The best hiding places a burglar never thought of

Do you remember when you used to play hide-and-seek with your kids or grandchildren? Maybe you remember playing the game as a child. I remember one time playing hide-and-seek as a kid with my older brother at home. While I was hiding under a pile of clothes in an upstairs bedroom, I heard him looking for me in the bathroom before he went to inspect the downstairs rooms. I quickly moved to the bathroom and hid in there, knowing he wouldn’t come back to look for me in the same place.

After searching everywhere – including my original hiding place under the pile of clothes in the bedroom – my brother shouted out that he was giving up. I proudly emerged from the bathroom with a big smile on my face and basked in the glory of my victory while he scratched his head in confusion.

That was just a childhood game, but there is a lesson to be learned. If you want to hide something in your home and increase the likelihood that it will not be found by a burglar, hide it where you think they won’t look! Whether it’s cash, important documents, weapons, jewelry or anything else you value most in your home, hide it so well that an invader might be looking directly at the container in which it’s hidden and not even consider trying to find it there.

In previous emails, I’ve shared with you ways to turn your house into a fortress so that burglars will think twice about targeting your home. But the fact is, if a burglar really wants to get into your home, he may be able to accomplish his mission. To prepare for that possibility, you need to have some of your most valuable possessions hidden in places where an invader either won’t look or won’t recognize them. Let’s take a look at some of those hiding places.

Kitchen Capers

One of my favorite places to hide small items such as cash and jewelry is in a can of soup. Open the can from the bottom, enjoy the soup, rinse out the can thoroughly, put your items in the can, replace the can bottom, and place the can at the bottom of a stack of other canned goods. Even if the burglar goes to the trouble of looking at the cans, he’ll notice that the top is still on that particular can.

Above many kitchen cabinets is a walled-in area called a bulkhead. If you remove one or more of the wall cabinets, you can cut an opening and hide items in an area that’s likely to be about 12 inches high, 10 inches deep and as long as the cabinets.

You’ve heard of cold, hard cash, right? Well, that’s what you’ll have if you put your cash in a ziplock bag, put two pieces of Styrofoam around it (such as what steaks are packaged in) and then wrap the whole thing in aluminum foil and place it in your freezer.

Do you have any plants near your kitchen window? Perhaps they’d like an imaginary friend. Add a fake plant to the group and bury cash in a ziplock bag in the fake soil.

Family Room Fun

Picture this. Sandwich your cash or another thin valuable between two pieces of cardboard backing within a difficult-to-reach picture frame. Even if the thief pulls the frame from the wall and looks at the back of it, he’s unlikely to rip out the cardboard to examine it further.

Select the one or two heaviest objects in your house, such as an entertainment center or a piano, and place cash in an envelope under it. It’s unlikely a burglar will expend enough energy to try to move those huge items.

If you have books in your family room, there has to be at least one that you know you will never read. Hollow out most of the pages of the book and place cash or jewelry in it.

Kids’ Stuff

If you have children, grab a toy that they never play with anymore and hide cash inside it before relegating it to the far reaches of their closet or the bottom of the toy box. Burglars can’t afford the time to look inside every toy even if they wanted to. Another option is inside an old coloring book that your kids never use anymore.

Is it Safe?

If you keep a safe at home, a burglar will certainly give it his attention. At the very least, make sure it’s bolted to the floor so that they can’t carry it off.

Bank on It

Keep a sealed envelope in a drawer near your computer that’s marked “Bank Safe Deposit Box.” Inside – where the thief is sure to look after ripping open the envelope – is your fake list of jewelry items, personal documents, etc. If the burglar believes your jewelry is in the bank, he might give up looking for it more quickly.

The Old New Jewelry Box Trick

If you’re old enough to remember watching the TV show, Get Smart, try to “hear” Maxwell Smart saying, “I should have known it. The old fake jewelry in the new jewelry box trick.” Most burglars want to spend as little time in your house as possible, but they also want to get what they came for. If you have a new jewelry box in a sock in one of your dresser drawers that contains a small amount of cash, some real-looking fake jewelry and perhaps a key that doesn’t open anything, the burglar may believe he’s found your most prized possessions. If so, he might leave before tearing your house apart looking for those types of things, which in the long run will probably cost you more than what they manage to steal.

Think Outside the House

Another option for hiding your valuables from would-be thieves is by burying them in your backyard. This might be especially true for weapons beyond any that you want to keep inside your house. Guns, for instance, can be hidden in large-diameter PVC pipes, along with grease to prevent rust and coffee to keep residual moisture off them. If you think that someone might use a metal detector to try to figure out where your guns are buried, bury some old cans here and there to slow down their search.

Miscellaneous Places

Here are a few final places you might want to consider for hiding valuables from thieves:

Inside a hallowed out-candle
Inside a figurine
Inside a laundry detergent box
Inside ironing board padding
Inside the hollow legs of an ironing board
Inside a Christmas decorations box
Inside an otherwise empty shampoo or hairspray bottle
Inside a water-tight plastic bottle in a toilet tank
An envelope taped to the bottom of a cat litter box.

Don’t Even Think about it

The last place you want to hide valuables is the first place that burglars look, so avoid…

Sock drawers. Very possibly the dumbest place to hide something. You might as well mail money in advance to the burglar.
Back of a wardrobe closet. Unless you live in Narnia, not a good idea.
Inside a shoebox. Seriously?
Inside a soup can that’s sitting on a bedroom dresser. Right item, wrong location.
Inside a laptop. Any pride you feel at successfully opening up a laptop and hiding cash in it will dissipate quickly when you realize the laptop was stolen.
Medicine cabinet, clothes pockets, briefcase and underneath a mattress. All bad ideas.

Downsides to Hiding

You could select the greatest hiding places in the world, but your efforts will have gone for naught if you forget where you put them. One option is to keep a list of those items and their hiding places, but make sure the list doesn’t get found.

Another problem would occur if a family member throws away your great hiding place, thinking it’s trash. Make sure other family members know where these items are as well.

Your Turn

I’d love to hear some of the hiding places you’ve come up with for your valuables. Let me know the ones that you are most confident will never be discovered.

Tags: power4patriots, theft prevention

The best hiding places a burglar never thought of

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