The order of things, above all when you are not there
Have nothing repaired before the police have seen it. The marks on the leaf, the frame and the cylinder are part of the record. If you are told from a distance, which is common for a second home in La Napoule, ask whoever is there to photograph without touching and to leave the fragments where they lie. Note the time the property was last seen closed: you will be asked for it.
The police report and its receipt underpin almost every insurance claim; the claim itself follows, within the deadline written into your policy. Tell the managing agent as well if entry was through a common part: a footbridge, a quayside gate, a bike store or the hall door of a marina block.
Between the police visit and the permanent repair, temporary securing lets the place be closed again: a stop-gap lock, a keep or a frame made good, a broken glazed panel boarded over, a door off its hinges held shut. Keep the drilled cylinder and the torn pieces of timber, because your insurer may want to see them.
The ways in that nobody examines here
In the marinas, attention goes to the flat door while the sliding window onto the terrace and the quay is often the weak point. A pontoon reachable from the water, or a gate left open behind someone, changes the whole way the property has to be looked at. On the marinas we therefore study the flat from the water as much as from the landing.
Towards Minelle and the Estérel slopes, villas stand alone, set back from the road by a hairpin drive and screened by pines. The side door, the garage, the utility-room door and the shutters on the lower level count as much as the main entrance. A tall hedge that keeps the wind out also hides whoever is working on a door.
Finally, if keys have gone, replacing the cylinder is not open to discussion, and it covers everything that hung on the same ring: cellar, garage, quayside gate, the gate on the shared lane. A lock attacked with a crowbar has to be treated as compromised even if the key still turns. In a quayside block, cellar and garage often open with the same key as the flat door.
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 Mandelieu-la-Napoule.