With the popularity of MMA, there is no shortage of self defense advice - lot of it coming from practitioners of newer martial arts, like Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. While that is a great choice to study for most people, the issue is that it takes a great deal of time and discipline to become proficient at it. When it comes to preparing oneself for a violent street encounter, grappling or going to the ground (ie, the street) might not be the wisest choice for a number of reasons. Same goes for learning complex small joint holds, like finger or elbow locks, because with the huge adrenaline dump that goes with being attacked suddenly, your fine motor skills deteriorate very rapidly. (see Bruce Siddle’s excellent book called “Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge” for more detail about this).

What does work best in short violent street encounters are gross motor skill movements (knees, headbutts, elbows, etc) which direct maximum force against your adversary’s weakest areas. There are no better manuals of study than these listed below (yes they are old school, but definitely not outdated!):

“Championship Fighting” by Jack Dempsey. Dempsey was perhaps one of the top three boxers of all time, and his manual from 1950 is years ahead of its time. It was plagiarized by an author writing under the pseudonym “Ned Beaumont”, who wrote a book in the late 90s called “Championship Streetfighting” which borrowed large sections of Dempsey’s work. It is also common knowledge that Dempsey was also one of Bruce Lee’s favorite fighters of all time. Dempsey, a smaller individual, used superior technique to devestate many larger opponents. The “Manassa Mauler” used to delight in beating up big guys! This is a must read for any boxing-history buff or serious student of martial arts. Print copies of this book are rare and very expensive.Championship Fighting.

“Kill or be Killed” by Rex Applegate. The late, great Applegate trained allied special forces in close-quarter combat during World War II. Kill or be Killed was published by the US Marine Corps as Fleet Marine Force Reference Publication 12-80 with the introduction, “This reference publication was written in 1976 by Lieutenant Colonel Rex Applegate, USA (Ret), with the help of the Combat Section, Military Intelligence Training Center, Camp Ritchie, Maryland. At last there is one volume which speaks to the subjects of unarmed combat (offensive and defensive), combat use of weapons, disarming the enemy, handling of prisoners, the handle of mob/crowd disobedience, the use of chemicals in such situations, and how to establish a professional riot control unit.” Kill or be Killed features unbeatable close-quarter combat techniques that will enable you to devastate any punks who would dare to mess with you!

“Get Tough” by William E Fairbairn. Fairburn was a British soldier, and police officer who was for most of his early career stationed in the former British territory of Shanghai, where he was forced into kill-or-be-killed streetfight on a regular basis. His relatively short book encompasses all of the basic, easy to learn and apply self defense skills which are still the best to this day. Get Tough!

“The Secrets of Street Self-Defence” by Paul Wellard. This is a relatively obscure, but thorough treatise on self defense from the 1970s. It was also plagiarized decades later by Peyton Quinn in “Secrets of Barroom Brawling”, where large amounts of the text were reproduced. The author covers avoiding street encounters, the mental aspects of fighting and controlling fear, conditioning, takedowns, nerve strikes, grappling, improvised weapons and more. The Secrets of Street Self-Defence shouldn’t be a secret!

But The $50 & Up Underground House Book does much more than just cut your building material costs by up to 90%. It is widely recognized as the book which offers the reader the greatest possibilities for light, air and views in an underground home. Where most owner-designers and even professional architects are stuck on the disastrous “First Thought” concept, a design which greatly limits view, sunshine and air flow, and which usually causes staggering drainage problems, Oehler offers the “Basic Design” with the “Up Hill Patio” which solves these problems and more. He explains the weaknesses of the other three design concepts favored by conventional architects: skylights, vertical window wells and atriums. For example, though skylights admit a rewarding amount of light, they are hard to use for ventilation and fire escape, get dirty quicker, often leak, admit too much of the summer sun, too little of the winter rays, and offer no view whatsoever. They may have special applications, Oehler argues, but there are better design concepts for normal use.

download Underground House Book

Taking a vest or an old denim jacket and lining with thin, tightly meshed chicken wire and layers of heavy duty aluminum foil in between will short out the two darts, even if they pierce one’s clothing. Several layers of the wire and foil will short the current between the two electrodes. Just use some kind of tool to rivet, staple or snap the wire in the body of the jacket to hold it in place fairly well. Duct tape might come in handy in the final stage of construction to hold it all together.

One doesn’t have to look too far to see examples of out of control law enforcement and other agents of the State have become. There is no shortage of thugs in uniform; protecting yourself from them is no different than protecting yourself from dangerous criminals.

If it is possible for you to have access to an urban sewer system through larger culverts or aqueducts, then you could well have an expressway to freedom. All it takes is a bit of curiosity and some spare time to scope one out and see where it leads. If it is possible, with some imagination, you could even get the plans for the city’s sewer system with a creative excuse - say like a urban planning project for university or something along those lines. An urban, underground escape route might prove to be an interesting thing to research.

Surviving an assault on your person, or “winning a fight”, aren’t your only worries, because it is highly probable that you will be dealing with the police and/or legal system. You could win a physical battle, but loose the legal war - if you do not play your cards right!

When a street fight or assault occurs, there are several factors that will likely trigger the attention of the police: noise, broken or damaged property, disturbed neighbours or businesses, and obvious signs of physical trauma. Since it is the job of the police to act on reasonable suspicions of breaches of the criminal code, you can bet they will be asking you questions if you get into a fight in public.

From the perspective of the police in investigating probable assaults, they are concerned with factors such as:

• The use of force by you - was it reasonable? Did you use reasonable force in protecting yourself? In determining whether or not you have a legitimate claim to self defence, they will determine if the force you used to defend yourself was proportionate to the force or threat of immanent force posed against you? For example, in practical terms, a slap is equal to a slap, a punch to a punch, etc… If all the other person did was give you a shove, you would not be justified in throwing them to the ground with a Sambo throw and stomping their head to the ground. This is what the law would term “excessive force”, which will invalidate your claims to “self defence” - guaranteed!
• Was there a “disparity of force” used against you? If you are attacked by a larger attacker or multiple attackers, it bodes in your favour with your claim that you had to use force to defend yourself against immediate physical harm or even death.
• Were there aggravating circumstances? Is your attacker known to you? Often “prior acts” will help you, if the person also has a history of stalking or harassing you.
• Did you do all you could to reasonably avoid a fight? Could you have run? Called the police? Got in your car and drove away? Why did you get out of your car and start an argument with the other person(s)? All of these sorts of criteria will help the police filter out whether or not you acted “reasonably”, ie, would most other people have done the same as you? The word “reasonable” is the middle word in police work! Keep it in mind, and it could save your ass from being thrown in the slammer or being sued, or both!

Things to keep in mind when dealing with the police after a fight:

• In a streetfight, there is no “winner” or “looser”. The “winner” usually goes to jail, and/or civil court, and the “looser” usually ends up injured, possibly permanently, or in the trauma ward in the hospital - or dead. Keep this in mind when dealing with all the crazies out there. It is not worth it, to get into a potentially life-changing conflict, over trifles or ego, when they can be avoided. Some times, you just have to let shit go.
• When the police show up, for God’s sake, be polite and respectful. Do not act aggressively. If you came out on top and the attacker is injured, do not gloat or act proud of yourself. Keep you emotions in check! Emotional intelligence is your best friend here in the few minutes within which the police will determine if you are a “good guy” or “bad guy”.
• Identify yourself as the victim. Lay out the sequence of events in a calm, rational manner. Say, “Officer, he did this and this, I tried to get away, but he left me no choice… He did “A”, which forced me to do “B”, which led to “C”. And again, be polite! Do not use profanity, slurs or anything else. Sure, you could have beaten a really bad guy’s ass back there, but don’t also beat yourself!
• Learn the law in your jurisdiction. Usually the legal interpretation of self defence is pretty standard, but it does vary. For example, in Texas, we have the so-called “Castle Law“, where you are pretty much entitled to use lethal force to protect your home from home invaders. Other places like Canada or the UK have stricter laws.
• If arrested, say nothing without a lawyer present. Learn about police interrogation tactics like the “Reid Technique“.

The best way to deal with the police after a fight or assault is to avoid getting into on in the first place! That is the major premise of this site - avoidance!

The idea of burying treasure underground is by no means a new one, but due to the global economic recession, it is an idea that is gaining in popularity once again. With mounting bank failures and an increasing intrusion into people’s lives by government, it isn’t hard to understand why some folks would resort to this method of hiding money.

Thanks to inexpensive plastic plumbing pipe (PVC Pipe) and waterproof resins, you can make your own do-it-yourself underground safe to hide your cash, gold, jewelry, heirlooms, important documents, or any other valuables. Plastic pipe will withstand virtually all of the elements as well: acids, salts, water and other natural elements.

How to Make an Underground Safe for Your Valuables

• To “cache” your goods, you need 6-8 inch plastic plumbing pipe, cut about 20-60 inches long, threaded on the ends. Get two threaded end caps with some plastic pipe cement, or “ABS” plastic cement. You could also thread the end caps before doing anything and submerge the tube underwater to see if there are any leaks. In any event, after the waterproof glue is applied, you should have no worries.
• Get some zip lock plastic bags and put your goods into multiple layers of them, and zip them up tight. Roll some elastic bands around them as well to help your goods fit into the tube. If you can save some of the silica gel packets from inside vitamin bottles, they will combat mould, moisture and mildew. Silica gel rebinds moisture (water molecules) in its random intersecting channels which have various diameters. Your stash will remain dry, even after fully saturated with water vapor.
• Place your goods at one end of the pipe, and mark the other end, as you will have to cut the pipe open to get to your goods one day, and do not want to risk damaging them. Get a posthole digger and dig some holes in a location of your choice about 5-6 feet deep.
• If you are burying gold, and metal detectors are a worry to you, consider burying your cache tubes near a metal fence post, or other similar innocent looking structure. Most metal detectors can only reach some 12 feet underground to find a 3/4 inch pipe. You could even bury hundreds of little pieces of metal washers and lug nuts around the area a few inches or feet underground to throw off any snoop with a metal detector, who may have reason to suspect you’re burying gold or other valuables made our of metal in your backyard.

In any event, hiding your cash either in the ground or your home depends on several things: your ability to keep a secret from anybody and everybody, thinking like a snoop to outsmart one, and lastly, common sense.

There you are, its Friday night and you’re out on in the pubs when all of a sudden, this mean looking character approaches you to try to start a fight. You decide to high tail it out of there, but its no use - he has caught up to you outside on the street. You are faced with the responsibility of defending yourself against a scary looking guy, meaner than you, who looks as if he could clean the street with you - what do you do when fighting him is your only option?

The objective:
strike first and create an opening whereby you can get away as soon as possible.

What Not To Do:

1. Do not contest his strength. The worst thing you can do is to try to go “toe-to-toe” with someone bigger and stronger, let alone younger and bigger boned. You will likely be overwhelmed as you need to have superior speed and ability to match his superior size and strength.
2. Do not let him hit you first. When you know you are facing imminent physical harm, the law provides for you to use reasonable force to protect yourself. Here, since you are dealing with someone larger than you, who is the agressor the so-called “disparity of force” is against them.
3. Do not try any movements that require the use of fine motor skills. When you are put into what your nervous system thinks is a life-or-death struggle, you have a massive adrenaline dump. This is good in one way, it provides for the “fight-or-flight” response which will give you the heightened awareness to survive. But it is bad, as adrenaline degrades your fine motor skills too rapidly to render them useful. The fine book “Sharpening the Warrior’s Edge” talks about this in great detail.

What To Do:

Attack his weakest areas with gross motor movements. An old military maxim is to destroy the enemy’s systems, is to destroy the enemy. Your attacker’s systems here are: his vision, his breathing and his mobility. One of the reasons why I didn’t pick the groin as a self defense target is that men instinctively protect that area. Even the guys with no practical self defense training skills do this as second nature. This could well be because our distant ancestors, primates, attack each other’s groins in an attempt to castrate each other in combat.

His vision: Attacking his eyes with a finger jab is one of the best means of dropping a big guy. Bruce Lee’s favorite technique was the finger jab, deployed with an open hand, with the fingers outstretched. Just think of it as a jab would be in Western boxing, but rather with the fingers - flicking them into the opponent’s eyes. To avoid telegraphing the move, try to come upwards on a 45 degree angle, rather than horizontally. Not much force is needed to create an opening for escape.

His Breathing: A solid strike upwards into his nose with the heel of your palm will generate enough force to break his nose and cause temporary breathing issues. Forget the urban myth of driving the nose bone into the brain. The thing about the palm heel strike is that a) you dont have to learn to punch like a boxer, and b) you can deliver maximum force while not having to worry about hurting your hand. I once saw a 250-260 pound bully get dropped by a little 160 pound guy with one shot with this move! Lean into it and make sure that your feet, hips and torso are all into it.

His Mobility: Here we are talking about on of the hardest targets to block - the knees. The best way to attack them is with a low-line side kick, while leaning away from your attacker. Again, the incomparable wisdom of Bruce Lee - the side kick to the knee was one of the three favorite self-defense moves he advocated. (besides the finger jab to the eye and the vertical fist jab)

Update
For further thought, if you want to expand this short list, a good place to begin might be to have a look at the list of banned moves in the UFC. There is a good reason some of the moves listed on the first link are outlawed in MMA, as anyone of them would likely result in a career ending injury. Not good for the viability of the UFC’s business model.

*dislcaimer* You could seriously injure someone if you dont use force judiciously. You and you alone are responsible for your actions. This level of force again, should only be used when there is no chance of avoidance or evasion/escape - which is really what self defense is all about!

The second is whom are you trying to hide it from? It is a burglar, nosy relatives or landlords, the police, or if you’re really luckless the mafia? This is important because a two-bit thief may not be too smart, will just snatch loot what can fenced quickly (electronics, jewelry), and likes to be in and out as quickly as possible (usually ten to thirty minutes). The police on the other hand armed with a search warrant will be very thorough, may used special equipment (like metal detectors, x-ray machines, or ground-penetrating radar), and will have unlimited time. Lastly, if your ‘stash’ was found what would be the consequences- embarrassment, blackmail, loss of savings or income, arrest and prison, divorce, serious injury, or maybe even death? In step one, you weigh the cost/benefit of hiding things.

Once you’ve answered those questions you can decide how to make your hiding place. Obviously, don’t use well known places-avoid anything in the bedroom including dresser drawers, closets, inside clothes pockets or socks, and under mattresses or pillows. This would the first place anyone would look. Likewise, avoid the medicine cabinet (most low level thieves are drug addicts too) and any hiding place visible from the front door of your house. If the objects are really sensitive you may better hiding it off the premises. Perhaps you could keep it with a trusted neighbor, relative, or employer. An old drug dealer trick would be to pay a senior or old person’s rent in a nearby apartment in exchange for keeping the stash of drugs in the person’s place. If the police searched for drugs in the dealer’s apartment they usually came up empty or with very little drugs. A search warrant only allowed them to search individual apartments not the entire building!

Here’s a list of ideas for possible hiding places from simple to elaborate, small to large:

• Bar of soap - Split the soap lengthwise with a warm butterknife, hollow out a cavity, insert the stash, reseal with a powerful adhesive, and using a warm knife smooth the outside edge. Also roughen the appearance of the soap.
• Shaving cream can - Depress the release value ten minutes to release pressure, secure the can in a vise, open it up with a screwdriver, insert the stash, and reseal with pliers.
• Stick deodorant canister - Remove the top from an empty canister and push down the platform which held the deodorant. Scrub the canister clean, let it dry, and then add your stash. Replace the canister among other toiletries.
• Heels of shoes - Hollowed out from the inside.
• Canned goods - Remove the label carefully. Pierce a small hole in the center of the seam. Apply heat to the seam with a mini-torch until the solder runs absorbing it with a solder wick. Pry the tin apart carefully with a screwdriver. Then with tin snips makes two small slits at the top and bottom of outside edge. Insert the stash, reseal the edges, and resolder the seam. Tidy up the rough edges with auto body repair filler and replace the label.
• Toothpaste tube - Slit the bottom of the tube with a razor then using a pencil squeeze out the contents into an icing bag. Insert the stash, refill the original contents, and glue the bottom back together.
• Grease gun- Place the stash at the bottom then pack the gun with grease.
• Vaseline or cold cream jar - Scoop 2/3’s of the contents out, insert the stash, and then heat the scooped out contents and pour it back in the jar.
• Paint cans, creosote, or any other thick, opaque liquid - Seal the stash in a heavy plastic bag with weights inside to insure it stinks to the bottom.
• Postal system - Pack the item well, seal it in a plastic bag, and wrap it with paper designed to protect film from X-ray’s. Insure the package too for good measure.
• Bicycle pump - Remove the piston assembly from the inside, shorten the rod, and insert the stash.
• Pottery or clay ashtrays, mugs, or teapots- Insert the stash in the clay prior to molding the pottery.
• Soccer ball - Using a sharp knife, cut along the sides of the patches and open it like a flap. Insert the stash and secure it with tape. Then resew the flap and apply a thin layer of clear cement.
• Face sponge - Cut it into two sections, hollow out a cavity into the lower section, insert the stash, and reseal. Then, doctor the sponge with bits of dirt, old soap, and pubic hair to deter handling.
• Polystyrene packaging - Using a blade cut a slice and cut out a cavity. Insert the stash, replace the slice, and secure with polystyrene cement.
• Casted bricks- Construct a wooden mold modeled on a real brick. Pour in plaster of paris or cement half way, put in the stash, and pour in the rest of the plaster or cement. Be sure to seal the stash in heavy plastic bags and it must NOT be heat sensitive.
• Loaf of bread - Make a cavity inside the middle of the loaf, insert the stash, and rewrap the bread.
• Flowerpots or window boxes - Very well known but it still works. Make a false bottom in the pot or box, insert the stash, replace the flowers and soil on top.
• Box of breakfast cereal - Carefully open the inside bag, pour out the cornflakes, insert the stash, and pour the cereal back inside.
• Drainpipe - Lift the cover, attach a string to the stash and the cover. Drop the stash down the pipe, and replace the cover.
• Aquarium - Best used if it has dangerous fish like piranhas or electric eels and hide the stash inside the gravel.
• Refrigerator/ freezer panel - Wear gloves to protect against the insulation inside first. Then unscrew the panel, insert the stash, rescrew, and clean up the area.
• Food - Hide the stash inside half gallon tubs of butter, bags of flour or sugar, baked cakes and pies, stuffed turkeys, ice cream, jars of peanut butter, mayonnaise, cooking fat, smelly foods (fish), sour milk, fruit juice, or a block of ice.
• Picture frame- Take out the board behind, lay the stash flat in the frame, and put the board back on.
• VHS tape - If the stash is flat or thin, take an old VHS that noone is likely to listen or steal for that matter and put it inside.
• Homemade candle – Using a glass jar or other mold pour in paraffin wax (melted on a double boiler) halfway, insert your stash (protected in plastic), pour in the remainder of the wax and let it cool.
• Large bag of dry dog food or kitty litter - Empty out the contents, place stash on the bottom of the bag, and pour the contents back in. This is a favorite hiding spot for cannabis as it camouflages the smell.
• Base of lamp – Open up the base of a lamp, insert the stash, and close the base
• Dummy electrical socket - Buy a socket box, socket, and face plate at the hardware store. Cut out a hole in the sheetrock with a keyhole saw, screw the box to a stud, insert stash, and put on the faceplate.
• Range hood filter - Remove the filter from the hood, put in the stash, and replace the filter. The filter should not look clean and new. Best to use a grease caked nasty filter to deter any handling.
• Toilet tank - Remove the cover from the tank, tape the stash to the cover, and replace the cover. For extra security put something HEAVY on top of the toilet tank.
• Pillows, stuffed animals, toys, dolls- Neatly cut a slit in one of these, remove enough of the stuffing to make room for your stash, insert the stash, pad the excess space with stuffing, and neatly resew the object.
• Hardcover book - Open the book and leaf through a third of the pages. Then with a utility knife and a ruler cut a square hollow from the center of the remaining second third of the pages. Remove the cut out section and glue the pages together inside of the square opening. Let the book dry and tape your stash inside.
• Electric baseboard heater - If the stash isn’t flammable or heat sensitive this can be used. Make sure the heater is unplugged, remove the cover, insert your stash, and then replace the cover.
• Wall clock - Open up the back of the clock with a screwdriver, insert the stash, and replace the back.
• Vacuum cleaner bag - This is good to use on a non-functioning vacuum cleaner. Find a bag that fits the vacuum cleaner, put in your stash, fill the bag with crap (dust bunnies, dirt, whatever), and put the bag on the vacuum cleaner.
• Birdhouse - If your handy with tools you can build a birdhouse with a removable top and put it the backyard.
• Insulation - Wearing gloves, peel backs the flaps of insulation, tape in the stash, and replace the flap.
• Compost pile- The stinkier, the better- place the stash in a heavy plastic bag, duct tape it shut, and place it as far as possible inside. Some good sized roadkill can be placed inside the compost as well to attract files, maggots, and other vermin to deter any searching.
• Furniture - Cut a square opening in fabric underneath in a chair or couch, hide stash within the padding, and resew the opening very carefully.
• Mirror on door - Make a hollow behind a full length mirror on the closet door then mount the mirror on sliding tabs.
• Table or desk - Remove the molding and make a hollow, place in the stash, and replace the molding.
• Hollow core door - Cut a slot at the top, drop in the goods, and then fill the slot with wood putty.
• Clothes hamper - Empty out clothes, place stash at bottom, and replace clothes.
• False roof vent – Buy a roof ventilator, attach it to the roof, and put your stash inside.
• Mattress, boxspring, or zippered cushion– Neatly cut an opening in the mattress or box-spring fabric, put in the stash, and carefully resew the opening. With the cushion, just unzip the zipper, put in the stash, and rezip it.
• Walls - Hollow out behind solid, fixed items (coat racks, boards)
• Dog house - Hide the stash inside or under the roof of any of these.
• Spare Tire - Deflate the tire, put in the goods, put air back in it, and stow the tire.
• Baseboards - Remove away a section from the wall, hollow out an area between the studs, insert stash, and tack back the section in place neatly.
• Acoustic tile ceiling - If you have acoustic tiles ceilings, simply remove a tile or two put in the stash, and replace the tiles.
• Dummy air conditioner - Install a broken down air conditioner in the window, remove the faceplate, pull the internal unit, and discard.
• Place the stash in the empty shell and replace the face with buttons and knobs intact.
• Dummy ductwork/ plumbing/ stovepipe- Either buy plumbing stock from the hardware store and install it going across the basement or better look for existing connections and add sealed dummies to them.
• Dummy air intake - Cut a hole into sheetrock of the wall with a keyhole saw or a router, insert a metal box and screw it to a stud, insert the stash, and cover the box with a faceplate.
• Dummy beams - Ceiling and walls can have hollowed out beams. Sure this is a lot of work, but is safe from everything except maybe a house fire.
• Wall paneling – If your stash is thin and flat you can measure and cut paneling to a wall, attach the stash to the inside of the paneling, and then nail the paneling to the wall. You can even add baseboards and or molding if you wish.
• Dummy hot water heater or washing machine- Take an old non-working heater or washer, put in dummy pipes into the plumbing, and hide the stash inside.
• Wooded Areas - Inside stump of old large trees in an area you are sure they are not going to be cut down.
• Abandoned buildings - Inside old shafts, culverts, broken walls, loose floorboards, weed thickets. This is a great thing if you live beside or close to such a place.
• Underground “Caching” - Bury the stash in 4”-8” diameter PVC water pipes. You will need PVC pipe, an end cap, a screwtop end, PVC pipe cement, Teflon sealing tape, and a hacksaw. First cut the pipe down to the right size with the hacksaw. Then, prepare the surface on the end of the pipe with steel wool, apply PVC cement and stick the end cap on one end. Do the same to the other end with the screw top end. Allow the cement to set for 24 hours. Drive out the moisture by turning the oven to its lowest temperature (this VERY important- PVC is plastic) for 15 minutes and take the pipe out. Prepare the stash by putting it in a sealed heavy duty bag with 2 oz. of desiccant (such as silca gel) in a sock. If the stash is metal wrap it in cheesecloth, sit it overnight in a dry oven at 250 degrees, apply a coat of oil to it, wrap it in aluminum foil or waxpaper, and then put it in a ziplock baggie with desiccant in a sock. Put in your stash, place Teflon tape on the threads, and screw the end on. Bury the pipe vertically 3 feet deep and cover with 18 inches of dirt then place a part from the auto scrap yard like an alternator or carburetor in the hole and fill the hole. The auto scrap hopefully will act as a decoy for any wiseass deciding to use a metal detector. Burying the goods under an old abandoned car or refrigerator is another possibility. For best results, bury more scrap metal randomly around the area and at different depths. A variation of this is to bury the goods next to a fence. Dig a hole next to the fence with a post digger and drop in a sealed pvc pipe with the goods. The fence will act as a decoy for the metal detector.
• Secret room - Install a metal or solid wood door with two deadbolts and line the interior with plywood.
• Private rental storage facility - This is probably the best way to hide contraband from the police besides burying it. Rent out a storage place in another town or state using a liaison or an alternate name (NEVER use your real name) and pay cash several months in advance for it.

Most of us think that one of the safest places to store our valuables is in a safe deposit box in a bank. Who can blame anyone for thinking this - banks after all, have the best 24 hour security and alarm systems. However, recent tragedies such as the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center brought to light that a safe deposit box may not be the safest place to hide your cash! In both of these terrible tragedies, hundreds of people’s safe deposit boxes and their contents were destroyed irretrievably.

To add insult to injury, the contents of a safe deposit box are seldom insured. The only thing that can indemnify your belongings is, of course, your homeowner’s insurance policy. But, the caveat is - you are not supposed to be hiding cash in a safe deposit box, and thus, it is not insured. Sadly, many people found this out the hard way in the two tragedies mentioned above. The FDIC (or CDIC in Canada) only insures the deposits in accounts held in banks, but not the contents of safe deposit boxes!

With the current unprecedented global economic crisis, it is becoming obvious that more and more people are desperately searching for ways to safely hide their cash and valuables. What makes this even more tense is that banks are failing daily. A recent 2008 Pennsylvania Department of Revenue survey of 687 safe deposit boxes found that 172 had “cash or coins.”

More cautions against hiding your cash in a safe deposit box are:

• In the United States, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security could get a warrant to access your safe deposit box if the bank tips them off due to what they might perceive as “suspicious activity”, which could literally be anything, like too many regular visits. Other nations likely have similar legislation.
• The often abusive IRS can often freeze assets merely based on suspicion of probabilities, until the courts clear the accused.

Things to keep in mind when storing valuables in a safe deposit box:

• Read your homeowner’s insurance policy and if in doubt, get legal advice on any ambiguities.
• Read the safe deposit box contract thoroughly!
• Take photographs of all of your valuables and place them in waterproof plastic bags, even multiple layers to keep the elements from doing damage to them, should natural or man-made disaster strike. Bank vaults are normally designed to be fireproof, but not waterproof, so if you are in a flood prone area (like the Red River in the Dakotas) you might want to think about this.
• Do not store original copies of documents you require immediate access to, such as receipts, wills, funerary directives, etc.
• Find an alternative to hiding your cash or valuables in a bank.

There are times when you might be in a real mess, living in a horrible rat’s nest of an apartment with a slum lord in the same building, and you’ve fallen behind on the rent, or even worse, you are in an abusive domestic situation and you need to move. But, you don’t dare and take the risk of moving when you could easily be followed to your new location. The challenge is, how can you move secretly and not leave any trace of where you are moving to?

How To Move Secretly - The Plan:

To move out of a bad rental situation or dangerous domestic situation, you basically need three things: the cash to pay for your new residence, a new place to move to, and a way to cover your tracks. Finding creative ways to hide money have been covered in other posts, so we wont revisit that discussion here. Finding a place can be a challenge for some. For example, if you are in an abusive relationship and do not want to arouse suspicion by spending your free time apartment hunting, enlisting the help of friends to do some of the legwork can help. If this is the type of trouble you are in, you could always arrange calls to prospective apartment showings from work or school.

When you have found a new apartment you need a way to cover your tracks. Getting a self storage locker is the key to the plan! Find one of those 24/7 self storage places that rents storage units in the Yellow Pages. Most of them have varied plans and sizes of storage units. The all have 24 hour CCTV surveillance and security too, so your possessions are reasonably safe there. Now, here comes the important part - get a friend to pay for the service. Do not pay for it yourself using your name, credit cards, etc or anything that someone on your trail could trace back to you. Once you have arranged a rental lease for the storage locker you are all set.

The plan is to move out right under your nemesis’ nose if need be, and if they do decide to follow you, they will follow the movers to a storage unit. Even better if you are not there when it happens. From there, you can come back at your leisure anytime day or night to retrieve your property. Or keep it there indefinitely and skip the country and have someone sell it off for you and wire you the money. Or keep it there for a few months and move around, crash on a friend’s couch, whatever. Now you have some options!