Security Doors…Probably Not

So I trot over to Home Depot last weekend, there to peruse that august box’s limited selection of security doors. As expected, every single one of them looks like prison bars, except for the pressed-metal kitsch with the cut-out silhouettes of hummingbirds, coyotes, and sombreroed campesinos snoozing against saguaros. Good god.

Moving on, this afternoon it was over to Lowe’s on the way home from the credit union. The nearest Lowe’s is out by the West campus, where the nearest branch of the credit union resides, placing both of these institutions in a locale that cannot be called, with a straight face, “near.”

Situation at Lowe’s: even more ridiculous. The only door they had that didn’t look like prison bars with a slot through which the guard passes your plate of slop is a Titan: twelve hundred bucks!

Give me a proverbial BREAK!

At least the cheaper doors at the Depot come with insect screen. You can’t get that with the low-end models at Lowe’s. The hideous metal mesh, which lets mosquitoes in, is sorta OK in front, because the random door-to-door nuisance can’t see you through it and so can’t easily tell you’re alone. But in back, where one would like to gaze out upon one’s expensively appointed landscaping, steel mesh is just not gonna make it.

Sooo… It looks like it’s prison bars with insect screen and a double-cylinder deadbolt or nothing. Just now  I’m leaning toward a .38 special.

Ohhhh well. While at Lowe’s, I did pick up a replacement for the impossible motion-sensitive spotlight in back, the one to which you have to take a screwdriver powered by male muscle to change the light bulb. When you get it  open, you find it takes an exotic size and shape bulb that requires a special trip to HD or the electric supplier to track it down. Really. I wish to be able to change my light bulbs all by my pretty little self, thank you!

Also got a rather nice, not very pricey motion-sensitive coach light, which will go on the back porch. The little cheapie I installed when I moved in is looking pretty ragged already—it really was junk of the best you-get-what-you-pay-for variety. This looks sturdier, and I’ve come to really love the motion-sensitive coach lights I installed last year in front. They’re reasonably attractive, and what a luxury, to have them pop on when you walk up to them!

I tend to wander off and leave that back porch light on. Then when I go out there by daylight, I’m peeved to see it was burning all night and half the morning. This thing will come on when Cassie goes out to pee during the pre-dawn hours but not burn kilowatts when it’s forgotten.

One sterling quality of the motion-sensitive light is that it clues you if someone’s outside in the yard. Or…if a moth flew by or the wind is blowing…

New sliding or French doors to replace the three rather sketchy sliders (like…maybe one that has an actual latch on it?) also appear to be prohibitively expensive.

Really, though: unclear whether functional doors are really necessary. After all, the door squealer and the stick in the slider’s track worked: the guy ran off without getting inside. The whole point was to alert me if someone tried to get in the house while I was here, and that was exactly what happened. Probably newer doors wouldn’t be a whole lot more secure than what I’ve got. They might save a few pennies on power, but how many years will it take to recover the costs from the power bills?