In the UK, break-ins feel like an ever-increasing problem. In the last year alone, over 212,700 burglaries were reported in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Close to 75,000 robberies were reported, too; these figures should give you something to think about. It should also get you thinking about one very important topic: how to avoid being targeted during a break-in spree.
As an experienced locksmith with Doncaster Lock & Key, I have seen the results of many break-ins. Unfortunately, many of these burglaries are the result of people making themselves easy targets. What do I mean by this? Criminals are opportunists.
Burglars look for targets whose risk of a break-in makes the risk worthwhile. So, if your valuable belongings are on display, they might target your home.
I want to help you learn from my own experiences in the security trade about where to avoid hiding or storing belongings. By the end of this guide, I’m confident your home will feel a whole lot more secure simply by shining a light on risky places to store belongings.
Where Are The Worst Locations To Store Valuable Belongings?
While every home will have sensible places to store belongings, there are some places you shouldn’t consider. In my experience, that would include ruling out storing valuables in areas such as:
Bedside Cabinets & Chests Of Drawers
Many of us see a cabinet/chest of drawers as a good place to store valuables. Why? Well, we assume that nobody else would look in there – but if it’s so logical to you, it’ll be logical to a burglar as well!
That’s why I would never recommend storing essential valuables – keys, cash, jewellery, belongings – in any drawers or cabinets. Storing it at the bottom of the drawer is no good, either. The only type of cabinet or drawer I would recommend for storing belongings is one secured with a high-security key (almost impossible to find) or a digital access method, such as a keypad.
How many people do you know who have chests of drawers or cabinets like that, though? For most of us, our cabinets are NOT a good place to store belongings. If a criminal gets into your home, trust me, this is the first location they’ll search.
Under The Mattress
The adage about people storing cash under the mattress is long outdated. However, many of us still keep things like important documents and valuables under our beds. I’m here to tell you why this is not a good idea.
The mattress is one of the first places a criminal will search if they are scoping your bedroom(s) for any valuables. You might think it’s out of sight, but mattresses are easily lifted, so any criminal will search them for anything valuable.
Under The Bed
The same goes for lockboxes and storage containers kept under your bed. I’ve seen the aftermath of under-the-bed storage that’s been ripped apart from head to toe, looking for storage. Again, this is the kind of common-sense storage places that almost any burglar will check before looking elsewhere.
Other Bedrooms
In the past, parents would often hide belongings in a kid’s bedroom. The logic was simple: burglars would take adult bedrooms instead of kids’ rooms. However, today, kids’ rooms are filled with high-end gadgets, from televisions and game consoles to tablets and expensive, valuable toys.
While once a place where most criminals would not check, today a burglar will have no issue with snooping through your kids’ stuff. They might come away with a games console or tablet, but they might also find your hidden stash of cash or jewellery. Hey, your kids might find it, too, which presents its own, different problem!
Household Appliances
While flat-screen TVs have removed the need to hide anything behind your telly, appliances are still used as hiding spots. That includes your fridge freezer, by the way – I’ve seen quite a few fridges raided looking for jewellery. They might leave your sausages behind, but steal your necklace!
While once seen as ingenious because ‘nobody would think of it’, storing valuables in appliances is now common. The appliance itself could be valuable, too, so if the criminal happens to steal it, they’ll also get whatever belongings you were storing in there. Criminals might go into the fridge looking to find prescription meds they can fence before finding something even more valuable.
So, please, discard household appliances as a ‘smart’ place to store your belongings. It’s anything but!
The Cistern Or Boiler
In the past, people would hide belongings in their toilet cistern or in their boiler cupboard. For some reason, it was assumed no criminal would be dirty enough to go looking in the cistern. Well, no longer – I’ve seen many valuables stolen that were ‘hidden’ in one of the first places a burglar will look!
My Advice: Use Popular Media To Your Advantage
The above covers a pretty decent range of potential storage spots that criminals will find. My advice to you, though, would be to ask yourself this: where would I look? What do people do in the movies?
Make no mistake: criminals are influenced by popular culture and the media. Run a search for popular break-in scenes in movies, and look where people seem to store their goodies. Even think about where police raids are covered in movies and TV shows: criminals will likely have seen these, too, and are more likely to check the same spaces.
Basically, if something has been in a big-name movie or TV show, it feels too logical a place to store your valuables; avoid it!
Well, Where Should I Store My Valuables?
There are a few places I might suggest to someone for storing valuables to outsmart criminals. In most households, I would recommend looking for available spaces such as:
- Your loft. These are harder for criminals to access and less likely to be within reach. Getting into a loft is noisy and time-consuming, and most criminals will not take the risk. Besides, most people store junk in their loft – or, at least, that’s what you want them to think!
- False drawers. If you are insistent on storing something in a drawer, buy a false-bottomed drawer for this specific purpose. These add another layer of protection that some criminals may overlook. These are by no means impervious to discovery, though.
- Storage clocks. If your home has a lot of clocks, have a couple with storage spaces. Most criminals won’t go around checking every clock to see if anything is kept inside. As such, they can work well as a place to store smaller valuables and cash collections.
- Basic appliances. Most criminals aren’t going to look in your oven or your Hoover to see if you’ve used them as storage. While I don’t recommend using these, they are useful as a secondary storage space if you are really short on ideas.
The Simplest Solution: Install A Home Safe For Storing Valuables
Generally, though, your best bet is to go down the route of using a safe. Valuable Safes are easily installed by a professional security expert, like my team and me at Lock & Key, into walls and floors. A bespoke review of your property can give you plenty of ideas about where a safe would be best installed.
Get a high-quality safe, and you should be able to avoid criminals from getting into the device. We also recommend a permanent safe: these are almost impossible to remove without high-end equipment that few burglars carry. While a locksmith could remove the safe for you if you ever need to, for example, to move out of the house, a criminal would be highly unlikely to be able to do so.
Safes work best when you need comprehensive security for storing valuable belongings and documents. Get a fireproof and waterproof safe operated by a biometric scan, and you have a system that is impervious to most forms of property damage and forced entry.
You don’t really need anything beyond a safe if you are looking to bolster home security and reduce the risk of valuables being found. So long as the safe is permanently fitted into a wall or floor space, it should remain the best place to store your most precious belongings. From family heirlooms and jewellery sets to collectables and cash, a safe is the best overall choice for simplicity and security.
Why take the risk? Criminals are put off by challenges but are encouraged by easy discoveries. By avoiding the obvious hiding places and sticking to the one place a criminal is unlikely to break into – at least not without extensive tools and time – you make it much easier to protect your belongings in the event of a break-in. I cannot recommend installing a safe enough.
