You have 5 minutes to hide a paperclip in your home. A detective has 24 hours to find it, If they don't, you get $100,000. Where are you going to hide the paperclip?
Step 1: Unplug a network cable from my switch in the basement.
Step 2: Run up to the loft and open the chimney access hatch.
Step 3: Figure out which cable i unplugged, and pull it up 3-4 meters.
Step 4: Straighten out the paperclip and stick it inside the insulation of the cable.
Step 5: Drop the cable back down into the chimney and reconnect it.
Yes, I use my otherwise unused chimneys for cable runs.
Reminds of a great old movie; "A Man, A Woman, and A Bank." No spoiler, because they explain the plot in the first five minutes of the movie.
Two engineers see that a giant bank has decided to build their brand new headquarters downtown. They plan to sneak in and steal the plans for the security system before it's installed. It's much easier to break into a construction site than a completed bank.
Yes. It's a straight vertical drop, with the switch pretty much at the bottom of the chimney. The only resistance is the weight of 10 meters of suspended cable segments.
I’m just giving it to the detective and losing the money. The detective would do more than $100k damage to my house looking. Checking behind the drywall, under the carpet, tearing open my mattresses, opening my appliances, etc.
Cheaper to save the repair bill.
Now if they pay to fix everything, I use a hammer to open holes in every wall as a misdirection and hide it in the flooring or framing.
If they were paying, I assume they’d pay to restore the house to the state it was in before the detective started. Whatever damage you caused would probably not be fixed.
Step 1. Mask the item. Change its size, shape, outline, or appearance. In this case, straighten out to be just a bit of wire.
Step 2. Fight gravity. Items fall down normally, so hide it somewhere against gravity. Anywhere you couldn't normally reach is a good start.
Step 3. Reach around. Hide the item in a location you can reach, but cannot see. In this case, the air return would be a good place I could reach into and hide a small piece of wire by wedging into the drywall.
Step 4. Distract. Take the other boxes of paper clips and scatter them throughout the house. Welcome to the haystack.
Step 5. Admit nothing. If they ever claim to have the paper clip, do not check the correct location until the time period has elapsed.
My house was built in the early 1900s and was used to secretly store and distribute liquor to the town and surrounding areas during prohibition... that money is as good as mine.
118 years old? Well, in that case, all I have to do it put the paperclip upstairs. Without one of those stair climber chair lifts, I doubt he'd even be able to get up there to look for it.
Straighten it and snip it into 4 brad nails. Tap them into your molding at random places in the house. Preferably places with unpainted brads in it, such as stained wood molding.
The detective... Is he like a Clouseau or a Columbo type? If the former, I could leave it in plain sight and still get the $100k but if it's the latter, I might as well confess the moment he walks in the door because there's nowhere I could hide it he wouldn't sniff it out and make me incredibly uncomfortable as he toys with me for hours before going in for the kill.
Or I could just toss it into a drawer with a million other paperclips and he'd never know which one is the one he's looking for.
Remove an outlet cover, slide the paperclip through one of the wire openings so it drops into the wall, replace cover and figure out what to do with the next 4 minutes.
Turn off breaker (without clock attached), unscrew a wall plate for an outlet, unbend and drop paperclip in wall, below outlet, by sliding it between the electric box and the drywall, put wall plate back, turn breaker back on, put the kettle on for a tea.
I could get my screwdriver out of my drawer in 20 seconds, including walking to it from the front door, in the dark during a power outage. You need to keep better track of your tools.
My magical "You'll never find what you're looking for" box of cables. The moment I've unpacked and plugged in my newly ordered one, the one I knew I had spawns back in and I'll inevitably find it and curse.
Assuming they aren't allowed to destroy your property to look for the paperclip, I've got a small hole above the shower in the apartment I'm in where I could probably get away with shoving it into.
Assuming this is like a neon green and magenta paperclip with a perfectly unique appearance.
My first thought is to bend it straight and stick it down the barrel of a Papermate Sharpwriter, then put said pencil in my pen cup or something.
My next thought is to put it in one of several dozen bottles of chemicals I have around the house. Laundry detergent, fabric softener, floor polish, 3-in-1 oil, car wax, chlorox, soft scrub, etc. But if you've got 24 hours to find it you might just think to empty out all the opaque bottles.
My third thought is to climb up on my roof and wedge it under a shingle.
If that one isn't accepted, I'd see if I could get it to fit in a cat turd in Izzy's litterbox.
Drop it in the ranch bottle. There's no way he'd look there and even if he did, it wouldn't be easy to see. Similar ideas would be a shampoo bottle or taped inside a drawer slide so a metal detector wouldn't work
It's April now.... I'd take a small piece of wood from garage, drill small hole, straighten paperclip and place inside, seal with wood putty, draw crude image of a holiday present on wood with Sharpie, poorly write "merry x-mas mommy, 1986, 2nd grade" on it, rub "ornament" on floor a bit to age, drill hole near top edge, place ornament hook and twist and reshape to mock years of use, bury it in the Christmas ornament box up in the rafters of the garage.
You get paid if they don't find it. You don't have to produce it yourself. Melt the paper clip down mix it with other metals. Use a sander to completely destroy it. Vaporize it. Etc
Straighten it, cut it into as many tiny pieces as possible with wire cutters for 4 minutes, then spend the last minute spreading them around random places in the carpet, vents, lawn, etc.
3d print a flower pot with a pause in the job. Drop the clip in a cavity in the vase with some glue so it doesn't rattle around, resume the print job to finish and seal it inside, put some plants in there.
I'll hide a bunch of them at different places along with the target. So that they lose confidence or keep looking for similar places every time they find the wrong ones.
Depends wether I need to find it later myself. If yes then I'd probably remove a baseboard and put it behind it next to the nail so you can't even use a metal detector. If I don't need to find it then I'd drop it down the crack under my bathroom doorstep which leads to the subfloor space where you're never going to find it again.
Buy 10,000 paperclips and scatter them throughout the house. Hide the target one somewhere obscure. It'll take more than 24 hours for him to find the exact right one.
Ah, I missed that part. In that case I would straighten out the paperclip into a long, flat line and hide it inside something metal, so it can't be found with a metal detector. Perhaps slip it inside the air vent in the back of my tv.
Straighten it, open an electrical box, and slip it into the wiring where the ground wire is. Metal detector wouldn't really find it, it would just blend in the the metals around it. It wouldn't be obvious, there would be no holes around it, you wouldn't need anything more than a butter knife to hide it. And if you were careful, your house wouldn't even burn down.
I don't know how plumbing works, but I think this would work:
I'd empty the hair from my hairbrush, tangle the paperclip in it and put the clump down my shower drain. Hair clump keeps it from draining away keeping it "in my house." Retrieve after with one of those spikey stick snake things. Spend the remaining 3 minutes touching other hiding places to throw the detective off the scent.
If that doesn't count as in the house I'd probably just slip it into a pocket of a coat in my closet. I doubt they'd think to check every pocket of every item of clothing. They're probably checking all the vents and window panels and little holes in my walls, and I don't think they'd catch me because I go in my closet a lot so it's not like I've disturbed dust to go in there during the 5 minutes.
I have a bag in a drawer with about 100+ pens of all kinds that I collected over the years. I'd straighten it out and stick it in one of those. Good luck, detective!
Give it to my ADHD wife and tell her its important. it will never be seen again.
Well that statement hit like a ton of bricks...
sorry :( its harder for her to live with it than for me to deal with it.
Step 1: Unplug a network cable from my switch in the basement.
Step 2: Run up to the loft and open the chimney access hatch.
Step 3: Figure out which cable i unplugged, and pull it up 3-4 meters.
Step 4: Straighten out the paperclip and stick it inside the insulation of the cable.
Step 5: Drop the cable back down into the chimney and reconnect it.
Yes, I use my otherwise unused chimneys for cable runs.
[off topic]
Reminds of a great old movie; "A Man, A Woman, and A Bank." No spoiler, because they explain the plot in the first five minutes of the movie.
Two engineers see that a giant bank has decided to build their brand new headquarters downtown. They plan to sneak in and steal the plans for the security system before it's installed. It's much easier to break into a construction site than a completed bank.
Gonna check this movie out, thanks :)
I'm amazed no one else has ever used that idea in a movie. Emjoy
Figure out which cable you unplugged in 5 minutes?
The ones I didn't unplug can't be pulled back. It takes half a second to give each cable a gentle tug.
You think you can feel that that easily from the other side of the house? All of those cables will have a lot of resistance
Yes. It's a straight vertical drop, with the switch pretty much at the bottom of the chimney. The only resistance is the weight of 10 meters of suspended cable segments.
I’m just giving it to the detective and losing the money. The detective would do more than $100k damage to my house looking. Checking behind the drywall, under the carpet, tearing open my mattresses, opening my appliances, etc.
Cheaper to save the repair bill.
Now if they pay to fix everything, I use a hammer to open holes in every wall as a misdirection and hide it in the flooring or framing.
If they were paying, I assume they’d pay to restore the house to the state it was in before the detective started. Whatever damage you caused would probably not be fixed.
For $100k I’ll fix some holes in my drywall.
I am handing it to my toddler and saying “this is important, don’t lose it”.
Detective has a zero percent chance of ever finding it.
Turn off the power to the house
Stick the paperclip in an outlet
Turn on power to the house
When the detective goes to grab the paperclip, he dies, you take the 100k
This comment, right here, Mr FBI 😂
You're all fools. This is clealy posted by a detective stumped looking for the paperclip. Stop giving him ideas!
(Cut up the paperclip with wire cutters, put it in food. Eat food through the day)
That raises the question if that still counts as in your home and if you are allowed to manipulate the paperclip at all.
It's not stated, but the question is more interesting if you also need to reveal the paperclip within 5 minutes after the 24 hours is up.
Feed the food to the detective.
How are you going to buy a few thousand dollars worth of paper clips and hide them within 5 minutes?
Have a look at [email protected] if you like The Office
I thought about this one too, but we couldn't realistically procure all those paperclips in five minutes.
I live right next to a place that sells paperclips. I could totally do this.
How honest is this detective? Perhaps one can simply offer them 50k of the resulting prize money to not look too hard.
Step 1. Mask the item. Change its size, shape, outline, or appearance. In this case, straighten out to be just a bit of wire. Step 2. Fight gravity. Items fall down normally, so hide it somewhere against gravity. Anywhere you couldn't normally reach is a good start. Step 3. Reach around. Hide the item in a location you can reach, but cannot see. In this case, the air return would be a good place I could reach into and hide a small piece of wire by wedging into the drywall. Step 4. Distract. Take the other boxes of paper clips and scatter them throughout the house. Welcome to the haystack. Step 5. Admit nothing. If they ever claim to have the paper clip, do not check the correct location until the time period has elapsed.
Its going up my ass.
Relevant Tom Cardy song.
My house was built in the early 1900s and was used to secretly store and distribute liquor to the town and surrounding areas during prohibition... that money is as good as mine.
What you dont know is that the detective is from your home town, is 118 years old and was drunk as a skunk during those years.
Hobbling centurian drunk detective is gonna getcha.
118 years old? Well, in that case, all I have to do it put the paperclip upstairs. Without one of those stair climber chair lifts, I doubt he'd even be able to get up there to look for it.
In a box of paperclips.
Filming the new series of Taskmaster already?
They did this one with the 3 aubergines 🍆🍆🍆
OP asking how to hide drugs from the police.
Or it's pigs getting ideas of where people hide things.
I would assume the pigs are going to find it and make them suffer for it by having to waffle strain a bag of cat shit .
Straighten it and snip it into 4 brad nails. Tap them into your molding at random places in the house. Preferably places with unpainted brads in it, such as stained wood molding.
Are there any rules on what you can and can't do to the paperclip?
I'm either dropping it down a register or bending it straight and putting it in a mechanical pencil.
Edit: Afterthought. Bend it straight and place it in the ink tube of a pen.
In my paperclip tray
Tape it to the bottom of a door
Shoving it underneath a baseboard between the floor would be similar and also great.
The detective... Is he like a Clouseau or a Columbo type? If the former, I could leave it in plain sight and still get the $100k but if it's the latter, I might as well confess the moment he walks in the door because there's nowhere I could hide it he wouldn't sniff it out and make me incredibly uncomfortable as he toys with me for hours before going in for the kill.
Or I could just toss it into a drawer with a million other paperclips and he'd never know which one is the one he's looking for.
Nice try, detective
Not saying. Any half-decent paperclip detective will read this thread.
In my anus
Isn't it already pretty full up there?
You stole this from my brain 2 hours before I thought it, rude.
What in the prescient anus are we talking about...
Nice try detective, I'm not giving you away my secrets
Damn I was gonna say that
Remove an outlet cover, slide the paperclip through one of the wire openings so it drops into the wall, replace cover and figure out what to do with the next 4 minutes.
If I'm allowed to straighten it, I'd straighten it and then poke it into one of those small holes in the back of the inside of a microwave oven.
Turn off breaker (without clock attached), unscrew a wall plate for an outlet, unbend and drop paperclip in wall, below outlet, by sliding it between the electric box and the drywall, put wall plate back, turn breaker back on, put the kettle on for a tea.
This is the best answer. Getting it in a wall void space should win.
Literally hiding it IN your house...
Hand it to the detective and split the $100K. Less work involved for both of us.
Or, it’s going into an empty ice cube tray in that cabinet above the fridge I’ve never been able to reach.
Whoever gave you the job is unlikely to pay you if you just give up the murder weapon.
Unscrew the hinge on a door in the house. Stick it behind, screw it back in. You could look there detective.
I could get my screwdriver out of my drawer in 20 seconds, including walking to it from the front door, in the dark during a power outage. You need to keep better track of your tools.
LOL. I didn't know you lived at my house.
My magical "You'll never find what you're looking for" box of cables. The moment I've unpacked and plugged in my newly ordered one, the one I knew I had spawns back in and I'll inevitably find it and curse.
Assuming they aren't allowed to destroy your property to look for the paperclip, I've got a small hole above the shower in the apartment I'm in where I could probably get away with shoving it into.
Assuming this is like a neon green and magenta paperclip with a perfectly unique appearance.
My first thought is to bend it straight and stick it down the barrel of a Papermate Sharpwriter, then put said pencil in my pen cup or something.
My next thought is to put it in one of several dozen bottles of chemicals I have around the house. Laundry detergent, fabric softener, floor polish, 3-in-1 oil, car wax, chlorox, soft scrub, etc. But if you've got 24 hours to find it you might just think to empty out all the opaque bottles.
My third thought is to climb up on my roof and wedge it under a shingle.
If that one isn't accepted, I'd see if I could get it to fit in a cat turd in Izzy's litterbox.
My first thought was to straighten it out and poke it into a plushy or a pillow or something like that.
Drop it in the ranch bottle. There's no way he'd look there and even if he did, it wouldn't be easy to see. Similar ideas would be a shampoo bottle or taped inside a drawer slide so a metal detector wouldn't work
glue it to a leaf. insert leaf in rain gutter.
I wonder if that counts as in the home.
Who cares. Just say it's inside the home and enjoy your pay day 🤣
When you greet the detective:
my ass hole, if he finds it.. i still win 😏
It's April now.... I'd take a small piece of wood from garage, drill small hole, straighten paperclip and place inside, seal with wood putty, draw crude image of a holiday present on wood with Sharpie, poorly write "merry x-mas mommy, 1986, 2nd grade" on it, rub "ornament" on floor a bit to age, drill hole near top edge, place ornament hook and twist and reshape to mock years of use, bury it in the Christmas ornament box up in the rafters of the garage.
That's a lot to accomplish in 5 minutes!
I'm motivated
Put it wherever TF the socks go that disappear after doing laundry. You’ll never see it again.
Eat it
You get paid if they don't find it. You don't have to produce it yourself. Melt the paper clip down mix it with other metals. Use a sander to completely destroy it. Vaporize it. Etc
All that in 5 minutes?
In the sock dimension.
Mad man
For the uninitiated, my man wants to hide the paper clip inside their erect urethra
Put it in a box with other paperclips on my office desk.
Does the paperclip need to stay in shape?
Stick it in the dirt of one of the 130 plants in my place
I had the exact same idea, so the detective is probably looking there as well.
Hmm touché. But sifting through all the pots might take longer though, and making a huge mess might be something they want to avoid
Metal detectors exist, though.
Okay, so my idea was really bad :-)
I could find that in the dirt with a metal detector made 100 years ago.
Pull a kitchen drawer open all the way and stick it to the bottom of the granite with a bit a blu-tack
slip it in the vent of a random heavy appliance like the fridge
Eat it. There's only so much that fits on a paperclip.
Alternately, you could stick it in a tomato, or similarly squishy food item, inside your fridge.
I was thinking of putting it inside a tube of toothpaste
I'll assume the detective can use an x-ray device so I guess somewhere it won't stand out.
Maybe jam it into the frame if a sliding window.
Maybe into the body of the old wood stove.
Maybe jammed into the basket of the subwoofer.
Maybe wrapped inside a bayonet cap of a light bulb.
Maybe poked into a tube of the metal bed frame.
Maybe wedged into the mechanism of an old vcr.
Maybe in a gap between two corrugated iron sheets on the roof.
I dunno.
Straighten it, cut it into as many tiny pieces as possible with wire cutters for 4 minutes, then spend the last minute spreading them around random places in the carpet, vents, lawn, etc.
Down a plastic drain pipe. Fish it out with a magnet on string 24 hours later.
I just drop it in one of my "unsorted stuff" drawers.
I don't have to be able to find it again to claim the money, right?
3d print a flower pot with a pause in the job. Drop the clip in a cavity in the vase with some glue so it doesn't rattle around, resume the print job to finish and seal it inside, put some plants in there.
He said 5 minutes, not 5 hours. That being said, that would probably be a great idea, unless the detective had a metal detector.
Get a world record 3dbenchy and stick it in when it is still hot
I'll hide a bunch of them at different places along with the target. So that they lose confidence or keep looking for similar places every time they find the wrong ones.
Depends wether I need to find it later myself. If yes then I'd probably remove a baseboard and put it behind it next to the nail so you can't even use a metal detector. If I don't need to find it then I'd drop it down the crack under my bathroom doorstep which leads to the subfloor space where you're never going to find it again.
Buy 10,000 paperclips and scatter them throughout the house. Hide the target one somewhere obscure. It'll take more than 24 hours for him to find the exact right one.
In five minutes!?
Ah, I missed that part. In that case I would straighten out the paperclip into a long, flat line and hide it inside something metal, so it can't be found with a metal detector. Perhaps slip it inside the air vent in the back of my tv.
In my home? Probably in a fruit.
In my jean jacket pocket. I could just move around with it.
They would check you for metals first
Never mind then. Though if they're going to use a metal detector on me, nothing in my home is going to conceal a paperclip.
Bro went from in my pocket to giving up. 😂 let me guess how high you are
You can guess if you'd like.
Straighten it, open an electrical box, and slip it into the wiring where the ground wire is. Metal detector wouldn't really find it, it would just blend in the the metals around it. It wouldn't be obvious, there would be no holes around it, you wouldn't need anything more than a butter knife to hide it. And if you were careful, your house wouldn't even burn down.
I wouldn't trust myself with that stuff. Also, if the detective has a dog, wouldn't the dog still be able to find it?
You touch your bathroom light switch every day. Why would it smell different?
Not the light, the paperclip.
They'll have to go through me to get it, because I'm eating it.
Same thought, other end of the digestive tract. I don't want it to get snagged somewhere.
unscrew a screw from the wall, put it in some spare space behind it, screw again
I don't know how plumbing works, but I think this would work:
I'd empty the hair from my hairbrush, tangle the paperclip in it and put the clump down my shower drain. Hair clump keeps it from draining away keeping it "in my house." Retrieve after with one of those spikey stick snake things. Spend the remaining 3 minutes touching other hiding places to throw the detective off the scent.
If that doesn't count as in the house I'd probably just slip it into a pocket of a coat in my closet. I doubt they'd think to check every pocket of every item of clothing. They're probably checking all the vents and window panels and little holes in my walls, and I don't think they'd catch me because I go in my closet a lot so it's not like I've disturbed dust to go in there during the 5 minutes.
Use a neodymium magnet on a long string to place the paper clip near the bottom of a long vent duct.
Drop it in the back vent of a TV.
Zzzzit.... POP!
Taped to my balls.
Sort of cheating - flush it down the toilet.
Playing by the rules - turn it into dust with an angle grinder.
Cat litter box, or the bottom of the hay bag for my guinea pig.
I have a bag in a drawer with about 100+ pens of all kinds that I collected over the years. I'd straighten it out and stick it in one of those. Good luck, detective!
inside a really weird sex toy.
Into my weiner hole.
Open fridge, find bag of sweet peppers, poke paperclip into pepper, return to fridge.
The cable is broken on one of my joysticks from the 90's, unbend it and slide it down the housing.
'9'0's'
'90s nutz
The question is who cleans up afterwards?
U bend of the toilet we don't use. Can fish it out with a magnet if I need to reclaim it later