Where to hide valuable items at home

While the best place to store your valuables within your home is a safe, this isn't an option for everyone. With that in mind, we've put together this list of places where your valuables probably won't be discovered by those with bad intentions. Remember, the main thing you're looking to do here is store things in places where a thief wouldn't automatically look, so feel free to get creative and stray from this list.

First up we have one for the green thumbs. If your home is full of potted plants, their soil, or even the space between their two pots if they have both a nursery and a decorative one, can be a great place to store valuables. Most thieves probably haven't let themselves in to do a spot of gardening, so small items (in a waterproof container of course) can hide away inside your living decor.

Just remember where you've put them in case one of your potted friends unfortunately dies, and make sure that any new additions you bring in for this purpose aren't toxic to your pets if you've got four-legged family members.

Children don't tend to have many valuables, so most thieves will skip over their rooms. This means that all you need to do is find a hiding spot that also keeps your precious things hidden from your little ones. As a side note, this doesn't apply to children's rooms where there are plenty of electronics, so you may want to skip this one if your little one has their own television or gaming console. Also be sure to keep smaller valuables (like jewellery) well out of reach, as they may pose a choking hazard.

The freezer hiding spot may be a little overdone when it comes to cash, as it's been shown a little too often on television. It can, however, still serve as a place to hide important documents. Because they're flat they'll be easy enough to tape to the bottom of a freezer shelf, lay across the bottom of your freezer, or even rest up against the back wall of the unit if space allows them to stay flat in this position. This trick works because both documents and the inside of your freezer are usually white, so they'll blend well together making them nearly indistinguishable if you're just looking quickly.

This hiding spot has the added bonus of providing extra protection for your documents in the event of a house fire, as it will give them a slightly increased chance of survival.

Almost any food container that you can't easily see into provides a potential hiding spot for valuables within your home. We suggest using items that you will usually have multiple of in your pantry and putting the false version (i.e. an empty biscuit box stashed with valuables) right up the back for a little extra security. Having said that, most thieves probably won't stop for a snack, so even if you don't have multiples of a certain container, it can still work well as a hiding place as long as it suits what you're looking to conceal.

If your home has any kind of ducted system, you've probably got vents in almost every room of your home. This provides a great opportunity to keep valuables particularly well hidden, as you can simply create a fake vent with a box behind it for storing things. You'll need to ensure that the appearance and positioning are coherent with the rest of your vents, but other than that it's a pretty simple process.

This one may seem pretty odd, but if you think about it, anyone who's entering your home to take your belongings is going to go after things that give them the best payday. This means that old printers, microwaves and even vacuum cleaners aren't on the menu. They can, however, be on your hiding place menu. Simply pop whatever you want to hide in their cavity and close it back up for a quick and easy (temporary) place to conceal your valuables.

Your laundry probably isn't going to provide much value to thieves, so they'll tend to focus their attention elsewhere in your home. This means that you should be pretty safe to make use of an old washing powder box as storage for your valuables. For extra security, you can bury them underneath the laundry powder, but this will of course require the addition of a bag or other barrier to keep the powder off them.

Let's be honest, most of us have a pile of boxes in our garage that's full of things we either never, or at least hardly ever, touch. This means that thieves probably won't touch this pile either, giving you a golden opportunity to hide larger valuables. You'll need to remember which box you pop them in so they don't get lost out there, but this hiding spot can be quite effective.

You can also consider using a paint can that's been cleaned out to hide things. This one is generally a lot more effective if you've got multiple pots in your cupboard or garage, but people with bad intentions usually aren't going to go after your renovation supplies.

Although these hiding places are good in a pinch, the best way to protect your belongings against would-be thieves is to make your home as unappealing as possible. This means having good locks on all doors, installing a security camera system so they'll be caught in the act, and ensuring that your home looks occupied, even when it isn't.