DH has and hidden something valuable "for safety"

[Beebopwasthebest]

Light hearted...sort of, because this is getting worse.

He has form for this, despite us having two secure safes in the house. He is quite anxious about being burgled.

He has hidden his watch somewhere in the house. We've been looking for two days. I am very tidy and organised. He is tidy but not as organised and has a lot of stuff.

This is driving me mad. My mum has said a prayer to St.Anthony for me😂

He chooses really weird places..I once found the (only) set of keys to our safe inside the cardboard box of a light bulb...which he had forgotten about! And he hid my car keys between the beach towels in the airing cupboard..We have an agreed spot for my keys now.

Can any one think of a weird place we haven't looked?

FWIW I would hide a watch in the biscuit tin if I needed a quick spot.

Two safes and hiding things in light bulb boxes? You know none of this is even remotely normal right?

I'd get a metal detector or try using one of those stud/cable detectors for walls, if you already have one, to find important metal items. It would help for keys at least!

Otherwise, I agree with PP that you shouldn't make it your problem. I wouldn't be stressed by DH losing (his) things, but I love puzzles and treasure hunts so I'd HAVE to help with searching, just for the fun of it.

My DH does this, after a few years of me saying-“it’s where you put it” when asks where’s my car key/phine/wallet/fill in the blank he has got the message. He puts things away, he looks for it.

We used to have a sideboard with four drawers and when he couldn't find something in it my late OH decided to index it, he got index cards from work and had divided each space in each drawer into back, front, left and right and he carefully filled in 16 cards for the 4 drawers, He was very proud of his marvellous system except when he needed to find something, he couldn't find the cards!
To all of the foil hat brigade, No I Did Not, but we never did find them.

If you keep jewellery in the house, hide it in something else metal as thieves sometimes use metal detectors.

As my mother would say "it's in the place where you haven't looked!" Luckily losing his watch only directly impacts him. I'd leave him to look for it; maybe the boredom and inconvenience will make him more mindful going forward.

Could he keep a llist on his phone or computer of all the places he's hidden things? Admittedly, a burglar could break in, hold your husband's thumb up to the touchpad, and force him to locate and open the document and reveal his hiding places, but that's probably unlikely.

Next time he puts something in a safe place tell him either put a note in the diary on your phone, take a photo on your phone and/or message yourself or someone else with a note of where you've put it.

I honestly don’t know why you would be turning the house upside down for his watch. Yes fine if you’re already spring cleaning the kitchen, to keep an eye out. Otherwise, maybe this will be a learning experience for him and you shouldn’t swoop in and try and save the day.

I've "put away" a Ted Baker handbag.
No effing idea where it is & I cannot find it.

Annoying.

I'd be raging at him for hiding the car keys. I always leave them in plain sight in the hopes that if someone broke in they'd grab the keys, get in and go rather than continue rummaging through the house.

But yeah, stop helping him. My granddad hid his watch because he had foreign workmen in . He never found it and was told repeatedly by his DC that it was his own fault. I think they found it when emptying the house after he died.

This gave me a chuckle! 😆

As I have never been toOP's house, I have no suggestions on where to look - if I needed to hide something, I would look at my surroundings and wait for inspiration to strike.

But I would love to know how this situation has come about. Is there not a place where he usually keeps his watch? Either on his wrist, or if he takes it off at night, to shower or whatever, some obvious surface, or at a push, a bedroom drawer? Or, if he is in the habit of expecting burglary at any moment, why can't he just hide it in the same place every time? Or has he just been randomly overcome with the idea that today is the day you will be burgled? It all seems a bit irrational and obsessive🤔

Just let him look. It's his watch. But photo on phone or message to himself and partner is a good idea. However given some of the replies on here eg sleeping near the Christmas presents perhaps it isn't as someone may hack/steal your phones

Glad I'm not the only one whose husband keeps changing where he hides the car keys from hypothetical burglars.

A photo would be my suggestion. Email or secure folder (as long as you remember the password 🤣)
I have a list of things I can't find at the moment.
None of them valuable, just irritating.
Oh, and St Anthony can FRO, he never listens to me at all 🙄

In some oven gloves? (Now I’m going to have to find a safer place…..!).

Where would he put it if he was hiding it now?

@Beebopwasthebest I can't help you with places to look beyond what people have already said, but have you heard of Tile? https://www.tile.com/en-gb

You can put tiles on your keys, in your wallet, not sure whether they make one small enough to stick on the back of a watch. Then you can call the tile from your phone and find your keys etc or whatever the tile is stuck on. I use it to find my keys all the time as I am also prone to putting keys in ridiculous places.

Also if you leave the tile somewhere when you're out, the tile app on your phone will tell you where your tile was last seen. Helped me when I left my keys in a pub, I could see on the map where I'd left them!

Might help you avoid or deal with these situations in the future. Hope you find the watch soon!

My DD forgot where she had hidden her rings, not using the safe, they were found under the marital mattress.
My friend was not so lucky, as she remembered a few days after she had thrown out the old Tampax box.

Why does it matter? Surely if it's your car keys you'd need to look, but a watch, can't you just wait for it to turn up?

Toilet cistern if the watch is waterproof.

My Grandad hid my late Grandma's jewellery and wouldn't tell anyone where it was, even when he had to go into a home. Family searched for it unsuccessfully - the house was going to be cleared and sold. I found it in the first place I looked...
No suggestions on where the watch might be though.

No man who has a waterproof watch EVER goes near water with it if the watch is expensive. Could be a Rolex designed to go to the Titanic, it gets put to one side.

I swear this is how half of archaeological discoveries are made...

"I hid 'abcd' for safety..."

2000 years later

"Crikey Wilfred! We've just dug up the find of the century!"