Hiding your valuables is not a complicated task as you do not always need to have a massive safe in your home as all you need to do is stay ahead of thieves. Your home includes various secret hiding spots that thieves will never think to look at.
Burglary is a crime of opportunity, and when burglars want to steal something from your home, they want to avoid spending too much time looking through the house to find things of value they could steal. Therefore, they tend to check for the most obvious locations. To successfully outsmart thieves, you must hide your valuables in not-so-obvious places and sometimes in plain sight. The best places where you can hide your valuables are those that burglars would not want to search through or would not bother with, such as places that are inconvenient and difficult to search.
Below we discuss some places where you can hide your valuables in your home.
1. Hollowed-out books
When criminals break in, the last place they will look is all the books in your collection as this is unappealing to them, and they are trying to make a quick escape. If you have a decent book collection, a book safe will seamlessly blend in. You can buy a book safe online or make one yourself, enabling you to hide valuable items in plain sight and be easy for you to access. Using hollowed-out books to hide valuables will only work if you have an extensive collection of books, as having a couple of books on a bookshelf will signal that they are a hiding place for your valuables. Therefore, ensure that your library is large enough to make searching for fake books tedious.
2. False containers in the kitchen
Empty cans, cereal boxes, old jars, cleaning products, and bottles can serve as great hiding spots. Some false containers on the market look real, so you may want to save yourself the expense and time of creating your own. It is unlikely that a thief would peruse your pantry as they might not have the time or the energy to do so.
3. Floor safe in the bedroom closet
The bedroom closet might be an obvious location. However, a burglar would have to exert a lot of energy and time trying to break into the safe, not to mention the noise they would create. Floor safes are also incredibly heavy, making it hard to open and difficult to steal the whole safe if the burglar had any plans to break into the safe later.
4. Inside garage boxes
Boxes in the garage marked with mundane labels such as “Christmas decorations”, “school projects”, or “kid’s clothes” probably won’t receive a second glance from intruders. The more boxes you have in the garage, the longer it will take burglars to search for items if they decide to go through the boxes in the hope of finding something worth stealing. You could also pop things like tinsels on top of boxes to sell the illusion.
5. Inside a house plant
Having indoor plants is all the rage at the moment, and there is the possibility that you might already have a few in your home. You can use your plants to bury your valuables in the soil of your favourite fiddle leaf, as this will keep it safe from intruders. The plant’s soil can be contained in a waterproof liner which can be lifted to hide the items underneath. Ensure that the things you are hiding are stored in a waterproof container.
6. Old appliances
Old appliances such as an old vacuum cleaner, printer or computer towers lying around will likely not gain the attention of anyone trying to raid your home. The appliances that you use do not have to work for this to work. Ensure that your family members know that you are using the old appliances to hide valuables, so they do not end up tossing or donating the appliances. For easy hidden storage access, you should choose an item that opens instantly, such as a vacuum cleaner bag. The appliance that you choose should also have a cover that screws shut.
When you hide your valuables, you must avoid areas that could end up damaging them, such as areas with water or invasive matter such as a paint can, the water tank of a toilet or a mayonnaise jar that still has mayonnaise in it. In your quest to outsmart burglars, documents and jewellery that become wet or permeated with food matter or chemicals may be damaged beyond repair.
Conclusion
When protecting your valuables, you should do what you can to make your home more difficult, time-consuming and inconvenient to target, as it will force burglars to move on. You should also keep the neighbourhood safe by reporting any suspicious activity on your street to the police.
While we’re on the topic of placement, see 6 Advised Spots to Place Security Cameras Around Your Home.
