Secret Storage

December 28, 2006 4:47 AM

I'm looking for an anonymous physical storage solution.

Suppose I have some items - say, enough to fill a garden variety backpack - that I'd like to store. I'd rather not keep them in my home because, should I meet an untimely death, I don't want my survivors to ever know about them. I would like to have regular or repeatable access to said items. Should they be discovered, I don't want them to be traced back to me.

I've considered airport lockers, safe deposit boxes and a hole in uncharted island but rejected them for the above reasons. In short, I want to possess something without anyone knowing I possess, or have possessed it.

[My intentions are not sinister]

posted by klarck to grab bag (16 comments total)

I used to bury my pot in a lock box, in a plastic bag in the back yard???
posted by nintendo at 4:55 AM on December 28, 2006

Have a porn buddy with a ‘no opening the box’ clause, or double bag your garbage with the incriminating material in-between bags in an old grocery bag.
posted by arruns at 5:00 AM on December 28, 2006

Could you steal someone's identity? If your intentions are not sinister, you might do that, and then get a safe deposit box in your fake name.

I wonder if a notary public could be of help here - perhaps they could provide a lock box or rent a safe deposit box on your behalf, with instructions regarding it's liquidation upon your death?

If these items are of some sort of sentimental rather than utilitarian value, you could photograph them, then destroy them, and post the photos to online sites with a throwaway account.
posted by Meatbomb at 5:05 AM on December 28, 2006

Get a lawyer to act as your agent with strict instructions as to what to do if and when you die. If the item is, ahem, not legal, forget it and just bury it.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:00 AM on December 28, 2006

klark,

They are important to you. A hallmark of advanced maturity is acceptance of what you are. I hope at some point, you'll have that and can stand the thought of the undefined, post-klark world knowing more about you.

That said, your goals are security for the material, ease of access, post-death perishability, inhibition of traceability.

Aside from a BOMBPROOF, stable, and immortal confidant, I think your goals are most easily realized by a lawyer or law firm. Confidentiality is inherent in the relationship, value judgment is not usually part of the equation, you can be assured that the material will be only accessed by you, and you can leave instructions that it be destroyed on your death. They are used to safeguarding important stuff for people. Might be a cheap alternative.

I'm guessing you are young, so if that's not practical, the best thing is a really good hiding place with as many of the above characteristics as you can get. Expect to be 'found out' and spend some time considering how you will respond. Good luck.
posted by FauxScot at 6:16 AM on December 28, 2006

Uh, any self-storage facility will happily rent you a storage locker/closet/room/whatever, prepaid cash in advance. They don't care who you are. (You can give them false info if they ask.) As long as you pay, everything's fine. If you don't pay, they'll sell your stuff at auction.
posted by jellicle at 6:30 AM on December 28, 2006

If you live alone, get a plastic bin and label it, "Paper Recycling." Put in a newspaper, then the porn in a paper bag, then layer newspapers, flyers, and other stuff on top. If you die your parents will probably just dump it out. This is more convincing if you also have a "Can Recycling" bin. I've hidden things that way. Of course, in my case it wasn't porn, so YMMV.
posted by christinetheslp at 6:49 AM on December 28, 2006

Second the porn/whatever buddy. I know several people who have such arrangements. You might want to put said items in a sealed/resealable box with postage paid to the buddy, and a Post-it saying in the event of your death, please drop this in the post. Also specify it in your will. (You have one, right? If you care about what happens to your stuff when you die, you should have one.)

If you don't have someone who could be a [whatever] buddy, you should explore your interests more.

Or, wrap it in news paper, write "Fresh Tuna, use before Sept 2005" on it and keep it in your fridge. It'll get thrown out without questions asked.
posted by Ookseer at 7:33 AM on December 28, 2006

Untraceable eh? Well self storage is definitely the way to go.

Find a homeless guy with an ID, (because most storage places want you to have an ID) and take him to get a power of attorney drawn up at a local notary. Get a copy of his ID or keep the original. Open the storage in his name. (This works well for bank account too.)

Or just take the homeless guy to the storage place and have him open up a storage room for you. The problem with that, is that he will know about it and could conceivable still your stash.

Ever guy has their buying point, but 100 dollars should be able to buy you either of these services from a homeless guy.
posted by bigmusic at 9:10 AM on December 28, 2006

Spy stores sell fake cans whose bottoms unscrew. If the, ahem, items are small enough, you can stuff them into the cans and keep them wherever equivalent cans are stored.

Choose cans of things they won't try to use for themselves. Spray cans are best, in my estimation, for things like after-shave. The finder will take off the cap, push down on the button, discover it doesn't work, and toss it. Keep it in the back of a cabinet where you keep the real after-shave.

If you want to be super-safe, smear shaving cream all over it on a regular basis. By the time anyone finds it, it'll be such a fugly mess that they won't even want to touch it.
posted by citysquirrel at 9:36 AM on December 28, 2006

I always just hid things I didn't want other people to find in Warhammer 40K or Battletech boxes. It worked for me.
posted by drezdn at 10:19 AM on December 28, 2006 [2 favorites]

The difficult thing here is this: you want to hide it in a public place in order to avoid it being traced to you if found, but putting things in public places tends to be difficult without drawing attention. What you want is a public place with a certain amount of privacy. Abandoned buildings seem a good idea at first; they are large enough to have myriad hiding places (under loose floorboards, within walls, etc) and generally private enough to stash your stuff while knowing that nobody has seen you stashing it, and they will likely be torn down without anyone investigating slag from within. However, there is a drawback to this admittedly good idea: it's not really easy to explain going into an abandoned building routinely, and you want regular access. If the package is found by someone familiar with the premises on a regular basis, they will probably remember you going in; and even if they don't, your access, is somewhat limited and clandestine.

So: what we need to find is a private space in a public area to which access is both routine and common enough to be untraceable. The answer:

Find a public restroom which you pass every day. Bus or train stations are best; they see a maximum traffic, and therefore you will be most difficult to trace should the package be discovered. You're in great luck if the ceiling is set panel. Otherwise, examine the wall: what is it made of? It will need to be tile on wallboard; brick may work as well, although it'll be very difficult, but tile on concrete won't.

If the ceiling is no go, carry a slotted screwdriver and a knife in your pocket. Every day, go into that restroom for ten minutes. (Ten minutes is a normal amount of time for someone to be in the bathroom, and going every day at the same time is perfectly common.) After making sure that no one else is in the restroom, enter a stall, close the door, and begin work on dislodging a tile or brick. The best spot to choose is usually directly behind the toilet just above the floor; this spot is so hard to access that it's hardly ever looked at. (Hiding anything inside the tank would be silly; toilets often receive routine maintenance.)

The tile should only take a few days to dislodge. (If it's a brick, well, this'll take a while, although it'll probably be more secure in the end.) Dig through the wallboard with your knife until you get to the inside of the wall.

Bring your backpack and stash a small amount of stuff every day, not so much that anybody'd notice. You have daily access to your hiding place, which, if discovered, will not be traceable.

That's what I'd do, anyway.
posted by koeselitz at 11:30 AM on December 28, 2006

i think it's funny how everyone assumes it's porn you want to hide.

how about this: buy a 1970s couch in decent condition off craigslist. make sure a few friends know you bought the couch used.

tuck the stuff into the underside lining of the couch, and include a red herring piece of identifying matter that makes it look like the stuff was already hidden there when you bought the couch-- like a 1980s magazine from your local goodwill, with someone else's address on the label, or an old postcard sent to "annie", from"jenny", depicting a city you've never visited (you can find that stuff in flea markets), or a ratty old teddy bear (assuming you have no kids) ...etc?

most likely, when you die, the crappy old couch will just get tossed out on the street. in the meantime, if anyone finds the stuff, just re-affirm that you bought the couch off craigslist and had no idea that stuff was buried in it.
posted by twistofrhyme at 12:37 PM on December 28, 2006

twistofrhyme: "i think it's funny how everyone assumes it's porn you want to hide."

Not so funny when one of the tags that the poster used is "HardCorePornStash."
posted by koeselitz at 12:56 PM on December 28, 2006

If this is porn it can be digitized. SPend a weekend with a scanner/capture card. Encrypt the contents on a DVD or external drive. Dont tell anyone your password. No buddy or storage space needed.
posted by damn dirty ape at 2:37 PM on December 28, 2006

What damn dirty ape said.
Unless there's a good reason what you're trying to hide can't be made digital. The ability to encrypt/password protect aside, it's much easier to hide a thumbdrive than "a garden variety backpack."
posted by juv3nal at 2:57 PM on December 28, 2006