Have you ever heard or seen of the trick that tells you to hide your spare key under your front door mat? 

Of course. After all, the media loves to show it. Whether it be in a cartoon or a movie, they seem to indirectly promote the trick to everyone.

However, haven't you considered that that's the first place thieves and intruders would look?

Besides the previously mentioned doormat, here are Locksmiths of Belfast's top ten worst places to hide your valuables.

- Drawers

- Closets

- Under the bed

- Fridge

- Toilet tank

- Under or between the mattress

- Bags and backpacks

- Pots and vases

- A safe in plain sight

- Laying in plain sight

These days, you can never be too sure. Although none of us want to be a victim of home intruders, it's better to be safe than sorry.

If you have common sense, it's a natural thing to not leave valuables in plain sight. Don't leave wallets, phones, and jewelry unattended. Think about how easy it is to get swiped off the surface and never to be seen again.

You'd think drawers are safe, but that's the first place intruders are going to look into. A good idea to remedy that is to create a false bottom. Look into false bottom tutorials for drawers online and you can pretty much rest assured nothing under that secret compartment is going anywhere.

Inside the fridge or the toilet tank, you might even risk destroying whatever item you hid. There are better places than those.

Pots, vases, and other small containers with a lid can be suspicious. Anyone would look into it too.

Hide your safe, no matter how hard the combination to it is or how hidden you think your key to it is, the risk isn't worth leaving it out in the open.

Consult your friends and family about what tricks they have, of if you trust them enough, hide the emergency valuables somewhere safe in their place instead. 

Be careful, make the right decision