What comes before closing the door again
Touch nothing before the police have looked. Marks on the frame, the keep and the cylinder are part of what they record, and a door already repaired makes that impossible. Photograph from several angles, gate and access lane included: on a walled property the way in usually shows on the wall or the hedge, not on the door. Note the time you got home, and anything you touched despite yourself when you opened up.
Report the break-in, then notify your insurer within the period your policy sets. Keep every part that is removed: the drilled cylinder, the torn-out keep, splinters of frame. They show what kind of attack it was, and the insurer may ask to see them. A neighbour on the lane who noticed an unfamiliar vehicle is worth passing on too.
Between the police visit and the permanent repair, temporary securing lets you shut the house: a stand-in lock, the frame made good, a service gate blocked off, a broken glazed panel boarded. On houses left empty part of the year that step counts double, since nobody is coming past tomorrow.
Take back every access, not only the one that gave way
On this slope the secondary ways in are many: a service door at the rear, a gate at the bottom of the grounds opening onto a lane, a garage cut into the bank at Beaunant, a cellar opening downhill. A front door restored while the back gate keeps its original lock leaves the problem intact. Walk the boundary wall as well: a gap in the hedge, or a foothold taken on the low wall, still shows days later.
The frame deserves as much attention as the lock. Many break-ins do not break the mechanism at all: they lever the timber out around the keep. In the old houses of the centre, where frames have been bedded in for a very long time, making that timber good decides what anything refitted onto it is worth.
If keys have gone missing the cylinder is replaced, including on the secondary closures from the same ring. Reinforcement is then measured: you correct the point that gave way, with a cylinder guard, extra locking points or anti-lift pins, rather than armouring everything at random. Each item appears on the quote, then on the itemised invoice.
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 Sainte-Foy-lès-Lyon.