Patio/Garden Furniture as a Cache

Patio/Garden Furniture as a Cache

 Over many years in my research on “caching”, plus my personal experience finding, and the making of the cache, I have found to be always amazed at the place the hide has been found. Amazed in two ways. How clever one can be. And how stupid one can be. They might as well have hung a sign that said ” here is my stuff” .

  With this most important skill set  is the amazing ability of what folks come up with , the places to hide, conceal, and stash the booty. The idea of course is when you need it you will be able to lay your grubby hands on it. Some caches are designed for a fast retrieve, some take much more time. The place to cache is always a key factor. And the what it is you need to stash.

 Most of us have hidden some item in our home at one time or another. When I was about 12 years old I made a cache in our covered patio under a stepping stone. I hollowed out a hole and then used some cement to line it with. And placed the stepping stone back over it. It never really dried well. But the idea of hiding gear never left me. I have extensive files on caching, interviewed many cache “makers”, books  are okay up to a point , I have many of them, and there are many more of them. However, they all seem to repeat repeat ( that repeat is on purpose) but by doing, and seeing a real cache in action is the way to go. That can be  hard to come by. I have been studying  the “hide”, and have uncovered many caches over the last 40 some odd years. I am sharing a little bit of what I have learned the hard way with you. Nothing is set in stone, I am still surprised at the imagination some have. However, in most cases a cache can be very easy to find. Why? because the person didn't really think it through. We will try and avoid the obvious in this series  of articles.  Although it might be obvious to you, it is not the norm.

Patio furniture offers many potential places to stash your “stuff” . One thing cool about this type of furniture is no one really pays it any mind. Works better as it gets a few years on it. No one will steal it. They, the bad guys or whoever, want in your house so they can toss it.

 Today we still have some outdoor furniture that is made of wood. The legs can be hollowed out of a table. Hide what will fit. Some wood tables have very large legs. You can field strip a semi -auto and after making sure it is water proofed, insert and seal it off. Same with the chairs or the wood benches. With a wood bench or the table top you can pry up one of the boards , carefully, and hollow out a place from the top. Make sure the re-fit looks like the rest of the bench. After a season it will all blend anyway.  

 A lot of the outdoor patio furniture is made from tubing, wow, is that neat or what. I have found paper money rolled up and inserted up the legs. The arms sometimes have a padding or a wooden arm rest. Made to order for you to modify. Unscrew the wooden arm rest, take a hacksaw at about the half way point where the wood armrest fits, and cut there. Put in the bucks, diamonds, or whatever. Seal with super glue, or your choice. Attach the wooden arm rest, and there you have it by jove. Aunt Emma will never know her arm is resting on 3 grand and that is just one side.  Works for gold and silver coins as well. Just be careful that the chairs are weighted evenly.

 Got a patio table and umbrella, cool. The legs of the table are perfect, I love the ones with a glass top. You can see this coming, the umbrella is waiting for you to customize it. My favorite way is from the top of the umbrella. Take off the “final” (that's the pointy thing at the top), and do your magic with a drill. The bottom works well also. You are not going to get a lot into these small areas though. I feel we all need to put away some cash in a cache. These are for a fast fix of money if you need it right now. .

 Lounge chair. Do what ya did before with  whatever it is made of. The large cushion or pad is amost always tied down. Untie it, turn the pad over, and slit the under section at the seam. Put whatever it is that is your “stuff” in a water proof container and insert. Sew it back up. Turn it over and tie it down. Try and place your “stuff” where the cross pieces or springs are not going over the cache, but in between. So you are laying on your stash , you won't feel it.

 One of the most clever caches I ever saw was in a plastic raft thingy that you and the kids play on. It was a solid color, and made well. It was slit at a seam, and the items were placed inside. Seam was glued and sown together, so it would still float, and be blown up etc. Take out of the pool when not being used. Of course this only works if you have a pool, damn details.

 The next thing that meets the eye in your patio are plants. Potted plants. Hanging pots. No need of a plan here. The structure that might be you patio is an obvious place to cache. If no one can see the top of the structure, that old guy next door, the top offers some “places” . Depends on how it is built etc.

 BBQ, aha, it is hot, it burns stuff, not a place to hide anything. Oh really?  I think not. There are so many styles of the BBQ ,  I am not going into it here. It all rides on what kind you have, and what you need to stash. It is an excellent place for money. Protected the right way. Mostly in the legs. Again, depends on the unit.

The mind set for hiding things, and the idea of the cache, is training yourself to always look at anything with “cache” in mind. It is fun and makes your brain work.

By Dude McLean