The right order, and the right counter
Touch nothing before the police have been. The marks on the leaf, the frame and the lock are part of what they record, and a door already repaired makes that impossible. Photograph the scene from several angles as soon as you can: the door from the street side, the area around the lock, the splintered timber, the inside of the home. Those pictures are for your insurer, and you will be glad to have kept them.
The municipal police of Le Cannet can attend and take note, but they do not register complaints: the report is filed with the national police station covering the town. The receipt and the report are required by virtually every insurer, and the claim itself follows within the deadline set out in your policy.
Between the police visit and the permanent repair, temporary securing lets you close up without destroying useful traces: a temporary lock, a keep made good, a broken glazed panel boarded over. Keep every part removed — the drilled cylinder, the torn-out lock, the pieces of frame. They show what the attack was, and an insurer may ask to see them.
The way in is rarely the one you would expect
In the old village it is not the lock that gives way but the timber around the keep, levered out of an old frame. Fitting a new mechanism into split joinery repairs half the problem at best: the rebate has to be made good, sometimes with a new piece of timber let in, before anything is refitted.
At Rocheville and Aubarède the way in is often a secondary one: a cellar door, an underground garage, a side door onto the courtyard or the back garden. If keys went missing during the burglary, the flat door cylinder is not enough — everything the key ring opened has to be dealt with, cellar, garage and gate included.
Up at Serra and Les Bréguières the gate gives a sense of protection the ground itself contradicts. Restanques, hedges and terraced gardens hide the back of a villa completely from the lane. A sliding glazed door onto the terrace is more exposed there than the front door, and that is frequently the way 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 Le Cannet.