Today’s tip is on how to make secret hiding places in your home for whatever you want to hide – cash, jewellery or other valuable items.  Read on to find out more.

Why would you want a secret hiding place?  Well, one reason is to protect items against burglary.  Another is to hide items that are critical and that you don’t want others to see.  Generally you would want to hide items such as cash, jewellery, gold, backups, secret documents or other small and valuable items.

The trick with a hiding place is to put something where it is not expected, even if the item is in plain view.  Most burglars are in a hurry and will check the obvious places like drawers and under your mattress, but few intruders have the time to pull apart your entire house.  Many places in the house offer space that can be taken advantage of (as long as the item to be hidden is not too large).  Here are some examples:

• A ventilation panel can be removed, an item can be secreted behind it and then it can be replaced
• An old book (for example an obsolete computer manual) can be carefully hollowed out and then placed on a bookshelf.  If I get some comments that anyone is interested in this approach, I will illustrate how to do this in a future post.
• Some furniture has removable caps – these can be taken off and the space inside used for storage of small items
• A tin of pet food can be emptied out, and converted into a hiding place, and reweighted and stored in the pantry (a burglar may help themselves to your food, but not your pet food – hopefully)
• The space inside speakers can hide items – be careful to not hide something that resonates when you turn on the speaker!
• You could also hide items inside frozen food in your freezer
• The space behind drawers in a desk can be used to hide small items

The key is to work carefully and make sure that you don’t leave obvious traces.  You don’t want the item to rattle or be the wrong weight.  It needs to seem like it is what it appears to be.

Larger hiding spaces (big enough to hide a person) need more planning.  You will need to undertake construction to carefully hide the entry points and provide lighting, water and other things that a person needs.

If your house is searched very thoroughly, they may literally tear the place apart, but a secret hiding place buys you time.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 6:45 pm and is filed under Daily subversive tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.