Recently I saw an article about a thief who had been caught by police. During interrogation he admitted to breaking into a home’s master bedroom. What the article failed to mention is that burglars tend to rifle exactly those sorts of areas of the house first.
Think about it. Even better, think about it the way a burglar thinks about it. If you were going to rob a house, would you spend most of your time going through the bathroom, or the broom closet? Of course not. People don’t keep their valuables there. They keep them in places like master bedrooms and in small safes. That’s the first place thieves look. Can you use that knowledge to keep your valuables safe? You bet.
Find a small safe, the affordable, easy-to-move kind you can pick up at any K-Mart or Office Max or even on Craigslist. Then put it in the master bedroom, the first place the thief is likely to look. Fill it with sand — enough to make it seem so heavy that silver or gold might be inside. (Though not so heavy that the burglar can’t take it away.)
Can’t afford a used safe? Then put a few hundred dollars in one of the drawers and keep it there. As long as a thief gets something, he’ll be satisfied enough to take it immediately and run. But if he (or she) finds nothing at all, they may take out their frustration by trashing your house.
You can also copy out the serial numbers on those bills, and give them to the police when you report the crime. Should the police pick up a suspect and find bills with those numbers in his pocket, the crook may soon find himself in a holding facility — and your money may find itself heading back to you!
