Out of Sight, Out of the Wrong Hands - 5 Ways to Keep Valuables Hidden and Safe

You stand the best chance of keeping your valuables away from thieves, if those thieves don’t know what you have to begin with. That’s why some of the most effective security solutions available focus on keeping your effects out of sight.

Ok, it’s hard to hide your brand new hundred-inch flat screen TV, but there are a number of ways to keep your valuable out of sight; and therefore out of the wrong hands.

Here are 5 of the best:

1. Don’t give robbers a reason

One of the best, and simplest, pieces of advice that we can give to homeowners who are worried about their stuff, is to avoid advertising their prize possessions. If we aren’t careful, our home and garage windows can serve the same purpose as a store front, encouraging thieves to take a closer look -- or even come inside.

Think about where you position valuables around your home and keep your most valuable possessions away from view through a window. Is your garage full of expensive bikes and other valuables? It is important to keep those away from windows too; particularly since garage security is rarely up to scratch compared with the main area of the house.

2. Kitchens and nurseries

Burglars rarely spend more than 12 minutes within someone else’s house. Within that time, they want to maximise their haul and that means often giving your kitchen a miss, regardless of how much fine china and stemware you’re stocking there.

As a result, kitchens are amongst the safest places in the house to store a variety of things, even the most valuable. If you’re installing a home safe, why not think outside the box and place it within a kitchen or nursery. The kitchen might be the heart of the home but it isn’t high on a burglar’s priority list and nor is a nursery where all they’d expect to pick up are fresh nappies and baby toys.

3. Under-floor and wall safes

The biggest names in the security industry are all currently doing great work on discreet home security solutions, like underfloor safes and wall safes. The DK-1 wall safe by Burton Safes for example is approved by the AiS and features premier reinforced security -- and that’s before it’s wall mounted and set in concrete.

If a thief was to find your wall safe in the first place, they’d need longer than their typical 12 minute stint to get inside and they couldn’t exactly walk off with the thing and try again at home.

Under floor safes are perhaps even better hidden, since few criminals think to look under floorboards in the average family semi-detached.

4. The old tricks aren’t the best

They might not think to look under your sink, or behind a picture frame but they’ll always look under doormats and plant pots by your front door. Ok, you’re not going to keep an iPad or the family jewels under a plant pot, but you could hide a key to your house there and that’s just giving them unadulterated access to all of your stuff.

Ok, so a persistent thief could still find a way into your home without a key, but it’s still important to make life as difficult as possible for them; and even if they do get inside there are still ways to keep your valuables out of reach.

5. Hide your valuables in a lettuce or a book

No we haven’t lost our minds. You’d be surprised at the value of the things you could hide in a small, yet incredibly smart decoy safe.

These safes are designed to look like perfectly uninspiring household objects, but they can be used to store cash, jewellery and a whole lot else besides.

Our personal favourite has to be the life-like lettuce safe which can be used to keep your valuables safe and chilled in the fridge. Other great decoy safes include tin cans, hollow books and fake plug sockets that stick to the wall.