Here is a picture of our house. It is pretty nice, all tile, four bedrooms. It suits our family very well but there is one thing we have a hard time with, the bars on all the windows. We noticed that many of the homes in our neighborhood, which is considered to be a very good neighborhood, have bars on their windows and some houses even have tall motorized cast iron fences to protect their properties.
When we first moved in it felt weird to look out the window just to see the bars that secured us tightly inside. But then we thought, it was less likely someone could harm us inside. I think the psychology of the whole thing messes with a persons mind, especially someone who has always lived in a bar free community. Eric and I both started to worry more about break ins and then we began to think about other problems that could arise with having a house with all but two of the exits barred securely shut. A fire was my biggest concern, how could we get five kids out, eek, sleepless nights ensued.
There is one barred exit, a sliding door, that we could get out of if we had a key but our land-lord had that key so we called and wrote letters asking for her to please send us the key. After waiting for two months she finally had someone bring it to us. I immediately opened the gate to see the outside world without bars obstructing my view.
It really is amazing how free that made me feel. I close and lock the gate at night, so we are safe from all the riff-raff of Miami and open it first thing in the morning so I can see outside without the bars closing me in. I now feel drawn to that door so I can see an unobstructed view of the outside world. I guess if I would have grow up in an area where the crime is higher the bars on windows would have helped me feel safer from the outside world. But I tend to like windows without bars.