My House Is Not Your House
When I was a kid, our house had dead locks, a chain, bolts, window locks and security lights set to come on the second a cat even thought about coming into our yard. And this wasn’t a rough area where crime was rampant. It was just normal.
As far as the folks of rural Lapland are concerned, that’s like living in fort knocks. It’s one step away from sitting on your porch with a loaded rifle and taking pot shots at the postman.
“If you started locking your door every time you went out, how would people get in?” was the confused question posed to me when I started asking questions about the lack of home security in my new home village.
And there was me thinking that was kind of the point.
When I first moved here I would stand slack-jawed in amazement as people left their house unlocked when they went out or their keys in the ignition when they parked outside the shop. It was like something from Little House on the Prairie, but with more snow and cars instead of horses. People clearly had no sense of danger, no common sense at all.
As time went by, these things began to feel normal to me and it was just after I’d gotten over my fear or being robbed if I left the door unlocked that it first happened.
We had our first uninvited guest.
I returned from a quick trip to the shop to find an old woman sitting in my kitchen. She’d helped herself to a cup of coffee and a biscuit whilst she was waiting and spent the next 20 minutes grilling me on where I’d been as if I’d broken some unwritten law of the land by not being there when she deemed it an appropriate visiting time.
Since then we have had a host of religious old ladies peddling their God, the old lady from up the road who suffered from Alzhiemer’s and would spend an hour thinking I was someone else and grilling me on my family history – I’m not sure who left that exchange more confused, me or her. And, most recently, the slightly odd chap that lives on the other side of the village.
He arrived unannounced (of course) a couple of days ago, walked in to the house, through the kitchen and sat down on the sofa in front of me and my astonished children. He smelt like he hadn’t washed in rather a while and even though it was -10C outside his t-shirt was rucked up under his open cagoule showing off his rotund stomach.
Confused old ladies and well meaning religion pedlars I can cope with, portly men that smell of alcohol, not so much. I hustled the children outside to play in the yard and phoned t’husband, demanding he get rid of the chap who simply looked at me like I was nuts every time I tried to ask him what he wanted.
There’s an awful lot to be said for having dead locks.
I'm Heather, an ex expat, now back in blighty and living in Lancashire. Which is just like Lapland only less snowy...and stuff.
It’s the other way round here. EVERY door is locked, bolted and double locked, just to be sure. Most wives (not me) have to unlock the dead-lock to let their husband in. (Obviously I just leave my OH outside…)
it’s probably the same in Helsinki or other large Finnish cities, but out here in the sticks, not so much. I could do with some of those dead bolts tho…
Especially living out in the sticks, I would lock my doors. Who wants strange people just walking in? Heck half the time I don’t even want the people that live here just walking in.
You’d think so, huh? Must start doing that!
The more I read about your life in (almost) Lapland, the more amazed I am. Could you please, one day, write a post to remind us why you live there. I think I’ve lost the plot.
It was for love. I came out to work in the ski resort, met my husband and stayed. He’s a local
Sorry, my comment above might have sounded a bit rude. I think it has to do with it being the dead of winter. In the summer it all sounded very idyllic.
ha ha ha, no, not rude at all. Realistic.
I thought of you yesterday as we were walking home in the rain and I decided not to take DD to the library because I couldn’t face taking off all her outside gear and putting it all back on again afterwards. In Israel people don’t go out when it rains. I guess it’s a matter of necessity – I cerainly remember having to go out in the rain in England.
I stumbled across this site and found it hilarious. Being English and, only living here in Finland 9 months, I DID find the above poster rather pedantic, sorry, but as I am in the middle of Finland Mänttä, it would seem to me you live as far north as is possible – Lapland. Of course it does appear you live some 100 kilometres or more away from the Arctic circle, it’s rather like Finns telling the time, if the clock said 6.33 the Finn would say 6.33 but the English might say 6.30 or 6.30ish I guess.
I just love this tale: my kind of expat story. Although it is wonderful to be living in such a safe place, it clearly has its drawbacks. What would happen if you put a simple lock on your door? Would you become an outcast?
I think t’husband would be very cross. And never remember his key.
Yup. Deadlocks. And a moat. And a machine gun tower.
you know, I quite like the idea of having a moat.
Ah now without that stinky old wino you’d have had nothing to write about today. Quit ya moaning.
yeah, you’re right. It was the most exciting thing that’s happened all month.
There are places here in the US where people say “We never lock our doors”, usually right after they say “That kind of thing just doesn’t happen here”. It usually follows some whacko getting into a house, holding the owners for ransom and ending up on national TV.
OK, that’s probably not going to happen to you, but still – I’d be at least using the lock on the door. Why should you have to put up with that? Your home is supposed to be your safe haven, not a haven for loonies.
but that kind of thing just doesn’t happen here! *cue scary music*
Well just play the mad foreigner. You’re being too nice!
Yeah in Baltimore quite a few people seem to leave doors unlocked. I even had a friend who told me ‘any time you are in the area and even if I’m not in just pop in and help yourself to snacks at my house.’ She was very easy going. Once she came home to find my daughter pooing in her yard (she was 2) and didn’t bat an eyelid. So I like people that are generous like that but I still lock my doors when I remember to that is!
ha ha ha, i like your style.
OMG seriously, that made me laugh and shake my head in disbelief. Did you get to the bottom of why he decided to come in to your house?
nope, never did find out.
Hi! I’m Vegemite Wife, I’ve just learned how to scroll and leave a comment. It only took a year or so. I’m now booking a flight to Lapland to rob a bunch of houses. Or get drunk and sit on someone’s sofa. Depends on the inflight service, really.
given how long it’s taken you to work out how to leave a comment, I feel quite safe. that said, if you do fancy popping round, could you bring a nice bottle of white with you? I’m all out.
It must be a rural Finnish thing…don’t think I’ll ever fully adjust. The weirdest part is, that we ‘lock up’ if we’re going to be gone for more than an hour or so…but only the front door. The side and back doors remain unlocked. Apparently, THAT MAKES SENSE.. (?!)…’cause robbers usually only use the front door, and finding that one locked, wouldn’t proceed to check the other (less visible) entrances. Yeah…I don’t get it, either.
I like the moat idea. But then, the local alzheimer’s patient that tends to wander in here would keep falling into the moat instead. And, the village would have to gather outside our house, in order to rescue him. Then, of course, I’d have to serve them all coffee. Damn. Maybe I’ll have to rethink the moat.
Lock up, bolt the door and draw the curtains! That’s my advice!!
Living in southern Finland, about halfway between Helsinki and Turku, I knocked on my neighbour’s door. “Did you know you’ve left your car keys in the ignition?”, or as close as I could manage. finnish. He looked at me, bemused. “How would anybody move it if I didn’t?”
I soon learned that NOT leaving your car keys in the car was regarded as weird.
In the city? lock it. but in the villages, you learn to trust. The only thing I had to lock away or hide was my whisky, because the local alcoholic had tried my 15 year Bowmore single malt, and declared it better than antifreeze.
He’d have taken anything that contained alcohol, if it was not locked away.
Interesting post. Even though we also live in a small village, hubby always insists on locking the door and he checks it every night before we go to bed. My MIL sometimes “forgets” to lock her door when she goes for coffee to the next door neighbour’s in the apartment complex, but one relative told her to remember locking her door even if it’s just a short visit to the next door neighbour.
And I always lock my bike wherever I go, even though I wouldn’t feel afraid leaving some groceries in my bike’s bags (I have a postman’s bike bags on my bike) and going to another store.
Oh one other thing…and hubby ALWAYS locks his car, too. He’d never leave the car on ignition, even if our car has never been a brand new car (we always bought second-handed cars). And in case some other people don’t know, we live in Sodankylä.