Ack: I left a spare key with my mom. I also have a spare key in my condo’s rental offices. They are always having to check things like the fire sprinklers and after a while I got tired of leaving my keys in the office and then picking them up again and figgered the property office was a safe backup location!

Jill: some lessons you only have to learn once! Usually those lessons aren’t all that fun…unless you like nails in the eye (haven’t used that one in a while, may as well dredge it up again..)

Of course, this was the one time I didn’t check to make sure I had my house key before I shut the door. At least I discovered it in the middle of the day, rather than after going home at night.

An apartment I used to live in had a gate with those remote gate openers. Every so often, something would happen and they’d have to clear them all out, and program them in again. Invariably, they would put the sign about this going on up the day of doing it, after I had left for work. Or else, Friday morning, that it was going on over the weekend, and I was gone for the weekend. So, I’d come back, and the gate wouldn’t open. The small gate for people on foot – locked usually, so I couldn’t get in. I had to wait a couple of time for people coming or going.

We also had a front gate and they wouldn’t let you in until someone authorized you. Of course I was the first one in and last one out of the apartment so I would have been waiting a long time for someone to get me into the building.

UT: My front door has a slam lock (is that what it’s called?) which is why I am so careful. I also set the deadbolt. Prior to a few break-ins, my neighbors wouldn’t always set their deadbolts.