I myself don’t do it most of the time – I know all my neighbors, the front door of my unit requires a code/key, and the garbage room is maybe 50 meters away from the front door so the round trip is two minutes at most for me.
EDIT: there seems to be some confusion, because, apparently, it is more common in Europe to have apartment doors that always require a key to open. I did not know that (so that’s a TIL for me).
Let me explain how it works in apartment blocks in Poland (at least all the ones I lived in). Your apartment door (which is in the staircase) has a handle both outside and inside. When you leave your house and you don’t have a key with you, you can just turn the handle and get in again. In order to lock the door, you need to insert the key and turn it. **This** **is what I was asking if you guys are doing**, obviously it does not apply to most of you because I didn’t know auto-locking doors to flats are so popular outside of Poland.
The front door to the block (to the staircase with your apartment) locks automatically and you need a key or code to open it, or you need to prevent it from closing completely. In my case, I know the code so I can leave my apartment without my keys, enter the code to the front door and just turn the doorknob on my apartment doors to open it. Whew!