Do not repair before it has been recorded
Marks left on the leaf, the frame and the keep are part of the police findings. A door already straightened makes that record impossible. Photograph from several angles first: the outside, the area around the lock, the splinters on the floor, and the real point of entry when it is not the main door. Note anything you moved on the way in without thinking.
Report the burglary, then notify your insurer within the period set out in your policy. The receipt is asked for by almost every insurer. In the Beauversant houses and behind the walled properties of Les Barolles, remember to list the outbuildings in the report: sheds, garden stores and detached garages are often visited first.
Between the police record and the permanent repair, temporary securing closes the home again without erasing useful traces: a temporary lock, the keep made good, a lifted leaf blocked, a broken glazed panel boarded over. Keep every part removed, drilled cylinder or torn faceplate, and list them for the insurer as they come off: they show what kind of attack took place.
The weak point is not always the lock
In many break-ins it is not the cylinder that gives way but the timber around the keep, levered out. The old frames of the Bourg houses, soft and sometimes rotten at the foot, split before the lock does. Fitting a new lock into a split frame repairs half the problem and leaves the other half exactly where it was. The frame is examined over its full height, not only at the lock.
At the back of a plot, and on the sloping gardens of Beauversant, entry is often through a sliding patio door out of sight of the street. The front door is then untouched, yet the insurer still expects the point actually forced to be made good. An old runner and a loose threshold make that leaf easier to lift.
If keys went missing during the break-in, replacing the cylinders is no longer optional. It also covers the cellar, the garage and the gate when everything hung on the same ring — common in Basses-Barolles, where a single key serves several communal closures. The itemised quote is presented before the work begins.
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 Saint-Genis-Laval.