When our agents carry out urgent building diagnostics in Marseille (from L’Estaque to Saint-Marcel) to secure vacant buildings – or right after evicting a squatting group – the weak spots of the buildings are almost always identical.
Well-prepared squatter networks never select a house or warehouse by chance. As soon as a property remains vacant, “scouts” analyze its weak spots. Here are the 5 classic structural vulnerabilities that literally invite forced entry.
1. The Rear Service Door or Garage Entrance
While you might secure your main facade facing the busy street… the backyard is often left completely defenseless. Service doors at the back of a garage or old kitchen windows are often basic. These dark areas are usually hidden from the street, offering the perfect gift to intruders: total privacy to break in over half an hour without being spotted.
2. Low Cellar Openings or Small Bathroom Windows
It is astonishing, but a slender intruder sliding into a small bathroom window leads directly to an illegal occupation where recovering your home becomes a legal challenge. Do not overlook small openings! They must be securely barricaded with heavy steel covers.
3. Burned-out or Defective Outdoor Lights
Nothing is more welcoming to night intruders than pitch-black corners. A broken motion-sensor light in your alleyway or a burned-out garden spotlight is their favorite setting. High-intensity lighting makes any forced entry attempt highly visible, exposing their tools immediately to neighbors.
4. Basic Construction Fences
A simple wire construction fence held up by two concrete blocks is the equivalent of a “Welcome” sign on an unsecured site. Intruders can easily drive a van through the fence to steal copper pipes, boilers, and radiators… causing up to €30,000 of damage for a few hundred Euros of salvaged scrap metal.
5. Thin Wood Planks Over Openings
Using thick wooden planks with simple screws to cover a window is an illusion of safety. Within a night, two blows from a heavy crowbar or hammer can easily splinter cheap wood in less than twenty seconds.
Our Final Remedy: Armored Protection for Your Property
To prevent vandalism, theft, or worse – a long-term squatter occupation that you do not have the right to resolve yourself – we provide professional-grade reinforcement services.
Besides setting up temporary armored anti-squat doors at the main entry point, our technicians install custom steel window bars to block basement windows or lower vents.
Request a free quote from our security experts in Marseille by sending us photos of your property closures!
