The order of the steps matters as much as the repair
Touch nothing before the police have been, in Décines-Charpieu as anywhere else: the marks on the leaf, the frame and the lock are part of their findings, and a door already repaired cannot be examined. Photograph it from several angles as soon as you can — the front from the street, the area around the lock, the splinters on the drive, the inside of the property.
Report the burglary, then notify your insurer within the deadline your policy sets; almost all of them ask for the receipt and the police report. Permanent repairs come after that. In a block by the Grand Large, tell the managing agent as well if the hall, the bike store or a cellar door was forced.
Keep every part taken off: the drilled cylinder, the torn-out lock, pieces of frame, a bent slider section. An insurer may want to see them. On a house at the end of a cul-de-sac on a Décines estate, those parts describe the attack better than any written account.
What actually gets forced on an estate house
On the estate houses around here the entry is more often at the back than through the front door: a slider lifted off its track from the garden, the service door of the garage, a ground-floor window left ajar. The hedge that keeps you out of the neighbours' sight also covers whoever is working on the frame. Making the property safe therefore starts at the point actually attacked.
Depending on the damage, that means fitting a temporary lock, repairing a torn-out keep, boarding a broken pane, blocking a leaf lifted off its hinges. On a timber frame split by leverage — common on the garage doors of the older houses around Charpieu — putting a new lock on without dealing with the timber solves half the problem.
If keys have gone, the cylinder is no longer optional. That covers the front door of a Décines estate house, but also the garage, the side gate and the cellar when everything hung on the same ring. A lock that has taken a crowbar no longer offers what it was built for, even if the key still turns: the internal clearances have moved.
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 Décines-Charpieu.