Hide Your Stuff in Plain Sight and a Burglar Will Be Baffled

I stumbled across this article right after a co-worker's house was broken into.  It reminded me of an old boyfriend who kept his Savings Bonds and other important papers in the bottom of his fridge under the veggie drawer.  

He kept it between two pieces of cardboard, wrapped in paper towels then sealed in two ziploc baggies; THEN taped down to bottom.  When I inquired he said a firefighter friend told him the fridge and freezers are the LAST things to burn in a house fire.  WOW! Great idea!

I am reposting it because I thought there were many good ideas and it made me come up with some new ones myself!

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Hide and seek was a great game for some of us as kids. As adults, some of us apparently did not learn much from that childhood game because we continue to hide cash and other valuables in places so obvious that anyone could find them.

Let's take a look at some of those lousy hiding places before we examine some good ones:

• Sock drawers
• Back of a wardrobe closet
• Inside a shoebox
• Inside a laptop
• Medicine cabinet, clothes pockets, briefcase and underneath a mattress

OK, enough of the not-so-good places to hide valuables. 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. Here are some examples:

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.

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.


**(I was thinking that dead space under cabinets, called toe space or toe kick; there are drawers you can install just under sink with a tiny shelf for sponges and the like.  Why not pull a piece of it an put a drawer in; but one you can kick with your toe and it pushes out like the old stereo cabinet drawers.  Here is a link to my idea: Under Cabinet)**

Family Room Fun

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.



**(There are so many products now like a fake book or can of tennis balls..make sure you HAVE these items already. If you have ONE classical book in your house and only magazines, it's a no brainer!)**

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.

To your survival,

Frank Bates