What comes before the repair
Touch nothing before the police have seen it. The marks on the leaf, the frame and the lock are part of what they record, and a door already repaired makes that impossible. Photograph the scene from several angles as soon as you can: the door from outside, the area around the lock, the splinters on the ground. Note the time you found it, you will be asked.
Extend the photographs to the secondary ways in. On a walled property at Les Sources or Vianney the entry point is rarely the front door: a service door at the back, the garage door, a side gate at the bottom of the grounds, a cellar vent. Those points count in the file even if they look untouched at first glance.
File the police report first; the insurer is then notified within whatever period the policy allows. In the meantime a temporary securing lets the home be closed without erasing what the investigation needs: a temporary lock, a repaired frame, a boarded glazed panel, a lifted leaf blocked back in place. Keep the parts removed: the drilled cylinder, the torn striking plate, pieces of frame.
What gets replaced, and what we look at around it
In Écully the frame often says more than the lock: plenty of break-ins leave the mechanism intact and lever at the timber around the striking plate until it tears away. On an old door in the core the fibre splits away, and fitting a new lock into a cracked frame solves half the problem. On a frame bedded into stone it is sometimes the plate fixing that has given, not the wood.
If keys have gone missing, replacing the cylinders is no longer optional. In Écully that means the whole keyring: side gate, service door, garage, cellar, and the outdoor key safe if there is one. A key taken along with post showing the address leaves the home identifiable for a long time.
Lastly, the weak point is corrected rather than everything reinforced. A door forced at the foot calls for extra locking points, a lifted leaf for anti-lift studs. But if entry was made through a ground floor window hidden behind a hedge, armouring the front door changes nothing. The entry point that was found guides the work, not the anxiety of the following night.
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 Écully.