Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…
What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!
1 Like
She was such a great guest. Was awesome to hear her thoughts on this
Is it normal in America to change the locks, when you move to a new residence?
I moved house over a dozen times in the UK and Germany and it never occurred to my parent, and later myself, to change the locks, only when we actually replaced the front door at the current place.
1 Like
I don’t personally know if it’s normal, as I don’t know anyone who has ever moved house in to anything but a “new build”… but I certainly don’t think it to be abnormal. How many copies did the previous owner give out or lose track of? Previous pet sitters, baby sitters, house sitters, friends, neighbours and relatives might all have keys to the house. (They might have unscrupulously had copies made when they were given use of the keys for a one time purpose.) Surely none of them have plans to rob the new owners blind, but why take the chance?
1 Like
When I moved into my current house, I changed the locks, but I was putting in Z-Wave compatible combo locks, so it made sense to change out the key at that point. Since then I’ve also replaced the garage door openers that came with the house (though it was due to failure, not security, but the new one came with smart features :))
I’ve never changed the locks. Anywhere. Maybe I’m just the trusting sort. We never even locked the front door when home until recently.
3 Likes
Not in my experience. Depends on the situation I guess, if you’re buying a foreclosure or some such.
There are multiple reasons to change the locks, yes there could be issues with someone having keys still.
For the most part it seems like in rental properties the locks usually get changed by the landlord, but I also change my locks because they usually are keyed different and I prefer to have them keyed alike as well as installing smart locks. I have always felt in my adult life that it is necessary to change them, my parents never did, maybe a sign of the times? I’m not sure but it is definitely something I do now.
1 Like
Possibly a sign of the times. In the UK, I used to leave the French windows in the garden wide open on a summer’s day, when I went shopping, for example. I also forgot to close the windows on my car on more than one occasion, only to have my neighbour knock on my door the next morning to tell me - usually a bunch of CDs in the car, once my briefcase, raincoat, complete with cheque book etc. but nobody touched it.
Since I moved away, the council bought a lot of houses in the area and used it for social housing, now my old neighbours can’t even leave the cars on the street over night, otherwise the tyres will probably have been knifed, the aerial or the mirrors ripped off… 
(I’m not saying that everybody in social housing is a problem, but there were a lot of disaffected teenagers that got moved into the area and made trouble.)
My dad and his girlfriend managed a centre for delinquent teenagers in Blackpool in the 90s, my brother and I rode up there on our motorbikes and we stayed there for a week. None of them even touched the bikes, or at least only sat on them when we said they could, because some of them were genuinely interested. I think they were probably better protected there than out on the streets of Blackpool itself…
When I came to Germany, a friend near Hannover told me that if I was ever passing, the terrace door is unlocked, just go in and help myself to something to eat or drink, and if I wanted a ride, the keys were in the ignition of his motorbikes in the garage… He probably can’t do that these days.
Where I live now, it is still fairly safe, but times have changed and we do lock the doors when we leave the house…
1 Like