When the forced door is discovered by someone else
The first difficulty is as much legal as practical. Someone who does not occupy the property cannot decide on their own to have a locksmith called out to it: written agreement from the owner or the tenant on the lease is needed, sent by message or email, with their contact details and the exact address of the property. Ask whoever is on site to alert the police, to move nothing and to photograph the door, the frame and the area around the lock before anything is handled. Those images will serve the file, even if you only arrive the next day.
Making the property secure then takes on a particular weight: it will not be reoccupied that evening. A temporary closure that would hold for two days in a building lived in all year has to hold here until you arrive, in a neighbourhood that empties once the season is over. That shapes the choices — solid boarding-up of a broken opening, repair of the door frame rather than a simple cylinder swap — and means keeping the removed parts for the insurer. The quote comes before the work and a detailed invoice is handed over at the end.
The ways into a house known to be empty
A house closed up for months is easy to spot: shutters closed on weekdays and at weekends alike, a full letterbox, a garden growing wild, no car in front of the gate. And in the villa neighbourhoods, the hedges, the pines and the sloping lanes that make the charm of the Ville d’Hiver also hide anyone lingering behind the house. The openings actually forced are therefore rarely the front door: they are the terrace patio doors on the garden side, the service doors, the gates onto a back lane and the garage doors still on their original ironmongery.
Afterwards, the repair that matters concerns the point actually attacked, not only the front door. Reinforcing the forced opening, repairing a split door frame, reviewing how the rear entrances close, replacing the cylinders if a set of keys has disappeared — including those for the shed and the garage, often on the same ring. In a seafront co-owned building, an intrusion through the lobby or the bike store concerns the common parts: the building managing agent (syndic) must be informed, because the weakness identified then works in favour of every flat in the block.
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 Arcachon.