When a burglar gets into your home, his first target room is almost always the Master Bedroom. He knows if there are any guns, jewelry, cash or prescription drugs to be had, the Master Bedroom and Master Bath are the most likely rooms for them to be in. It seems that this generation of burglars are more interested in guns, jewelry, cash and drugs than your electronics (they are easier to dispose of than electronics, and apparently burglars have gotten lazy, or maybe our TV's have gotten so big, it's just more trouble than it's worth).
To thwart them, lets think about where they would expect to find our valuables, and then choose an alternate location. We already know the Master Bedroom and Master Bath are the first two rooms they will look in, but what other rooms will they go to after that? Police reports tell us that the Living Room and Dining Room are the next most likely rooms a burglar will look for valuables. Knowing this can help you choose rooms that are less likely to be searched.
Rooms we should NOT hide our valuable plunder in:
- Master Bedroom
- Master Bath
- Living Room
- Dining Room
If you are like me, and apparently most people are, this means we need a new plan, we need to identify other areas in our home that are less likely to be searched by a burglar.
Rooms we should hide our valuable plunder in:
- Kitchen
- Pantry/Broom Closet
- Attic
- Basement
- Secondary Bedrooms
Now that we know which rooms to avoid, let's look at the places in those rooms we should avoid if we absolutely have to hide things in one or all of these rooms.
Bad places to hide our valuable plunder:
- Under Your Mattress
- Dresser Drawers
- Lingerie Drawers
- Armoire Drawers
- Jewelry Boxes
- Night Stand Drawers
- Medicine Cabinets
As we discussed in an earlier blog, a burglar will typically be in and out of your home in 8 to 10 minutes, so the harder we make it for him to find our Plunder, the less likely he will hang around long enough to find it. To make things even more interesting, I'm thinking it would make sense to put some things that look or feel valuable in those places he expects to find something. Put all your cheap imitation jewelry in your jewelry boxes, but keep your valuable jewelry in a safe or maybe in a few faux cereal boxes in the kitchen pantry.
Plant some old prescription medicine bottles in your medicine cabinet with various over-the-counter pain relievers in them, then keep your real medications in an inconspicuous place in one of the safe rooms listed above (or in a medicine cabinet with the mirrored door replaced by a painting installed in the wall of one of the safer rooms). Buy a cheap toy gun and put it in a gun case, and put it in your Night Stand Drawer.
Mount a high quality safe in a closet or a secondary bedroom, or in the attic or basement and screw it to the floor, then cover it with a bottomless cardboard box, and stack other boxes around and on top of it. Then put a cheap strong box in a drawer in the Master Bedroom with a lot of important looking junk papers (expired insurance policies, Enron stock certificates, old paid off loan documents, etc.).
Last, but certainly not least, you should have a detailed video or photo inventory of all your plunder. If you don't have one, you need to put that on your to-do-list. For any new client that purchases Homeowners Insurance from me, I will be suggesting that we do a video inventory together when I come to present them with their policy. If you would like to schedule an appointment to review any or all of your insurance policies, feel free to call me, email me, text me, smoke signal me, or go to my agent page and follow the instructions for leaving me your renewal dates (I will contact you approximately 3 months before your renewal date).
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