Closing up without sacrificing a door you want to keep
On the older doors in the town, a break-in rarely leaves the leaf untouched, but what it really attacks is everything around it: the strike plate torn out, the door frame split by leverage, the faceplate bent. The joinery itself often holds, because it is solid timber and of a heavy section. That opens up a possibility many occupants are unaware of: keeping the door they are attached to, and repairing the frame it sits in.
In the immediate term, the aim is to close up properly without erasing what the police report will need, and then to let the formalities take their course. Permanent repair comes afterwards, and it calls for precision on a door that is not a standard size: parts are chosen to suit the existing door frame, and sometimes adapted to it. Keep everything that has been removed, cylinder included. The detailed quote is given before the work and the invoice afterwards, as your insurer will ask.
A stolen set of keys opens far more than the front door
Here, the family key ring rarely opens just one door. If it disappeared during the break-in, make a full list before you call: front door, service door, garage, main gate, pedestrian gate, cellar, garden shed, letterbox, and sometimes the house of a relative two streets away. A stolen gate key does not give access to the home, but it does give access to the whole part of the property that nobody can see from the street.
That is precisely the second thing to look at. Walled properties give shelter to anyone who wants to work undisturbed: once behind the boundary wall, you are no longer visible to passers-by. The round to make after a break-in therefore goes well beyond the front door — the state of the rear gate, the fixing of the main gate hinges, the garage door, the ground-floor openings on the garden side. In a town where houses stand empty during office hours, those ways in deserve attention.
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 Le Bouscat.