Findings first, repairs afterwards
Leave the door and the frame alone until the police have been: tool marks on the leaf and splinters around the keep are part of what they record. Photograph from several angles as soon as you can, including the Cap gate or the service door if that is where entry was made. Note the time you found the damage and the time of your last visit.
File the report, then declare the loss to your insurer within the deadline set in your policy. If you discover the break-in on arriving from elsewhere, which happens often with a house at the Cap or a Juan-les-Pins flat closed for winter, say that the event may be weeks old: it changes the way the file is handled.
Between the findings and the permanent repairs, temporary securing closes the property without erasing useful traces: a temporary lock, a damaged frame reseated, a broken glazed panel boarded over. A Garoupe villa can then stay shut until the next stay. Keep every part that comes off, drilled cylinder included, since they show the insurer what kind of attack took place.
The ways in that get overlooked around the port and on the Cap
Around port Vauban the ground floors are full of cellars, store rooms and service rooms. Those doors are rarely dealt with when a home is secured, although they often connect to the stairwell or to the main building. A forced cellar sometimes opens more than a landing door does. Have them inspected straight away, padlocks and vent covers included.
On the Cap the first barrier is a boundary wall and a gate. An intrusion there tends to come through a service door, a beach access or a garden gate rather than the main entrance. Reinforcing the front door without touching those secondary openings moves the problem a few metres, no further. Chains, hasps and the gate to the pool belong in the same review as the front door.
Inside the ramparts it is the frame that gives way before the lock. Old timber tears out around the keep under leverage, and fitting a new mechanism into a split frame repairs only half the problem. If keys disappeared during the break-in, the cellar and garage cylinders are changed too, along with the letterbox and the bike store.
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 Antibes.