How would you hide a paperclip in your home/apartment to win a contest against an investigator?

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.

I put the paperclip in with other paperclips at my office supply warehouse. Do I live in an office supply warehouse? Yes. The investigators will have to rifle though millions of loose paperclips and thousands of boxed paperclips. They have to search my shipping and my receiving areas. As I'm leaving, a woman sees me. She says "can you sell me some office supplies?" . She's the lead investigators. I say no. We make love all night. In the morning the cops come and I escape in one of their uniforms. I tell her to meet me in Mexico but I go to Canada. I don't trust her. Besides, I love the cold. Thirty years later I get a postcard. I have a son. And he's the Chief of Police. This is where the story gets interesting: I tell her to meet me in Paris by the Trocadero. She's been waiting for me all these years. She's never taken another lover. I don't care. I don't show up. I go to Berlin. That's where I shipped the paperclip.

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.

Straighten it and use a needle to push it into a tube of toothpaste.

I'd unbend it and slip it into the end of an unterminated Ethernet cable and then terminate it. I've got boxes of cables that may or may not have ends on them, both factory, home made and hybrid (repairs) cables, and it takes no time to terminate it. Slip the unbent clip into the cable, terminate and throw into the middle of the box, maybe even mix up all the cables so they start to nest.

Good luck fuckers.

Same answer as before. Bend it straight and put it in either a mechanical pencil or the ink tube of a pen.

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.

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.

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

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.

Straighten it then install it under the rim strip of a bike wheel. Reinstall the tire and leave it alone. It would be invisible to metal detector and there's a good chance none of the investigators know how to change a bike tire. I'd take my tire levers with me

Remove the wall plug, straighten the paper clip and insert it into the cable in between the wires, reinstall the wall plug.

I would straighten it out and then sew it into a pair of jeans near the fly. They would need to inspect every fly seam in every pair of jeans to find it.

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.

I put it through a laminator and cut it into a business card size. I then go up into the attic and press it down into the uninsulated interior wall between my office and son's room. The size of the laminate should allow me to flex it slightly and pin it between the walls with tension. If they try to remove the wall it will fall into the crawlspace below the house and be caught by a pad of insulation.

Alternatively, tuck it into the barrel of the washing machine in said laminate. It won't rattle and without fully disassembling it you won't be able to retrieve it.

Drill a tiny hole behind the strike plate of a door frame, stick the straightened paperclip in, patch the tiny hole, reinstall the strike plate.

By the time they consider looking there, the patching compound should be dried and not easily distinguishable from the painted wood, except on very close inspection.

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.

Permanently Deleted

I have a loophole--or more accurately, an ash vent in my fireplace. It leads to a spot in my basement that is completely inaccessible without compromising the structural integrity of my home (it's a block wall that holds up the fireplace and some key joists).

When I need to return the paperclip, I'd take a sledgehammer to the block wall and get it that way (I'd probably attach it to something easy to find before dropping it). The $5Mil will more than cover repairs, even if my house collapses.

If that isn't legal, I'd just go down to my basement and tuck it between a floor joist and the floor above, plus hide a bunch of decoys in my basement to hide tracks. They would only find it by pulling up every layer of floor in the entire house, which would take much longer than 12 hours.

I bribe one of the underpaid contractors to hang onto it. Or i bribe the investigator to not find it. You didnt say he would get paid. I leave out an assortment of good foods/snacks and the remotes for the tv/controller so they can enjoy the day off. I then check in for my own nice spa day for my own day off

Un-bend the paperclip and insert it lengthwise into a paper air filter, used or unused.

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.

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.)

On top of the front door door frame. Its too obvious

Hide it in the insulation, then hide a bunch of dummy paperclips all through the house.

Yeah right, I know exactly what you're trying to do Paperclip boy! I'm NEVER telling you where I hid my Paperclip! Just give it up already!

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.

I would get a giant pile of all kinds of paper clips, and put it in the center of the room. Then sprinkle several thousand clips all over the house. The clip in question would be one of the many.

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.

Grab a necklace made with wires and weave it through the metal. Put the necklace in with a bunch of other necklaces. Then take other paperclips and hide then around the place until time is up.

Even if it's marked, I think putting in a container full of other paperclips would still work if it's a big enough thing that even if they started with it, it would take more than 12 hours to find.

Taped to the inside of the blower housing of my furnace.

OP, please edit your title to make it a question.

Pop up some of the quarter round behind one of the toilets and drop the paperclip between the flooring and the studs then a quick tap down of the quarter round. With the extra time I might quickly paint a few spots in other rooms to distract them.

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 an extension cord - make sure to not use it afterwards.

I think I would open an air vent and hide the paper clip inside the vent, with a small piece of duct tape over it. I think it would just look like someone patched a hole in the air duct.

Swallow it.

That thread has been here before just the other day...