Hiding Valuables in Your Home

There’s more to hiding your valuables than making them hard to find. Whether you’re hiding a money stash from burglars or secret documents from an enemy spy, here are a few tips anyone can use to keep something under wraps.

First, let’s knock out the obvious: if you have some valuables you want to hide long-term, you should invest in a good safe. It may draw more attention to itself, but it’s still more secure than obscurity—a thief will tear your entire house apart if they have enough time on their hands. If you have a quality safe, chances are low they’re going to actually get into it, especially if you bolt it down.

However, if you just came into possession of something you need to hide for a few days, or you’re going on vacation and want to hide a few items from your house sitter now, you’ve got a few options.

The Hidden Spots You’ll Find in Every Home

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Every home has its fair share of nooks and crannies, but some are better than others. For example, you don’t want to stash your secrets in the obvious places: under your mattress, behind the toilet tank, or the bottom of your sock drawer for example. Weblogs Frugal Dad and The Simple Dollar have a few good suggestions, including:

• In the freezer wrapped in aluminum foil. They may tear apart your house, but they probably won’t go through every little piece of food in your fridge.
• Between the cardboard of a picture frame and the picture. Everyone looks behind the picture frame, but fewer actually open it up.
• Buried in the “soil” of a fake plant
• Anywhere in your kid’s room—preferably inside a toy. We’ve talked about this before: burglars rarely enter children’s rooms, which isn’t a surprise given how many toys and knickknacks those kids can have. Hide it inside one of them and it’ll get lost in the mess.
• Inside an asprin bottle—either a small empty one or a big one with the pills sill inside. Really, this works for any container—coffee can, old soup can, or anything else.
• In between the pages of one of your books. This only really works if you have lots of books—intruders probably won’t look through each individual tome. Don’t put them in DVDs though, since those’ll be one of the first things a burglar grabs on their way out the door.

You can find tons of other options around the net, but you get the idea. Enter your house as if you were a burglar and start looking for an imagined stash of money. If you can think to look there within the first few minutes, it’s probably a bad spot.

DIY Hiding Spots that Keep Your Stuff Safe

Of course, a little extra obscurity goes a long way. We’ve talked about creating a secret bookcase box, but MSN Money notes that your valuables will be even more safe if you store them in a fake version of permanent house fixtures. That means junction boxes, air vents, drains, electrical outlets, thermostats, and other similar fixtures. A little DIY work can go a long way (though again, if you have the time, you might as well get a safe instead—or combine it with one of these options for mega security).

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