Do you open or close your curtains/blinds when you go out?

DigForVictory

No, but I live in a house with three teenagers & a historian.

A Beware of the Dog sign would be wasted funds - anyone burgling will soon be either accosted or damaged from stepping on something unexpected. Most of which has next to no resale value, & you have to go through a lot of mess to find where the only-possibly-worth-it stuff is.

Thinking on it, I really need to get the downstairs window curtain pole put up so I can choose whether or not I try to conceal the mayhem. Someone peering in our window is either at the door (currently seedlings clearly visible & heaped still-moving-in stuff thereafter) or trespassing along the path (more seedlings, even more heaped still-moving-in stuff). Somehow I think the burglars have decided we're not worth the fuss.

Torry_Quine

Not come across closing curtains when going out. I close mine when it gets dark so if I'm out during the day they will be open.

paulsad

No never bother, someone told me that sunlight kills a lot of the little microscopic nasties that inhabit your bedding so I tend to leave my duvet down and the curtain/blinds open upstairs

thriftwizard

We close our curtains when it's going dark, to keep warmth in the house, and open them when it's light, rather than use 'leccy for lighting. On very warm days I might close or half-close the curtains on the south side of the house, to keep the heat from building up too much, but we can create a good through-draft by opening the garden door & the downstairs loo window, which are on opposite sides of the house, one of them facing into the prevailing wind. As the house is rarely empty for long, as 7 people (all one family, some working from home) live here, potential burglars would probably be completely baffled by our movements and would be risking life & limb clambering over the excess furniture & my stock anyway!

The one time a curtain will definitely be closed in daylight when I'm in, is when I'm sewing - direct sunlight causes my computerised machine to think that its bobbin is empty, so it squeaks error messages at me and refuses to go until I pull the curtain across! A nuisance, but it's so good in other ways that I can forgive it.

Cappella

We close our curtains at night as soon as we switch the lights on, and open them when we get up in the morning. Burglars assuming that we were out in this time would get a very hostile response from our Border terrier - they are warned by our window sticker that he's on patrol in the house.
It's not common here for people to close curtains or blinds when they go out: but I'm amazed by how many on our estate don't close them when they're in, in the evenings, either.
It's rather like having my own private theatres to watch when I walk the dog in the evening.
We were burgled three times in one year but since we've had dogs and an alarm system we've been left in peace. Fingers crossed it continues.

Sayschezza

It's common in the Netherlands to leave curtains open at all times I have been told. Will check it out in july

System

In the summer I have all my curtains closed all day to keep the house cool.

Same here and also if its very cold to keep the heat in.

I also shut the living room blinds when i go out because my one dog in particular likes to sit on the chair and bark at people going past.

Tigsteroonie

elsien wrote: »

I'm a nosey beggar and work on the basis that if you don't want people to see in, don't leave your curtains open and your light on.

Precisely why they are closed

catkins wrote: »

Does that not make your room dark? I have nets because although I don't like them I dislike people being able to nose in even more.

No, they're off-white and let quite a lot of light through. In the lounge, the french doors at the back of the house let in a lot of natural light. In the bedroom, I don't really care as I'm in there to sleep, in fact the blinds let through so much light that we still have to use heavy curtains to make it dark.

monnagran

I love travelling by train in the winter when lights are on in houses and curtains not drawn. Little glimpses of other people's lives are fascinating.

When I had a large house full of teenagers, some mine and some who came for the weekend and were still there 3 years later, curtains never seemed to be drawn, windows were never closed or doors locked. One friend who was living with us for a while when she was between houses was appalled. She came back to the house one day and found everything unlocked and open, lights on, radio blaring and the place as empty as the Marie Celeste. One teenager told her not to worry, that the house was a byword in the local underworld for being the sort of place it was best to avoid at all costs.
"Besides," added another, "if Mrs C (me) came across a burglar she probably wouldn't realise that he didn't belong here and she'd first give him a job to do and then she'd feed him. He wouldn't be back in a hurry."

I resented the implication that my food was not up to the average burglar's expectations.

X

CathA

I only close the curtains when is dark and we have the lights on. Having a child who, when they lived at home, never opened a window and positively screamed if sunlight touched her and so never opened her curtains, I love having all the windows open when I'm in. I shut them if I go out though.