The order of things, before anything is closed up
Touch neither the door nor the frame before the police have seen them. Splinters, tool marks and the attacked cylinder are all part of the record. Photograph from several angles as soon as you can, including the landing and the stairwell, then file a complaint at the Cannes police station. The receipt is what almost every insurance file is built on.
Delayed discovery is common on property that stands empty part of the year. A villa in La Californie or a flat off the Croisette may be found weeks after the event, by a neighbour, a caretaker or an agency. Flag that uncertainty about dates when you file: insurers ask for it, and it is far better stated up front than reconstructed later.
Then comes the temporary securing, which closes the property without erasing evidence. Depending on the damage, that means fitting a temporary lock, repairing the attacked keep and frame, blocking a leaf lifted off its hinges, boarding a broken glazed panel. In the stepped lanes of Le Suquet, where no opening is a standard size, that temporary work has to hold until made-to-measure joinery arrives. Keep every part removed: the drilled cylinder, the torn keep, the pieces of frame.
How people get in, in Cannes
On the hillsides, entry is rarely through the front door. Villas in La Californie and properties reached by private lanes offer a gate, a service door, a garden store, a window onto a rear terrace. The planting that protects the view protects whoever is forcing it just as well, and the neighbours are some way off.
In Le Suquet, it is the party walls that do the rest. Terraces that overlook one another, windows onto a narrow lane, roofs reachable from a public stair: the weak point is not always at ground level. On these old doors it is not the lock that gives way but the timber around the keep, levered out — fitting a new cylinder into a split frame repairs half the problem.
In the gated seafront residences, attempts move to whatever is not watched: cellars, car parks, service doors onto the back street. If a set of keys disappeared during the break-in, the cylinders to replace include the cellar, the garage and the bike store, for as long as those keys travel on one ring.
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 Cannes.