Do not wipe out the evidence before it is recorded
Touch nothing until the police have been. The marks left on the leaf, the frame and the cylinder are part of what gets recorded, and a door already repaired makes that impossible. Photograph from several angles, including the stairwell and, where there is one, the lower entrance used from the street below.
File the complaint, then declare the loss to your insurer within the time set in the policy. The receipt is asked for by almost every insurer. Permanent repairs come afterwards; in the meantime a temporary fix closes the home without erasing what still has to be recorded. The clock starts when you discover the break-in, not on the presumed date of entry.
Keep every part that is removed: the drilled cylinder, the torn-out keep, the splinters of frame. They show what kind of attack took place and the insurer may want to see them. The detailed invoice, itemised line by line at the end of the work, feeds the same file. Note any serial numbers stamped on replaced parts as well.
The ways in that get forgotten in a terraced building
In Beausoleil a building often has two entrances on two different levels: one on the upper street, one on the lower, sometimes a direct route into a garage cut into the slope. The way in is therefore not always the landing door, and that is the point to correct first. Tell your insurer which opening was used — it is their first question.
Cellars and buried lock-ups are especially exposed: light doors, little lighting, access away from any passing eye. Around Les Ligures and Le Tenao these shared rooms sometimes close on a latch alone, although they connect to the lived-in part of the building. Report them to the managing agent, who is responsible for those openings.
On your own door, anything attacked is replaced even if it still works: a cylinder that has been started no longer resists as designed, and the timber around the keep usually gives way before the lock does. If keys have gone, the cellar cylinder follows the front one whenever both hung on the same ring. Service doors follow the same rule before the file is closed.
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 Beausoleil.