Locking doors and herd immunity

[mindstalk]

Reportedly, in small towns, people don't lock their doors much. In cities, we do. In college I had a friend who didn't lock her dorm room, which struck me as weird (though I happily took advantage to drop off surprise flowers.) Sometimes I've wondered about the need for locks; I'm home a lot, and it's not like people come to try the door. (Of course, I live in a good neighborhood.) And it'd probably look weird to go down a street or hallway trying door after door.

But, of course, if no one locked their door, you could just go to any home that looked empty and enter to plunder it. It's the fact that everyone locks their door that means an individual can get away without it, like skipping on vaccination if everyone else gets shots.

Comments

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

I have a friend whose parents live in a suburb of Boston. They don't lock their doors.

[countrycousin.livejournal.com]

I grew up in rural Vermont - we never locked doors. Live in Vermont again, for the last dozen years in a small town. Can't do that any more. Burglary, often to finance dependencies.

From King of the Road: "And every lock that ain't locked When no one's around."

[mmegaera.livejournal.com]

I grew up in suburban Los Angeles, Denver, and San Francisco. I have always been a religious door-locker, both house and car. When I moved to a small town in middle-of-nowhere Montana for a short time as an adult, my co-workers used to tease me about locking my car when I went into the gas station to pay for my gas (this was almost 20 years ago, pre-pay at the pump).