How to Keep Your Valuables Safe

Here are a few tips I found in a recent promotional copy of Bottom Line Personal on how to keep your valuables safe from burglars. The magazine asked reformed burglars on their top tips for keeping valuables safe, and here are the ones that stood out to me:

Don't hide valuables in the bedroom. It's the first place burglars look. We used to spend 15 minutes or less in each house that we robbed. More than half that time was spent in the bedroom, checking the usual hiding places -- the underwear drawer...under the mattress...high closet shelves, etc.

Keep money or jewelry you rarely wear in a safe-deposit box. Hide other valuables in places where burglars don't think to look -- in the garage, for example, or above removable ceiling tiles. Or hide valuables in the freezer or in fake soup cans made for this purpose.

Don't hide all your valuables in one place. A burglar is less likely to get everything if you put items in different places.

A 100-pound Rottweiler or German shepherd might look scary, but burglars know better. Most big breeds, unless they are trained as guard dogs, aren't barkers. What you want are "yappers," small dogs that make a lot of noise. Breeds such as Chihuahua are better deterrents than large dogs.

A few thoughts on these:

1. Here's another alternative: don't have any valuables. Other than my wife's engagement ring, our jewelry, watches, etc. probably add up to $300 or less. We don't really have a big need to decorate ourselves. ;-)

2. Our real valuables are our documents -- passports, unused checks, Social Security cards, etc. and we keep those in a locked, fire resistant safe in a non-bedroom part of the house.

3. My parents hide cash in socks. Guess they'd be hit hard in a burglary.

4. What's the purpose of having expensive jewelry if you don't wear it that often? Seems like a waste to me.

5. The surest way for me to lose something is to put it in an obscure place. I can just see us putting a nice necklace in the garage. I'd NEVER remember where I put it. Unless I put a note to myself and kept it in the bedroom. ;-)

6. Oh yeah, a fake soup can. That's just the recipe to turn some poor person into a lottery winner. I can just see us collecting cans for a church food drive, putting in the "safe" can, and someone at a food bank collecting it. When they get home and go to use it, they discover they've won the food bank lottery!!!!

7. Yeah, I can see how scattering a dozen valuable pieces throughout your house can make it really fun to try and retrieve them. Maybe we could just make our own treasure map and bury them outside in various locations.

8. Ha! The small dogs rule!!!!! (At least in this respect.) But can you put up with the noise the 99.99999% of the time they are yapping and there isn't a burglar?

Comments

[Patrick]

Good tips. I've watched the show "It Takes a Thief," and they actually recommend having your fire resistant safe secured to the floor or wall to further hinder theives. Some thieves will remove the entire safe to get at its contents later.

Many of the safes made now have an easy means of bolting the safe to the floor through the inside of the safe.

[Chris]

Putting your valuables in a fake soup can and keeping them in the freezer seems excessively paranoid, if you ask me.

[Rob D.]

Why do you think they call it "Cold Cash" :)

[Lord]

Midsize dogs bark some but not excessively like small ones although my experience is males do more so than females. Intruders don't know they are hoping for someone to play with than frighten.

[PiggyBank Raider]

I think it depends more on the dog's personality than size... I've seen German Shepherds that would tear the arm off of an intruder... and Dobermans that would just lie down and ask for a belly rub. If someone wants a dog for household protection, it's best to analyze the animal's personality carefully when choosing a pet. Also, you can train a dog to bark at strangers, assuming the dog has a protective type personality.

[Jersey]

Hi
its very nice to go through above information. A basic locking cabinet can secure valuable papers or personal items but it will not protect them from theft or fire damage. Security safes are an essential protection against fire, theft and climate changes. Theft prevention, fire protection, data security and storage are a requirement for any business or home office.

[Jehunt]

One of the biggest growing problems is laptop theft. I read that anywhere from 600,000 to 1.5 million get stolen every year. The reason most of these laptops are stolen is not necessarily the value of the laptop itself but for identity theft! So while everyone is locking away their personal documents, they are forgetting to lock away one of the biggest sources of all of their personal information; their laptop. Companies like Honeywell are now coming out with laptop safes that can be bolted or attached by a cable (handy for inside of a car).