My brother-in-law is retired from a long, successful career in law enforcement. He keeps his RV locked at all times. Even if parked right beside the campground’s laundromat, he still locks his RV when doing laundry. Sitting outside the laundry building, he has a clear view of his RV’s door. And that door is locked! At all times. I imagine my brother-in-law’s penchant for always keeping his RV locked is rooted in his experiences during his career.
How about you? Do you keep your RV locked at all times when you are outside? Vote in our poll and please leave a comment.
We always lock our RV when no one is at our site. If we’re in good eye sight (seeing the entire site and RV) sometimes we’ll not lock it, as we’ll be only gone for a couple of minutes. As the subject in the article is retired law enforcement, he knows all to well it only takes less than a minute for something to happen.
It depends on where we are. When we are in a workamper situation and made friends with others, we leave it unlocked. We have dogs (hence “The Rolling Dog House”). If there was any issue where our dogs needed to be removed for safety, I want to know that can happen. If you come to the door it sounds like a 4 dog alarm because it is. So rarely do we worry about intruders. Now that said… When we have been the only workamper and miles from HQ or maintenance barn we lock our doors. We have indoor cameras and outdoor cameras.
Always lock both RV and towd. Want to keep my hard earned stuff.
If we’re within viewing distance, maybe visiting a neighbor, I don’t consider that being away from the RV.
We do lock both the handle and deadbolt when we do leave.
One thing for sure though, is to make sure the compartment doors are re-locked every time we use them.
I’ve seen many instances where someone gets something out the compartment and just closes the door. Easy to forget to lock them when they leave.
Yes, yes and yes. Though 40 years ago I would not have worried about locking it.
Only when we are away from our S&B.
I get a kick out of an rv’er who comes outside. unlocks a storage compartment to get something out and then relocks it before going back inside. A few minutes the sequence is repeated to return the item to the compartment. In over 20 years full time I have never locked a storage compartment, and nothing has ever been missing (other than from a bad memory).
I sometimes lock my entrance door when walking in an rv park.
I guessed you missed the comment above about a stolen generator.
We only lock it if we are ALL away from the trailer. If we go out and leave the dogs behind we leave it unlocked just in case something happened and someone needed to get the pups out quickly. Plus, they are a great theft deterrent on their own.
Same here.
When using our trailer, if we leave the site, we lock the trailer.
While at home, not using the trailer, we do not lock the trailer. It is stored away from the street, in our driveway, behind a heavy locked gate. We have wired security system for our bricks and sticks house along with four legged security system
Lock the RV? Depends. Our winter campground – seasonally stationary – is like most small towns- everybody knows everybody else’s business and watches out for each other. We don’t lock when in sight of the RV or only going to be gone a short bit. And we have a large dog – lick a thief to death in exchange for pets, but they don’t know that.
We lock it if we’re leaving the park. If we’re staying in the park, as in going for a walk, etc, and will be back shortly, we don’t usually lock it.
Always lock it after our new Honda Generator was stolen from our unlocked basement storage. Who would do this?
Lowlife thieves with no conscience, that’s who. It’s sad we have to be vigilant and lock things up all the time.
Thank you, Gail! 🙂 I initially voted “all the time,” but thought better of it because we do leave it unlocked if we are sitting inside or outside it. So, I revised my vote to “when it is out of sight.” We have a keypad to use to lock or unlock it in addition to the keys, so we probably lock RV #2 a bit more often than #1, which could be unlocked ONLY with keys. (Ha! This reminds me of a two-part story that I’ll send Nanci for her “mistakes we RVers have made and lived to tell” column. 🙂 )
After 28 years in law enforcement you learn that it only takes minutes for theft to occur. Lock your camper and storage doors!
Just part of the routine. Kind’a like wearing your seatbelt.
You hope nothing happens, but prepared if it does.
In virtually all of our past years of Rving, we have never locked the door – except when traveling! Compartments Yes. However, in the past 4-5 years things have changed and we lock everything including the house and the garage door is closed as well when I am not in it! Things have changed so dramatically – I am in the process of installing security camera’s and dead bolts. We live in a rural community subdivision and the area has had a few unsavory visitors in the past few years. So, it is lock it up – even when Rving and leaving the site for a walk. The first 20 years we lived here we didn’t even lock the doors when going to town for groceries. Not any more. Locked 24/7 now.
We do lock ours when we’re away from it. I do it most of the time when I’m at an event where our group has the entire campground, if for no other reason than maintaining the habit.
We lock it from the inside at night, and we’ve tried to figure out a way to lock the screen door if we want to sleep with the solid door open. We’ve never had an issue that we knew of where the locks helped, but we’re fine with that. Keeping the curious of any age, or the intoxicated out is good (yes, I’ve heard from someone who woke up with a drunk woman in their camper, insisting it was hers.)
We lock the trailer as the doors have a tendency to come open as we travel. Never when we’re at a campground. At home? We don’t even know where our keys are.
we have 2 65 lbs dog in our fifth wheel. They both sound ferocious if anyone comes near the door. The only time we lock our unit is if the dogs are not there.
Only when we’re out of site, not sight. Grew up in DC very security minded. DHs family small town FL never locked their house nor cars. More than once as a kid DH would arise to find a cousin had come in thru the unlocked doors to watch their TV
Over the years my wife and I have had our homes broken into three times that really changes your perspective on security and our legal system. But it still depends on where we are parked on how we treat security. when we’re in our RV resort in Florida we are much more lax than when we’re on the road in a camp ground for two days.
If I’m out of sight, it is locked. My dog can sound mean, but I don’t take chances of someone messing with him. He is always with me unless on a restroom run, at which time, he is locked in. Beware of the owner. The dog is more important than anything, he depends on me to keep him safe. I see various thievery reports, so I don’t leave stuff out or unlocked. The riffraff running around are more numerous since covid for whatever reason. At home, they will climb over my gates and no trespassing signs, so I can’t be trusting. I know of a person who does not lock but leaves nothing valuable inside, so they won’t ruin the door breaking in.
It really depends on where we are parked. Gated resort? If we will be away from the RV, but in the park for under an hour, probably not. Regular RV parks, yes if it will be out of sight,