Safety comes before everything, including the paperwork
If you have arrived home to an open door or a broken window, do not go in. Not to check, not to see what is missing, not for the cat. Stand outside, ring 911, and wait where you can see the door. The overwhelming likelihood is that nobody is still there, and the point of the rule is the small share of cases where somebody is.
If you are inside and you hear someone, do not confront them. Get out if you can leave safely; if you cannot, get behind a door that locks, ring 911 and stay on the line. Property is insured. That is what it is for.
Once it is clear, the temptation is to start putting things right immediately. Resist it for twenty minutes, because the next section costs nothing and is worth a great deal later.
The report and the paper trail
Photograph everything before you touch it: the door and its frame from a metre back and again close up on the strike, the window, the tool marks, the rooms as you found them. Wide shots and detail shots. Do this even when nothing valuable is missing, because the claim is often about the door and the frame rather than the contents.
File a police report and write the report number down. Nearly every insurer requires it, and a claim without one is a slow claim. Then list what is missing as you find it, with model and serial numbers where you have them — receipts and photographs from your phone's own history are usually enough.
Keep every invoice from the work that follows, and ask for one that names each door, what was found and what was fitted. That single sheet of paper is what an insurer asks for, what a landlord wants for the file, and what a letting agent needs if you are a tenant. Photographs before and after can be taken on the visit and emailed with it if you say so.
Securing the house the same day
The immediate question is whether the house can be closed tonight. Most of the time it can. Post break-in work runs $165 to $415: the split section of jamb reinforced or replaced, a box strike fitted on three-inch screws that reach the stud behind the frame, the door checked for square, and the bolt made to throw its full length rather than catching on the edge. A deadbolt that was hammered gets replaced; one that was simply pushed through a weak strike often does not need to be, and you should be told which yours is.
Where something has to be ordered — a door slab, glass — the honest sequence is to say so on the phone, board up and fit a temporary lock at the lower end of that range, and book the return. What you should not be sold is an open-ended visit that leaves the house half-finished overnight.
Rekeying belongs in the same visit, at $26 to $42 a cylinder. After a burglary the front door key is often still in the hall, but the spare from the kitchen drawer and the one on the hook by the back door are not accounted for, and neither is any key that was on a stolen ring. Repinning every exterior cylinder ends that question in one go rather than leaving it to nag for a year.
Fix the weak point, not just the broken one
Three places account for most forced entries in this city, and after one has been used it is worth spending twenty minutes on the other two. The front door strike is the first: the plate that came in the box is held by two three-quarter-inch screws into soft trim, and what fails is the jamb, not the bolt. A box strike on long screws costs almost nothing when a technician is already there.
The patio slider is the second, and it is the one that gets used out in Evergreen and the newer subdivisions. A slider that can be lifted an inch out of its track does not care what the handle latch is made of. Blocking in the top channel takes away the lift, a foot bolt into the sill takes away the slide, and the door stops being the easy way in.
The third is the garage. On most San Jose houses the door from the garage into the kitchen is a hollow-core interior leaf on a passage knob, and the garage itself is the softest opening on the property. A proper deadbolt and a reinforced strike on that one door changes the arithmetic of the whole house for the price of one of the cheaper jobs on the list — and if the budget only stretches to a solid door or a good lock, the door is the half that matters.
Give yourself room to recover
A break-in is not only a property loss, and the people who cope best are usually the ones who accept that early. Sleeping badly in the house for a while is normal. So is checking the door three times. Both fade, and both fade faster once the physical work is finished, which is a practical argument for getting the door repaired the same day rather than living beside a temporary board for a fortnight.
If you are a tenant, put the request to your landlord in writing the same evening, with the police report number and photographs attached. Repairs to doors and locks after a forced entry are normally the landlord's, and a written record started on day one is what keeps the conversation short.
And leave the house in a state you can explain to yourself. Every exterior cylinder on one known key, every strike on long screws, the slider blocked, the garage door treated as the exterior door it actually is. None of that guarantees anything. It does mean that the next time you turn the key you know exactly what is holding.
Quick answers
What does it cost to secure a house after a break-in?+
$165 to $415 for the door work: jamb repair or replacement, a box strike on screws long enough to reach the stud, the door made square and the bolt made to throw fully. The $89 visit is inside that. Rekeying the other doors is $26 to $42 a cylinder on the same visit, and it is usually worth doing.
Do I need a new door or just the frame?+
Usually just the frame, and specifically the few inches around the strike, because a kicked door tears the jamb rather than the leaf. A new door is needed when the lock bore has split or the stile has cracked through, and if that is what you have you should be shown it rather than told it.
Should I rekey even though my keys were not stolen?+
Usually yes. What is unknown after a burglary is not your keyring but every other key that exists: the spare in the drawer, the one lent to a contractor, the copy nobody remembers. Repinning at $26 to $42 a cylinder retires all of them in one visit and leaves the landlord's hardware in place if you rent.
Will my insurer need anything specific from the locksmith?+
An itemised invoice naming each door, what was found and what was fitted, plus the police report number. Photographs before and after help and can be taken on the visit if you ask. Get all of that on the day rather than reconstructing it a fortnight later when the claim is being assessed.
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