What do you do?
Do you dial 911 and grab you revolver?
Do you lock yourself in a closet and cower in fear?
Well, if you live on Elfreth’s Alley, you just grin and chuckle.
Then you go downstairs and explain to the tourists that this house isn’t a museum. It’s a private residence and you simply forgot to lock your door.
It happens frequently to residents of the quaint street that bills itself as the oldest continuously residential street in America.
One long-time resident recalls leaving her door wide-open while she took some purchase into her basement. “I heard footsteps in my kitchen and people talking," she recalls. “They were nice folks who simply thought it was a museum and walked in. They apologized. I told them it was my fault for not closing the door and offered them a cup of coffee. I like meeting people, That’s why I moved here.”
Bob Christophersen has not lived on Elfreth’s Alley in many years but says he loved his time there. “I had a Dutch door that I could leave half open. People might peek in and occasionally someone would walk into the house. I’d explained it was a private house and answer any question they might have.”
Tourists that jump up to peer into windows are known as “jumpers” to folks who live there.
“All the neighbors were very close and friendly,” adds Christophersen, who is the type of people-person who knows almost everyone in his condominium complex.
"I remember a guide saying that Jeremiah Elfreth had several wives," Christophersen recalls. "A tourist asked if he was a bigamist. The guide responded, 'No. He was a Quaker.'"