Case Study: Post-Construction Break-In, No Audit Trail

Each case study reflects the kind of work we do behind the scenes, when a trusted advisor sees something slipping or when a household needs to reset after going too long without structure.

After hurricane damage, a family hired a general contractor to manage months of repairs. They chose the firm based on strong Google reviews. No formal vetting. No due diligence. The contractor had a good reputation, and the family assumed that was enough.

They met with the general contractor and the project manager. But beyond that, they had no idea who was actually in their home on any given day. What crews were working. What access they had been given. What information they had seen.

Dozens of subcontractors came and went. Electricians. Painters. Flooring crews. No one was keeping track.

The job eventually wrapped up, but access was never reset.

The gate code still worked. Temporary digital credentials had not been revoked. The surveillance system had been damaged during the hurricane and had not yet been properly reset. The cameras were powered on, but they were not recording and no one was monitoring them.

A few months later, while the family was out of town, their home was burglarized. There was no forced entry. No video footage. No audit trail.

Their advisor called us the next morning.

We began with an Exposure Audit to identify gaps in physical and digital access. We traced every open access point and reviewed who still had visibility into the home. We reset all codes, cleared device access, and removed stale users across multiple platforms.

From there, we moved into a light Protective Architecture engagement to help the family rebuild proper oversight.

We designed a vendor protocol to be used anytime someone new needed access. Whether a plumber for an afternoon or a full construction crew. Access would now be granted only as needed, tied to a specific timeframe, and limited by role. A point of contact would be responsible for onboarding and offboarding. Someone would be accountable for keeping it all straight.

We also added a process for tracking the name of every person with access to the home during a project, along with their role and level of access. We put controls in place to limit what each person could do or see. This may seem like overkill, but it is not. The burden should fall on the contractor to maintain accountability for their own employees, subcontractors, and laborers, not the family.

We helped the family bring in a new property manager. Someone who could act as a quiet point of control, keeping track of vendors, monitoring changes, and making sure the household was not running open-ended.

We also installed a new monitoring system. Not just cameras, but a secure platform with clear permissions and active alerts. The family could see who was on the property, when, and why. And so could their new property manager.

The result: The family regained control. Access was locked down. Oversight was reestablished. The home was no longer operating on blind trust. What had once been a loose collection of good intentions became a clear system that worked, quietly and without guesswork.