Shut The Door!
Posted By Kristabella on November 16, 2010
I have a question for all of you – do you shut your bedroom door at night when you go to sleep? Like all the way closed? Do you lock it?
See, last week I was talking about this with my friend, as she mentioned she knows EXACTLY what she’ll do if there was an intruder and she needed to protect herself and escape. And it came down to jamming something in front of her ALREADY CLOSED bedroom door. And then I commented that I sleep with the door WIDE OPEN!
I remember hearing on some talk show YEARS ago that sleeping with the door closed was the safest thing to do, especially in the case of a fire. And for some reason, I have filed this away in my head as useful knowledge, but not knowledge I choose to actually use.
See, I have two cats. Two cats that really like to sleep with me. So my door stays open. Sometimes, when they piss me off with their antics at 3 AM, I lock them out. And then I turn on the fan to high so I can’t hear them scratch at the door because they want to be let in.
I would do this every night, see, except I feel bad. I’m never home and if I left them to their own devices in the house all night, I would wake up to chaos. And a lot of puke, I’d imagine.
So the door stays open. In fact, in the spring and fall when the windows are wide open, I even sleep with a door stop in front of the door so the wind doesn’t slam it close in the middle of the night.
This is probably not safe, right? I mean, after talking to my friend, I’m pretty sure I was convinced some person was going to sneak into my house and stab me to death because hey! open door means open invitation, yes?
My old apartment was all wood floors. And they were old wood floors and very creaky. I didn’t worry about anything happening in that place because A) I would hear even one step from a burglar and B) if you wanted to climb up all those stairs, I’m pretty sure I would have an edge on your winded self. My plan then was to just grab the phone and call 911. (Which, not really a good plan.)
I have no plan now. If someone were to break in, the front door is rather close to my bedroom door. I wouldn’t have time to do much of anything. So maybe I should start closing the cats in with me at night? Locking them out? Putting a hammer or crowbar next to my bed?
What say you, blog readers? Want to buy me an alarm system? Or at least a crowbar? Is it time to buy a second thing of pepper spray for my nightstand?
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I slept with the bedroom door open in my old apartment – then again, anyone stupid enough to break in with a pit bull and a presa standing watch would deserve what they had coming.
Now, I keep the door closed to keep the cats IN the room, have a simple alarm on the door, and it’s kind of the same thing – the dogs keep a trusty watch on things, just in case the alarm doesn’t quite do the trick.
inkpuddle´s last blog post ..Termination
I have a bladder the size of an acorn. If I closed the door, I would most certainly crash into it several times a night, so…door open. However, when hubby is away? Door closed, baseball bat (shotgun, when we were Stateside) by the nightstand. You can buy these great little alarm thingies at Target, for around ten bucks, I think. They’re about the size of a Magic Marker – one half sticks to the door (or window) and one to the frame. Turn it on before you go to bed and if the contacts get separated (ie, door/window is opened) it emits a screech from hell. We had them on all of our downstairs windows in Italy, because the crime there is so bad. BTW – good on ya for posting two days in a row!!
Jenn´s last blog post ..OMG- its Nothing
I’ve always been a door open girl myself, except in college when I had a million roommates. First, there’s the cat issue. Secondly, somehow almost all the places I’ve lived have a sliding glass door in the bedroom, so I needed an escape route should someone break in via the slider. Third, were I to close the door, I’d think every little noise was someone on the other side.
Door open all the way.
We sleep with the door closed for the sole purpose of keeping the dog in and not roaming the house. The way I see it, if someone’s in your house, they’re IN YOUR HOUSE so a closed door isn’t really going to keep anyone out. Burglars aren’t really known for their adherence to social norms like “closed door = keep out.”
And, with all this talk of people in my house, I’m not going to sleep at all tonight.
Mama Bub´s last blog post ..Five Months
Oops. Didn’t mean to jump ahead of everyone else’s comments. I hit ‘reply’ because @ink puddle’s post about the dogs was funny, but then forgot to reply and just typed my comment. Duhr. My bad!
Jenn´s last blog post ..OMG- its Nothing
I can’t believe that I read this post. I’m so freaked out about people breaking into our house. We intend on having a security system installed but haven’t had the extra funds for it (even though it seems like it should be a top priority). We sleep with our door open so we can hear any noises in the rest of the house since our daughter sleeps in a room on the other side of the house. Her door is closed. We use a baby monitor but the quality is kind of poor so we can only hear noise on it if she is really loud so leaving our door open is important.
And now to see if I can sleep after being terrified about break-ins.
When my husband and I were first married, I would sleep with the door shut when he was away on business trips. Shut, locked, cell phone and land line on the pillow next to me. But now I have kids—can’t exactly leave them for the burglars while I hide in my room. Plus now my kids come into room 89 times a night. The baby still sleeps in our room, but the hall light shines right in her crib, so I keep the door about halfway closed.
If I were living alone tho, I’d probably still shut the door.
Lisa´s last blog post ..Give me your toy
I have never been a closed door kind of girl. The way my house is set up now, we can’t even close off our bedroom if we tried. My room is on the upper level. To the left of the stairs is my room. To the right, there used to be a small office and a closet. A few years ago we removed the office to enlarge the closet. We have no door to the entrance to the closet, so even if we closed the door to our room, anyone could enter through the closet….
hilary´s last blog post ..Smoking good times!
I sleep with my door open. It freaks me out to have it shut, like I wouldn’t be able to know what is going on in my tiny apartment. Plus I have a cat that can’t decided what he wants to do when I go to bed. For about the first three hours I’m asleep he’s in and out of the room multiple times.
I sleep with the door open, otherwise I’d smash my face on it at least twice a night. I’m practically blind without my glasses and I have a little pitch black hallway to walk through before I even get to the door — which looks exactly the same open or closed at that point — so that I can get to the bathroom. Which is through the living room. I also need to be able to hear if one of my midgets gets up in the middle of the night in case they fall in the toilet or something. Besides, I’m already convinced that every noise I hear is someone coming to kill me (I’m a little neurotic) and I’d almost rather they just came on in and got it over with.
Jessica´s last blog post ..Just a Mum
Door closed, locked if I’m alone. I heard one day on Martha Stewart (don’t hate) that it’s safer to keep the doors open, and that’s how she sleeps, but I can’t back this up with fact. However, if you get the sudden urge to make a craft project out of spare DNA in your attic this is probably why.
Candy´s last blog post ..Ingrid
Open! It has to stay open for the same reason – cats and dog wandering. However, we do sleep with a baseball bat next to the bed. 😉
Ree´s last blog post ..On the To-Do List
I almost always sleep with the door open. Even if I had the door closed, there is no way I could move any heavy furniture in front of the door. Plus, I should probably go save my kid if there was an intruder, I guess.
-R-´s last blog post ..My Women’s Studies Thesis
I think it depends on where your bedroom is relative to the most likely point someone would break in. In my current home my bedroom faces the street, but is only accessible via the front door, which is a ways away. So I sleep with the door wide open and a big black dog 😉 I used to keep the burglar alarm on at night, but after I accidentally set it off numerous times while opening the door to let the doggie out, I stopped. As someone else mentioned, I think you can get one of those “motion detector” alarms to hang off your bedroom doorknob, but I’d worry that your kitties would trip it.
We sleep with the door open, but Bill sleeps closest to the door so he can attack anyone who comes in the room.Also, we have an alarm.
Close the door – don’t be silly. No circulation stale air I can’t breath already….Ahhhhh. Nothing is going to happen to you don’t live life walking on egg shells I think this is one risk where you will be OK ; )
I always sleep with the door open, mostly for cat and dog reasons (they like to come and go sometimes). Lately, though, I live in this weirdly laid-out apartment where my bedroom actually doesn’t have any windows. I refer to it as The Cave. I like to have the door open when in there just for some extra air movement. It had honestly never occurred to me that it might be a safety issue. HMMM.
Kate´s last blog post ..On Whiskey- Bridget Jones- and Cussing
I can’t sleep with the door open – I’ve never really thought about it in terms of someone breaking into the house, it just makes me feel vulnerable for some reason. I don’t think it would be that much of a help if someone DID break in, though: I mean, if they’ve just managed to get into my house, the bedroom door’s hardly going to stand in their way….
We sleep with the door closed…and locked. In fact the closet door is also closed. It’s something about our routine (ok MY routine…he just goes along with it) and it works for us. But then again, we don’t have pets yet.
Although, when we moved in there is no door to the bathroom area, just 2 curtains. Those have to be closed and they still drive me crazy.
Cass´s last blog post ..If I knew then what I know nowTweetyour16yearoldself
This is a post right out of Bowling for Columbine. It’s all good KJ – Open or closed your bedroom door will likely not be the deciding factor in the long run.
Gav´s last blog post ..General Tso’s Chicken
I am super paranoid, so we have an alarm system which is always on at night. But I totally leave the bedroom door open so the cats can come in and out. If someone made it through the alarmed and deadbolted front door, I don’t think they’d have much of a problem getting the bedroom door open. Plus, with the door open I can hear any strange noises coming from downstairs.
Operation Pink Herring´s last blog post ..The grumpy cyclist
This is seriously SO crazy, because (like I said via Twitter), I JUST last night had a dream about this very topic, and about needing to grab the crow bar I keep conveniently located in my closet because someone was trying to break in.
I used to sleep with my door closed, but for some reason, it felt less safe to me; I like being able to hear more, and see more if I wake up in the middle of the night, but I do totally keep my phone next to me, and the crow bar pretty close, so if I needed to do something I hope I could. Realistically I’m not really sure what good that would do, but I like to think it would buy me time if I really needed it.
You live in a secure building, though, yes? Where it would be tricky for someone to get in at all, I mean?
I’ve honestly thought about how I could sneak out a window and down a nearby tree if I really had to. Which would be ridiculous. But I guess whatever works!
Kerri Anne´s last blog post ..I Can Be Alone Yeah- I Can Watch A Sunset On My Own
i’m another open-door-because-of-cats sleeper. i can’t lock them in with me unless i want their litterbox in my bedroom as well (i do not) and i can’t lock them out or they scratch at the carpet and whine all night. also i feel bad because they like to sleep up in my bed with me and i’m a sucker.
Alice´s last blog post ..payback
Have to sleep with the door open or the thermostat ignores the temperature in the bedroom and it ends up really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. The cats aren’t an issue since they’re closed up in their own room at night just like they have been since kittenhood. They’re used to it and get the reign of the house the from morning until bedtime. I can’t sleep with animals on the bed. Never could. They’re always bed hogs!
Door is always open (because of 3 cats who can’t make up their minds – – c’mon! In or out! And in my nightstand drawer, a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum, cocked, locked and ready to rock. In Dear Hubby’s nightstand drawer, a Kahr semi-automatic, also fully loaded. Pity the fool who tries to break in our place!
Liz J in Central Illinois´s last blog post ..Grace In Small Things- 45-2010
I used to always close the door, but every since I popped out a kid, I keep it open in case she wakes up in the middle of the night, Another question is whether you close the door while going to the bathroom, if you’re home alone.
When I lived alone, I always shut it. But that was a problem because I was afraid to go to the bathroom. Now it is only shut if Aaron shuts it.
slynnro´s last blog post ..Advise You I Want To
I actually used to sleep with my door shut and locked growing up! (all the better to keep out nosy sisters!) But then when I started living alone, I liked having the door open. I realized it is because I can hear all the noises more clearly and know EXACTLY what is going on in case someone or something decides to sneak in. This way, I know what I am about to clobber or more likely, just scream at. If the door is closed, I spend half the night guessing about what or who could possibly be out there, so I never get to sleep.
We sleep with our door open, but that’s because Matthew’s there.
When I was single, I always slept with the door shut. Always.
Angella´s last blog post ..The Good Stuff
door closed to give you time to hear the burglar/attacker attempting to enter your room. Who is to say you are actually going to hear the person break into your house – especially if your’re a heavy/drunk sleeper and the point of entry isn’t close to your room. they’re not exactly known for creating a lot of noise when picking a lock or window to climb through. I’d rather hear the jiggle of my locked bedroom door and have a few seconds to think what to do before he rammed it open, as opposed to waking up with someone standing in my room staring at me. we live in a big city where you here of break-ins and home invasion rapes all the time on the news. when your’re single with no one else to worry about or worry about you, i’m closing and locking that door.
OPEN! how else are to hear someone breaking in?
the only time we close our door is for the 20 seconds needed for “bow-chicka wow-wow…”
I am single, and I live alone. I have always slept with the door shut. Not only that, but also ear plugs in. So if anyone is coming to get me, I ain’t gonna hear them!
My bedroom door is right off the flat door, and then the hallway down, onto a pretty busy main road. I also have a noisy neighbour, I can hear him peeing downstairs in his loo, at 3am. That’s old floorboards for you! So ear plugs are a must.
I hadn’t really thought of anyone breaking in. TIL NOW! I live on the first floor of a house, and my flat is split level, so I figured I was pretty safe. I won’t sleep with the windows open though. Also, yes in the event of a fire….a closed door is better. With the cats, maybe you could keep the door ajar to let them in and out?