The steps, in order
Touch nothing before the police have looked. Marks on the leaf, the frame and the keep are part of what gets recorded, and a door already repaired can no longer be examined. Photograph from several angles, including the landing, or the Cros lane the intruder came through, and the state of the rooms. Note the time you left and the time you came back: the sequence goes into the report.
The complaint comes first, with its receipt; the claim to your insurer follows, within the period your policy sets. If you find the break-in on returning from a long absence — common for houses at Haut-de-Cagnes that stand closed for part of the year — state how long the place was empty: you will be asked for it.
Closing up is not repairing. Once the police have finished, the home is made secure again with whatever holds: a stopgap lock on the existing leaf, timber packed out around the keep, a panel screwed over broken glazing, a lifted leaf hung straight again. At Haut-de-Cagnes, where the door gives straight onto the lane, that step does not wait until the next day. Keep every part removed, drilled cylinder included: they show the insurer how the intruder got in.
The way in is almost never the front door
In the large Val Fleuri condominiums the basement is the weak link: cellar doors in plywood, the bike store, a car-park ramp left open while a vehicle drives out. People get in there with nothing showing from the street, and the flat is only visited afterwards. A controlled-entry hall protects nothing if the cellar door gives to a shoulder.
At Cros-de-Cagnes the ground-floor storerooms and the side doors opening onto the lane give way before the main door does. Around the racecourse and the Béal valley it is more often the gate, the garage door and the garden-side window, out of sight from the road and screened by a hedge.
The frame deserves as much attention as the lock. Many break-ins never break the mechanism at all: they lever the timber out around the keep. On an old Haut-de-Cagnes leaf, fitting a new lock into a split frame repairs half the problem. The damaged timber is made good, the keep repositioned, and only then does a new mechanism go back in.
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 Cagnes-sur-Mer.