Closing up a door whose frame is set into stone
In older Bordeaux buildings, the wall does not give way: the timber takes the punishment. The door frame of an échoppe door or of an eighteenth-century landing door is set into stone, but the area around the strike plate is still a piece of timber, often a century old, which splits under leverage. So two separate things are repaired: the mechanism that was attacked on one side, the torn-out section of door frame on the other. Fitting a new lock to split timber would restore only half the security that was lost.
The order in which you do things matters as much as the repair. Leave the traces in place until the police have taken their findings, photograph the door, the frame and the splinters, report the break-in at the police station covering your neighbourhood, then notify your insurer. In the meantime, temporary securing closes the home up without erasing what will be recorded. Keep the parts that are removed: cylinder, faceplate and pieces of door frame. A detailed quote comes before the work, and you are always given an invoice, item by item.
Cellars, yards and chais: the ways in that nobody counts
In the older buildings of the centre, the Chartrons or Bordeaux Sud, some break-ins start not at the landing door but in the basement. The cellars line a shared corridor, closed with a simple padlock or a token lock, and the carriage entrance is sometimes left open for much of the day. Securing the home without dealing with the cellar leaves half the subject unresolved, all the more so as bikes, tools and bottles are kept down there.
Out in the neighbourhoods, the geography of the échoppe works against it: a rear yard, a former chai turned into a workshop or a bedroom, a gate shared with the neighbours. In Caudéran or Saint-Genès, a garden can be crossed from the adjoining plot, and the service door rarely gets the same care as the street door. After a break-in, the useful exercise is to list every way into the house, then to strengthen first the one that was used and those that most resemble it.
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 Bordeaux.