Lock your car doors, especially at night! (community, USA, building)
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You could consider placing impact resistant windows on the ground level of your cabin if it is a regular occurance for bears to break through windows where you are located. Look for windows marketed Miami/Dade county standards. Impact-Resistant Windows - Residential, Windows
As with windows the door frames are often the weakest point for forced entry. There are a number of ways to strengthen door frames including using 3" or longer screws when installing the door frame or installing a metal bracket between the structure and the frame.
You're correct, impact resistant windows and longer screws/reinforced jambs do slow down the bears more than conventional. Though, if the bear is determined, (s)he's getting in. I saw a brown simply lift/tug a triple-locked, reinforced, storm-resistance sliding glass door right out of the wall like it was nothing. Same thing for security glass windshields - popped it out in under 3 seconds. If the doors/windows are offering resistance, they'll simply come through the wall. If they can get their claws into any part of a vehicle or structure, they'll lift/tug/lever it like a "Jaws of Life".
I don't lock the car unless I have something in it of value I worry about being taken. I do lock the doors if I leave or if evening comes. I have barking dogs in the house so I'm fairly sure I'd know if anyone came in. I like dogs because they are an inexpensive burglar alarm.
Concerning bears, when I was a kid, we had one remove the siding of an outbuilding and come through a hole it made in the wall to get at some horse feed...if they want into something, they'll get in...kinda like people, locks or not.
Concerning bears, when I was a kid, we had one remove the siding of an outbuilding and come through a hole it made in the wall to get at some horse feed...if they want into something, they'll get in...kinda like people, locks or not.
Yup - a friend of mine in Kenai had a bear rip the entire corner right out of his big-timber pole barn and eat a couple of his best milking does (goats). I figure if a 12" diameter post doesn't stop a bear, a couple of flimsy 2x4's don't stand a chance My tent wouldn't even stand up to an onslaught of irate raccoons - so I guess it's a good thing there aren't any raccoons up here )
A lot of crime occurs in small, rural areas. May not happen everywhere ~ yet ~ but it does in others. And as a kid growing up in the 50's and 60's, I never felt "right" leaving anything unlocked. In time I realized that I simply have an untrusting nature.
Cannot remember if doors were ever left unlocked ~ I don't think so. But doors were always locked at night ~ I saw to that. And I was not allowed to wander off past the pastures to the canal where Mom couldn't see me.
It's all about probabilities. I have never locked my car doors at home. One night, when I lived in the big city (well, big for me), I had someone steal all the change out of my ash tray. Except the pennies--they left all the pennies.
There have been thousands of nights that I have not had anyone break into my car. The probability of my car getting burgled is way less than one in a thousand. Multiply that by what I would lose if someone actually DID break into my car (someone might steal my cell phone charger. Or my jumper cables), and it's not really even worth worrying about.
Locks are for people that live in higher crime rate areas who keep more expensive things in their outfits.
I've has a house or apartment broken into twice in my life. First time was when I was living in Ann Arbor, and based on the state of the medicine cabinet, it was someone looking for prescription drugs because nothing else was really gone through. My jewelry box was untouched.
Second time was when we were living in small town Tennessee. We had a lot of stuff in boxes because we knew we weren't going to be there for long. Not really worth much unless you've got the patience to resell the gems in my pulp science fiction collection but the boxes looked impressive. A pack of bored teenagers went on a robbery spree while we were visiting relatives up north at Christmas. They broke into our rental house, and, according to the sheriff's office, decided they'd come back with a truck later for the boxes. Before they left, they decided to vandalize the home with anything they could lay hands on just for fun. Before they could come back and take everything they had, they were caught by the cops.
It took us a good week to clean up the mess they'd left behind in our house. So for all that nothing was taken and we didn't really have anything with a real value to steal, it was still a huge nightmare to deal with.
And thanks to the small town Weakley County sheriff's office, who not only caught the punks before they could do more damage to the community but also managed to track us down a year later to mail us a restitution check from the punks after we'd fled town and left a forwarding address with a total of two organizations plus the post office.
When I lived in Ma I left my doors to my home and car unlocked all the time...did not own a garage. Not one incident in 30 years. Since I moved to TX, I lock and bolt the doors to my home, my car doors are always locked and the car is always in a locked garage....in a gated community. It's just common sense. You just have to learn to adjust to your surroundings.
When I lived in Ma I left my doors to my home and car unlocked all the time...did not own a garage. Not one incident in 30 years. Since I moved to TX, I lock and bolt the doors to my home, my car doors are always locked and the car is always in a locked garage....in a gated community. It's just common sense. You just have to learn to adjust to your surroundings.
Not quite sure what you mean by that, but I've lived in Texas all my life (except for a very brief period in Seattle). Over that period of time, I've lived in the country, in small towns (800 to 10,000 population, in the middle of Dallas, and everything in between.
Never have locked my doors, whether I lived five minutes from downtown Austin or out in the country.
We've been burgled twice over the past 60 years, both times in the city, in the same neighborhood, both times just before Christmas, they took electronics only (which were insured, and old, so we got to upgrade for pretty much free). No damage to the house itself. And even if we'd locked our doors, one door had a window that would be pretty easily broken to reach in and unlock the door, if the burglar were determined.
Never have lived in a gated community, either. Don't much like being fenced in.
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My tent wouldn't even stand up to an onslaught of irate raccoons - so I guess it's a good thing there aren't any raccoons up here 
)
