I’ve never experienced a search, and I’ve never talked to anyone who has. My impression is that they do pretty much destroy the place. The best place to hide something appears to be: someone else’s property, a fair distance away. Or take advantage of the fractal nature of outdoors. A partially buried ammo box is more or less unfindable.
Searches depend on what they are looking for and why. If you’re suspected of dealing, frinst., yeah, they’ll tear the place to pieces. Even so, a hollowcore door makes for a good hiding place. Cops only search places they’ve been made aware of, so…
If you wanted to hide something you wouldn’t need access to very often, I’d do the door stash, but take the door off the hinges, put the stash on the the bottom of the door, then remount it. Also, I’ve been known to collage cheapshit doors, including the top, then coating them in varnish. It would be very easy to create a door top stash in such a case which really would be invisible, as a magnet can go under paper.
Duncsays
I’ve never experienced a search, and I’ve never talked to anyone who has. My impression is that they do pretty much destroy the place.
I’ve known quite a few people who’ve been on the sharp end of police searches (in the UK) and yeah, they really do, but they’re often remarkably incompetent about it. It’s almost like they’re more interested in wanton destruction than actually finding anything… They will destroy things that obviously couldn’t possibly conceal anything -- especially if they look valuable or likely to be of sentimental value -- but “overlook” important evidence sitting in plain sight. In every case that I have direct personal knowledge of, the amount of contraband booked as evidence was substantially less than the amount actually present. Most times they just steal the difference, but I do know one guy whose flat was searched by cops so incompetent that they left the bulk of his stash sitting on the coffee table…
Duncsays
Having said all that, at least the cops in the UK don’t routinely shoot people’s pets.
I’ve never experienced a search, and I’ve never talked to anyone who has. My impression is that they do pretty much destroy the place. The best place to hide something appears to be: someone else’s property, a fair distance away. Or take advantage of the fractal nature of outdoors. A partially buried ammo box is more or less unfindable.
Searches depend on what they are looking for and why. If you’re suspected of dealing, frinst., yeah, they’ll tear the place to pieces. Even so, a hollowcore door makes for a good hiding place. Cops only search places they’ve been made aware of, so…
If you wanted to hide something you wouldn’t need access to very often, I’d do the door stash, but take the door off the hinges, put the stash on the the bottom of the door, then remount it. Also, I’ve been known to collage cheapshit doors, including the top, then coating them in varnish. It would be very easy to create a door top stash in such a case which really would be invisible, as a magnet can go under paper.
I’ve known quite a few people who’ve been on the sharp end of police searches (in the UK) and yeah, they really do, but they’re often remarkably incompetent about it. It’s almost like they’re more interested in wanton destruction than actually finding anything… They will destroy things that obviously couldn’t possibly conceal anything -- especially if they look valuable or likely to be of sentimental value -- but “overlook” important evidence sitting in plain sight. In every case that I have direct personal knowledge of, the amount of contraband booked as evidence was substantially less than the amount actually present. Most times they just steal the difference, but I do know one guy whose flat was searched by cops so incompetent that they left the bulk of his stash sitting on the coffee table…
Having said all that, at least the cops in the UK don’t routinely shoot people’s pets.