Findings first, temporary closure next, repair last
The first instinct, in a house at Le Carreau as much as in a flat at Les Plantées, is to tidy up. That is exactly what to avoid. Marks on the leaf, the frame and the lock are part of the police findings, and a door already repaired makes them impossible. Photograph everything from several angles first: the outer face, the lock area, the frame, the splinters on the ground.
Report the burglary, keep the receipt, then notify your insurer within the time your policy allows. Between the findings and the final parts, a temporary closure lets a house at Le Carreau or a unit on the Meyzieu industrial estate be shut again: a temporary lock, a keep made good, boarding over a broken glazed panel, a lifted door blocked. It settles nothing; it holds.
Keep every part that comes off: the drilled cylinder, the torn-out lock, splinters of frame, the bent keep. An insurer may want to see them, and they show the nature of the attack better than any description. In Meyzieu, where houses often have several ways in, note as well which openings were tried and held.
Here the front door is rarely the way they came in
On the plots at Le Carreau and the estates nearby, entry is almost always at the back: the patio door, a window onto the garden, the far end of a plot bordered by a track or a hedge that hides everything from the street. Strengthening the main entrance without dealing with that elevation simply moves the problem from one side of the house to the other.
The garage is the other weak point of the Meyzieu suburbs, and it is regularly underestimated. A forced up-and-over door gives access to a closed space, out of sight, where the connecting door into the house is often an ordinary internal door with no serious locking point. That is what to examine first after a break-in through the garage, even before the up-and-over door itself is put right.
In the residences of Les Plantées the attack more often targets cellars and shared basement rooms than the landing door. On the Meyzieu industrial estate it is service doors, loading bays and roller shutters that give way, seldom the entrance visible from the road. Making good follows that finding rather than the other way round.
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 Meyzieu.