How To Hide Your Valuables

Hiding Objects Within the Home

by M. Roberts
The Survivalist Blog

Most people have something to hide regardless if the object is valuable, sensitive, dangerous, illegal, or subject to confiscation. Storing objects in a safe under key or combination lock can be a good security measure, but not everyone wants a large, heavy, and expensive safe and a small safe bolted to the floor can only contain a limited number of items.

A safe of any size also commands attention from thieves and police as something which is virtually guaranteed to hold something special. Depending on size and weight, thieves sometimes take the entire safe without knowing what is inside.

If the homeowner is present then a burglar with a gun or police with a warrant can persuade them to open the safe immediately. Again, a safe can provide a high level of security, but sometimes it can also make sense to hide things in other locations around the home.

Most people also tend to hide things in places which can be found quite easily by burglars and police. For example, objects which have been hidden in a typical home can usually be found in a drawer or closet located in the master bedroom. Burglars and police know this to be true so they often begin their search in that part of the house.

Regardless if the home invader is a burglar or police, the amount of time they can invest in a search is limited. To be productive home invaders tend to follow the same basic three-part rule when conducting a search: 1) Look for interesting items which are openly-displayed, 2) shift attention to the most interesting containers, and 3) inspect other containers which are likely to hold something interesting. If you haven’t guessed already, they are looking for interesting things.

When a home invader begins a search they typically notice openly-displayed things such as a rifle on a gun rack, a plasma television mounted on a wall, or a jewelry box on a chest of drawers. This process usually only takes a matter of seconds per room before a deeper search begins, but we can slow them down by having more interesting (yet unimportant) things on display.

Taken to an extreme we can create distractions for home invaders, for overwhelming them with a large number of interesting display items can cause them to single out only the most exceptionally interesting things to inspect. It is quite possible they will overlook an interesting object because it lacks sparkle compared to all the other shiny things in the room. Another delaying tip is to secure some of those openly-displayed items with locked display cases.

The more time they spend trying to access and investigate displayed items the less time they have to sort through our containers. We can also create some diversions too. For example, hiding a gold coin inside a dull matchbook and leaving it on a coffee table will likely be overlooked because it is uninteresting and unlikely to contain anything special, but we can divert their attention away from it even more by placing a beer mug full of common coins right next to it.

In the next phase of the search their attention turns to storage spaces and interesting containers. Because there are more containers to search they will prioritize and inspect the most interesting containers first such as a closet, drawers, briefcase, suitcase, gun case, ammunition box, and decorated boxes. Each time the home invader accesses and inspects a storage space or container they will apply the three-part rule to prioritize their search. Regardless of how deep their search takes them they continue to follow the same rule.

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