Close up without erasing what the file will need
Touch nothing before the police have been, whether the break-in involves a flat in the Terraillon or a house in the old village. Marks on the leaf, the frame and the lock are part of what gets recorded, and a repaired door erases them. Photograph from several angles as soon as you can: the outer face, the area round the cylinder, the frame, the splinters on the floor, then the inside.
File a police report, then declare the loss to your insurer inside the deadline your policy allows. In between, temporary securing lets the property be closed: a stop-gap lock fitted, a torn-out keep made good, an unhinged leaf braced, a broken glazed panel boarded over — enough that no door is left standing open onto a deck access or an old village courtyard.
Keep everything that comes off: the drilled cylinder from a garage box door, the wrenched lock from a flat door, the pieces of frame. Those parts show what kind of attack it was, and an insurer may ask to see them. The itemised invoice handed over at the end separates, line by line, what was temporary securing and what was replacement.
In Bron the way in is often the basement or the back
In the Parilly and Terraillon blocks, the cellars, garage boxes and bike stores lined up in the basement are attacked far more often than flat doors. The locks down there are original, the lighting is poor and nobody passes through. Walking the whole level is worth more than checking one door at a time.
In the old village and around the Perrières the weak point sits elsewhere: a service door at the rear, a drive gate, an attached garage, a ground-floor window onto a shared courtyard. Reinforcing the front door alone while leaving those as they are moves the problem about ten metres and no further.
On a flat door as on a basement box door, a lock that has been attacked is compromised even if the key still turns: internal clearances have shifted and parts are already started. The frame deserves the same attention, because it is usually the timber round the keep that gives, not the mechanism. And if keys went missing, the cylinder is replaced — the cellar one included.
How does this service work?
Techniques, typical situations, standards and things to watch out for: it is all on our securing your home after a break-in page. This page focuses on what the service involves in Bron.