A bit OT: Before locks?

Hmm, Often I still leave door unlocked or leave things outside overnight, etc. My neighborhood is pretty secure. Dead end Cul-de-Sac would be thieves have one way in and out only, so they are not interested coming here.

Locks have been around since the Romans but for most people, a lock would have been their most valuable asset if they could afford one.

OTOH I have not had a house key for over 40 years. I have a combination lock on my front door. My daughter didn't have a key until she went to college.

Tony Hwang wrote in news:JmSau.131977$ snipped-for-privacy@fx32.iad:

When I was a kid back in the 40s - 50s we lived in rural Ohio. Never locked the door and others didn't either. Visitors would come in and leave a note on the kitchen table.

On 10/26/2013 11:50 AM, snipped-for-privacy@aol.com wrote: ...

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Long before them, too...the Egyptians key pin lock is essentially the idea of the current Yale-type lock (or, vice-versa, more chronologically). Other lock(s?) predating those have been found in ruins of Nineveh in ancient Assyria.

We never locked the house on the family farm in the hills of Northeast Alabamastan until the late 60's, early 70's when criminals from the suburbs spread out into the rural areas for easy pickings. One neighbor was at work at the plant in the city when thieves backed a truck up to his house and emptied it. If Dad came home from the factory and saw his plow was missing, he called Farmer Fred and asked if he had borrowed the plow and he said yes then Dad asked if he could borrow Fred's cultivator and Fred said sure, any time. The farmers loaned each other stuff all the time and would often forget who it was loaned to requiring them to call around. ^_^

TDD

KenK wrote in news:XnsA2656002EDF76invalidcom@130.133.4.11:

A big wooden bar across the door, secured to the frame. Same for the windows.

The ancient Egyptian Assyrians and Romans had locks.

There's no point having a door if it can't be locked

Probably do a helluvalot better than the flimsy 3 locks on my French doors, front and back!

HB

Hmmm, Bygone good old days. Wonder it'll ever come back...?

Back in the Bronx when I was a kid, I left my bicycle out on the sidewalk and it was there the next morning.

Points for having a door, even without a lock...

Weather, animals (inside and outside), privacy, noise, debris.

Back in Queens when I was a kid, I left my bicycle outside a grocery store and it was gone the next minute.

Back in Utah, when I was a kid, I left my bicycle outside the church and when I got out of service there were ten more bicycles there.

Also fire protection. A door provides a quick and easy way to slow the spread of fire.

I was a kid in the Bronx in the 1940s. The demographics were much different than they are now.

I was a kid in the Queens in the 1960s. The demographics were much different than they are now.

I grew up in the 50/60s in "the city". We locked doors then I suppose, although truthfully I don't remember anyone being obsessive about it. However my folks used to rent a cottage on "the river" (about 1/2 hr from home) and we stayed there during the summer. There was a small group of 10 rental cottages and I don't think anyone ever locked those door. I can remember there were men who delivered milk and bakery items, and if we weren't home, they would come in through the kitchen door and put the dairy products in the refrigerator. The closest we came to locking a door most of the time was a small hook and eye type of lock my dad put on the screen door with a small chain on it, so that the dog couldn't get out, but anyone with opposable thumbs could reach in and unlock it.

Not in the areas already infested by human vermin but it may still exist in distant rural communities that are far from urban areas. ^_^

TDD

My late mother, a WWII vet like my late father was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY, Dad was from North Alabamastan and I remember a family visit to New York in 1957, we flew up there from Atlanta on a Lockheed Constellation, the 3 tailed 4 propeller engined plane. I remember seeing the blue exhaust flames from the engined flickering over the wings on our night flight. I thought it was a so exciting and amazing experience. I imagine Brooklyn demographics has changed quite a lot since my mom's childhood in the 1920 and the time we visited in the late 1950's. A chart of the changes to the area demographics over my mother's lifetime would be quite interesting. Mom was 90 when she died. ^_^

TDD