we're not there.

We keep our doors locked when we're home too. We are somewhat rural, but our property backs up to the road behind us. Anyone could walk in off the road, get in & out w/out ever being seen. We've had kids come in and try to steal stuff, that was several years ago, but made us cognitive to situations. Neighbor next door had someone walk in to the house in the middle of the day when she was napping. So yes, we lock the doors.

If it's common to keep a key under the keypad, isn't that as obvious to a key under the mat?

All our children have keys or pass-codes. There is an actual key hidden very well in case of some strange event where it might be needed.

We leave several doors open in the warm weather for the lovely clean air to come in. No fear at all of strangers. We usually don't lock all the doors at night as our crime rate is at near 0% and rumor has it everyone in the area is armed to the hilt anyway so no-one tries anything.

I had a pet sitter who had a key many years ago. When we returned from our trip all was well and I happily paid him. Then he tells me that his mother had a copy of the key made so she could help out while he was at work and he would bring it to me the next day. That key never showed up. She could always make a copy of the copy too, couldn't she? I did not wish to do battle over this so I had the lock changed.

Yes, an entry code is better and best deleted when you return home.

If it's common to keep a key under the keypad,

Is it common?

I wonder how many of us do what our parents did. My grandparents also kept their doors locked. Our last two neighborhoods were gated. In one we had gates on our driveway. The last also had a guard at the main entrance. We still kept our doors lock.

DLM, that is a scary story.

While we have always lived in a low crime area, we have always locked doors and not kept garage doors open when working in the yard. When we were adding a second story to the home where we raised our children, I was in the backyard swing for a few minutes until I went to pick them up at school. I saw a garbage man go into our garage and get one of the trash cans I used for yard debirs. He then went up the hill to neighbors house and appeared to be putting trash into a bag. I thought he broke open a bag and was cleaning up. I should have known better. This was one that went ahead of the truck putting cans at the street for those that did not take them. Anyway, he then walked down the street with a black trash bag. I looked to see what was missing and didn't see anything gone. DH later said his chainsaw was gone. Someone from management came to interview me, and I was told the person was a fill in, not a regular employee. I did not get reimbursed for the missing chainsaw.

One year, in the same town, the PD put out a warning about "traveling gypsies" that would talk to someone in the yard while someone else sneaked in. I later found out it happened to an older women two doors down. Across town, someone found a strange man in their house during this time.

Maddie, a couple of people mentioned that their keypad has a place to keep a key. So it does sound like it would be a known spot to look for a key.

^^^ Thanks, I must have missed that.

The police helicopter flies over with regularity (see Flightradar24) so we definitely want to keep doors locked. Especially if I am home by myself duirng the day. We never keep the front door open if we are in the back.

MIL has a key. We have keys to her house. However, when we were in Asheville a couple of weekends ago, DH gets a text from a neighbor MIL is at their house and she locked herself out with her keys, phone and purse inside. She decided she wanted to water the front flowers using a measuring cup and something else that on the counter and with Blue trying to make a run for it, she locked herself out. She has locked herself out before, so this is not the first time. Luckily it was just the bottom lock and not the deadbolt. Neighbor called another neighbor who is a locksmith but he was out of town. They called the locksmith we used a year or so ago so they were able to come. He picked the lock, and didnt’ need to destroy it, but we also thought that since we had they keys from them they could make a spare from their codes. So, it took about 2 hours which wasn’t too bad and only cost $150 for a Sunday night holiday weekend which we reimbursed her. DH said we need to put a lockbox on the back door when we go away next time. Neighbor said he doesn’t want anything for helping out.

Yes, I know we could get a keypad, but he is not itnerested in that.

I was thinking of this thread today. I had to put our antique Spanish saddle in the garage temporarily … since then, I’m not leaving the garage door open unless I’m in there.

What are the chances someone happens to see it, can run in and grab it (it’s heavy and hard to carry), and run off before I take my bull whip to them?

Not bloody likely. But I’m not taking any chances. They can take my car, but not my saddle.

Jinx, there is a guy here who is stealing golf clubs from open garages. Someone had their doors open for only a few minutes. People have caught him on video and he has not been caught. These are affluent neighborhoods and often golf communities, and he is a middle age bald white guy with golf shirt and shorts driviing a Honda. He may be casing neighborhoods or doing Uber or DoorDash.

G, wow! Ok, that settles it, garage door stays closed. What is wrong with people!!

I think pudgeder was meaning there is a keypad on the garage and they hide a key IN the garage, not in the keypad!