This time, with rules.
The other post got me thinking, here’s my version.
For 5 million dollars, the task is the hide a paperclip in your home from a professional investigator. You have 15 minutes to hide it, they have 12 hours and subcontractors to find it. You cannot leave your house or have anything shipped in during your 15 minutes. You have to leave immediately after the 15 minutes is up, and you cannot have the paperclip on your person. Any family members, friends, and all pets will also be removed from the premises, and they aren’t allowed to have the paperclip.
You must be able to produce the original paperclip at the end in order to win the challenge. It is marked in some way that you don’t know but the investigator can verify. Absolutely no substitutions. You can bend the paperclip, but not cut it.
The paperclip must be inside the building. Not in a shared entryway, not outside the walls in any way. Between the studs of the outside walls of whatever you own or rent as living space are as far as you can go.
Any damage done by the investigator or subcontractors will be repaired back the way it was at no charge, win or lose. They are not allowed to harm the structural integrity of your home/apartment.
Straighten it out, then twist it into a spring around a screwdriver. Remove a spring from some component and put the original in my spare parts box.
Idk how to do any better than this. Genius!
I like your confidence, but I don’t believe that you could do that in 15 minutes.
Unscrew the aerator on the kitchen sink, bend the paperclip so it makes a loop that holds it tight inside of the faucet, and push it up inside the faucet. Then reinstall the aerator.
You can’t metal detect it, it won’t affect water flow, and it would be simple to retrieve.
Jokes on them, I keep a bunch of old screws, nails, etc. They come in handy. I’d disturb those containers and mix in part the box of paperclips I already have. Then dump the others around the house randomly.
Then, tilt my fridge and hide the correct one under it, in the little lip formed by where the metal is rolled.
Unless they actually lift the fridge and turn it almost upside down, that damn thing isn’t coming out of that lip.
By the time they’ve gone through all of the fake hiding spots and determined that all of the other clips are the wrong ones, a big portion of the time is gone (and I’m assuming the clip somehow identifiable and that they have a way of doing so, otherwise they’re screwed from the beginning)
Nobody with sense is going to turn the fridge over to check under it unless they’ve exhausted other places.
It’s all about wasting their time and making use of human habits, not necessarily a super secret spot.
But, that spot rules out metal detectors, and won’t have visible signs of recent movement (because I keep the kitchen absurdly clean, there’s no built up dust or grime under it to show the movement). If I hadn’t had to turn the fridge on its side to get under they’re for some repairs, I wouldn’t know the lip existed in the first place. So the chances of any of the investigators and/or subcontractors also knowing that a decades old model of refrigerator happens to have a rolled metal lip is pretty damn low.
They’d do the human thing of looking under it, or even lifting it off the feet and checking under those, but not look further because any of the other places under there would allow a little piece of metal to fall out freely when their first search happened.
But, there’s a similar spot on the interior of our washing machine that I found when replacing a switch. Same kind of deal, but the area where the washer is isn’t as clean, so it would be obvious enough.
Nice!
And yes, I did say that they have a way of identifying which clip is the one you are supposed to hide.
I would simply straighten it and slide it into one of the thousands of corrugated Amazon boxes my wife keeps ordering that make up the half ton of cardboard in my basement. Good luck.
A little metal detector work by one of the subcontractors would eliminate all the boxes, and sort through all the staples in said boxes, within 12 hours. I think they’d find it.
I mean are they allowed to destroy my boxes? Because if not, then I have serious doubt. If so, it would take a couple hours to burn them all and find my paperclip.
Yes, they are allowed to destroy the boxes. Each one that gets destroyed or damaged will be replaced afterwards, so that the place is left the same as they found it.
Straighten it, drill a small hole perpendicular to the hinge of one of your doors, put it inside and cover the hole up. If there’s enough time, add some paint to it, otherwise just use the sawdust mixed with some glue. The hole is certainly tiny enough to get unnoticed and any metal detector would hopefully pick up the larger metal hinge instead of the paperclip. Finally, if you also paint it up, it would practically be invisible. Just make sure you use a paint that doesn’t smell too strongly.
This guy murders. Username checks out too
Ooh, you wouldn’t even need to do that… knock the pins out of your door hinges, remove the door, put the unbent paperclip INSIDE one of the pins and re-install.
Any family members and all pets will also be removed from the premises, and they aren’t allowed to have the paperclip.
Get someone who isn’t a family member to shove it up their ass and stay in the house
Haha! Nice workaround.
I guess they’ll just have to do exploratory surgery and put your friend back together the way they were before they leave.
I edited to add that friends would have to leave the premises without the paperclip
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Hmm
I didn’t factor in interrogation. The competitor would leave the premises without contacting the investigator.
No interrogation, no spying on you as you leave. Checking for the paperclip on your person is done by a separate person/machine, away from the investigator or any of their crew.
I think 12 hours of interrogation is long enough to break anyone.
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Aw man, I forgot to add a stipulation that you can’t bribe the investigator.
I have several boxes of paperclips at home, spread them out and as decoys, and put the real paper clip inside a mechanical pencil after straightening it out and put the pencil into a box of many different pencils, make a tiny mark with a file and mix it up.
The paperclip boxes will distract them for a few hours, but logic will dictate that mixing the paper clip with other’s is dumb as I need to be able to retrieve it with in a resonable timeframe.
I’m not sure it’s possible. A team of people with the singular goal of finding something with no regard litterally anything else could strip a home in 12 hours.
That said, I would drill a small hole on the backside of one of the roof joists in the far corner of the attic, put the paperclip in that and then use wood putty to seal the hole.
I’m not sure it’s possible.
The time I got caught growing weed, several officers “searched” my home and they literally just didn’t see a massive jar of crushed weed I had on my kitchen table.
Like in plain sight, and some 70g of cannabis, in a large glass jar. And those cops did not ignore it on purpose.
It’s a different situation but still
Straighten the paper clip and slip it inside the binding of an old copy of Britannica I have. I got it second hand from a public library, so it has quite a few of the old style anti-theft tags hidden throughout; it also contains quite a few paper clips of many colors I once used as bookmarks.
I use the remaining time to clean the house, making sure to go into the bathroom more than once, moving the toilet tank lid and opening and shutting all of the cabinets every time. If I’m very lucky I’ll be just shutting the medicine cabinet audibly when the investigators walk in. (For those not familiar, many houses built in the mid 20th century in the US had slots in the back of the medicine cabinet where you were supposed to dispose of used razor blades.)
I think they’d tear the entire house apart trying to find that thing. There’s a small chance someone would notice paper clips on the Brittanica and start checking for more. Whether they find it depends on whether they have access to x rays or a metal detector.
I have no doubt that they would, but that’s not one of the variables I’m trying to control. As far as I can tell, time and volume are the only two things that I can play with. They have a 30-minute timer, and cannot take the load-bearing walls down. That means there’s a volume constraint, no matter how many people they have available they can only fit so many in one space. That limits the amount of time they have to actually search, assuming they empty the dwelling. If they don’t empty the dwelling, it sharply limits the number of people they can have searching at any one time. Heavy equipment like an x-ray machine also limits that volume.
With respect to the Britannica, if you’re familiar with them you know they are massive and this one just happened to be my primary research source in high school. I cannot understate the number of flags and paper clips simply destroying those bindings right now. If someone does notice it, I’m relying on running out the clock with them checking every one they see first.
They’d have to stay within the home, but they do have 12 hours to check through things. So, they cannot empty the things to the outside, they have to sort through things inside. I guess that eliminates the xray idea.
But a metal detector and 12 hours time would put the odds in their favor.
Straighten the paperclip and hide it:
Inside a ballpoint pen.
In a spool of wire.
Shove it into a side of a cardboard box.
Drop it down a drain.
Taped to the backside of a shelf.
Inside the foam of my headphones.
Inside a USB cable.
Hide it in the insulation, then hide a bunch of dummy paperclips all through the house.
OP, please edit your title to make it a question.
Oh right, sorry.
Put in into the wall using an existing screw hole for a photo then rehang the photo. Take a hammer to the wall later to get it back.
Hmm. I think tearing down all the drywall would be a logical step for the investigator, given that they have extra help. I think they would find it within 12 hours.
Time becomes the constraint, they can’t just start smashing walls, that makes everything around harder to search. With something the size of a paperclip they could easily miss it if they just hammer a hole between each stud.
They would have to check the entire room as best they can before they start smashing things and sorting through the rubble… Hmm yes, 12 hours is not too long to give them.
Maybe but there are a lot of wires and pipes running through the walls too. They would spend longer rebuilding the house if they broke every wall and took apart every appliance
They have unlimited time and money on to put the place back together. The only incentive they have to avoid tearing things apart is that finding the paperclip early in the day makes a short day for them, and bragging rights.
Firstly, if you can, get a bunch of boxes of paperclips and put them in plausible hiding places. Depending on how they are marked, it might buy you some time.
Some ideas:
- Lock it in a safe or strongbox only you know the code for.
- Unscrew a plug socket or light switch from the wall, put it in the cavity, and then reattach it.
- Get a photograph with a metal frame and slip the paperclip behind the picture itself.
- Find some other metalic easy to dismantle thing and hide the clip inside.
- Throw it down a drain or other hole, you can use a magnet on a string to retrieve it.
I assume the investigator will systematically remove everything and sweep it with a metal detector. Hopefully these hiding places won’t be as obvious.
I figured the investigator would start non-destructively, just moving things around, pickup up loose objects, etc.
But who knows, maybe they go full destruction mode immediately.
They do have a way of verifying, and it would buy some time as they pick up every single paperclip they find and verify it somehow.
