A ground-floor door in Duanes de la Mar, opening straight onto the street

Duanes de la Mar grew up around Xàbia’s harbour. The port dates back to the 15th century and boomed in the 19th with the raisin trade; when that trade collapsed, the quarter went back to fishing, and its streets filled with whitewashed fishermen’s houses with ground floors on narrow streets. Many are still there, some lived in all year, some now second homes or lets.

Their front doors have one thing in common: they open straight onto the street. No portal, no garden, no gate.

Why that matters for the lock

A flat at the Arenal has a street door, a lift and a landing before anyone reaches its front door. A villa has a gate and a drive. A port house has none of that. Its cylinder is within arm’s reach of everyone who walks past, day and night, and in July, when the Moros i Cristians fill the quarter, a lot of people walk past.

So the questions are simple:

• Does the cylinder stand out from the door or the handle? A cylinder that sticks out can be gripped and snapped. An anti-snap cylinder, or a guard plate that covers it, deals with that.
• Is the door locked with the key, or only pulled shut? A latch alone can be slipped with a strip of plastic. That was the method behind 84 break-ins in Xàbia investigated in 2024 and 2025.
• Is the door itself sound? Old timber near the sea dries, swells and splits. A strong cylinder in a weak door only moves the problem.

The order of work on a port house door

In most port houses, the order is:

1. The cylinder, to an anti-snap and anti-bump one of the right length, so it sits flush.
2. A guard plate if the cylinder still stands proud.
3. The latch, to one that cannot be slipped, if the house is often left with the door just pulled to.

That is booked work, usually in one visit. If the door is a heavy old wooden one with a mortice lock, the lock is repaired where it is sound rather than replaced.

If there is an iron grille too

Some older houses in the port and in the old town have an iron gate or grille in front of the door. Its lock deserves the same attention, and when its key goes missing, the gate is opened through the lock, not cut: the iron gate in front of an old-town door.

A door that has already shut on you is a different job: see how each kind of door is opened.

Two more guides from Xàbia

• Pulled shut is not locked: what 84 break-ins in Xàbia teach about the latch
• The iron gate in front of an old-town door, and the key that has gone

All the guides