Closing up when the door opens onto the pavement
In the grid-plan centre, many homes and shops open at street level onto a busy road. A forced door cannot be left like that for a single night, but neither should it be repaired before the police have made their findings. The right sequence is to photograph everything — the leaf from the street, the lock area, the door frame, the splinters of wood —, to report the burglary, then to have a temporary closure fitted that genuinely holds without erasing the traces useful to your file.
On these old doors, a break-in rarely damages the lock alone. The timber around the strike plate gives way under leverage, the rebate splinters, the frame bedded into the stone splits along its full height. Fitting a new lock to a split frame restores nothing at all. We keep the parts removed — cylinder, strike plate, pieces of frame — which your insurer may ask to see, and the quote clearly separates immediate securing from permanent work.
Shops, outbuildings and estate buildings: the secondary targets
Around the town, housing tied to the vineyards means numerous buildings: dwelling house, wine store, barn, shed, courtyard gate. The house may be untouched while an outbuilding has been visited, and the reverse happens too. After an intrusion, the inventory therefore does not stop at the front door: a padlock cut through, a barn door lifted off, a cellar vent opened from the inside. Every forced access point deserves to be photographed and mentioned in the report, even if nothing has gone missing at that particular spot.
For a shop in the centre, getting back to trading comes first, but it should not be done blindly. If keys to the premises or to the home above have disappeared, the cylinders concerned need changing, including those on the stockroom and the rear courtyard access. If a shutter has been forced, repairing it and repairing its anchor point go together. We price these items separately so that your insurer can match them against the police report.
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 Libourne.