Why Bury? A mirror of How to Bury Your Stuff dot com

How to Bury Your Stuff: The Ultimate Guide to Burying Your Valuables

Because no one can take what they cannot find
Why bury? I’ve been asked that question countless times over the years and my answer is always the same. Because if done properly, it’s the ultimate security for your valuables; not only is it cheaper than any alternative but nothing else is as secure, period.
Hiding your valuables under your mattress or in your sock drawer does not protect against fires or natural disasters like tornados. Safety deposit boxes can be costly in that they are an ongoing expense. They can only be accessed during the bank’s business hours and depend on functioning electricity. Home safes are expensive; they do not always properly protect your valuables against fires or floods and can be easily defeated by any intruder with the proper cutting tools. By burying your valuables underground, one can guarantee that his or her most precious possessions are forever protected against theft, fire, extreme weather, most natural disasters and even the collapse of the electrical grid.
Prior to around 1998, anyone who buried anything underground was considered paranoid by mainstream society. The Y2K or “Millennium Bug” changed that. This was the belief that on December 31st 1999, all computer systems worldwide would crash. Survivalism or “Prepping” as it is now called, started to become more popular. Tabloids like CNN started to push scary stories about new diseases and imminent natural disasters. Television shows and movies geared around apocalyptic themes grew in popularity, and sensationalism combined with mistaken beliefs about the Mayan New Year would push worldwide survival spending past $500 billion during the 2012 fiscal year.
I originally created this website with the intent of helping everyone in every demographic group secure their most valuable possessions. But I am not naïve, I realize that the majority of my visitors will be survivalists and doomsday preppers. This brings me to another reason for burying your possessions; an apocalypse of some sorts. Collapse of the world’s economy, zombies, post peak oil, Fascist gun confiscations, WMD’s, disease or pandemic, mass starvation and civil war all seem to be included in today’s popular ideation.
Before I ever heard about something called the World Wide Web, I had already been burying stuff for about 15 years and I had never lost anything that I put in the ground. One common myth on the Internet is that it’s illegal to bury, hoard or cache survival gear and valuables. This is a complete falsehood since churches, youth groups and schools do it all the time; only they call their caches “Time Capsules.” In addition, the term “geocaching” is a term that defines what’s described as a popular outdoor activity in which participants play a high-tech game of hide-and-seek.
Since the day I first discovered the Internet, I’ve also seen much chatter about how burying stuff is such a waste of time and about how easily the government can swoop in with it’s superior technology and locate everything in the blink of an eye. But in reality, I can remember several instances during my life where a small plane like a Piper or a Cessna disappeared over the American or Canadian Rockies. Despite massive search and rescue operations, a few of these small aircraft have never been found; and these crash sites were ABOVE ground.
The fantasy is that the government knows all and sees all. Using the population of the United States as an example, no government has the ability to constantly monitor 320 million people all at once, (although it certainly does try) nor does it have the resources to scan every inch of U.S. soil. And if no government is capable of finding a buried stash, then neither are thieves, hackers, delinquents, drug addicts or looters. Even the most massive illegal drug farms are either discovered by human intelligence or accidentally stumbled upon by local law enforcement officers investigating an unrelated crime; not located by superior government technology as many would believe.
To this day, there are many “treasures” (safes and even entire bank vaults are still missing from heists; millions of dollars in cash and gold bullion from stagecoach robberies, etc) lost in the old American West that have been buried for more than 100 years and have yet to be discovered.
Simply put; Burying is the ultimate security. Period.

General Tips on Caching Underground

General Tips

For Burying your Electronics, Guns, Documents and More!

Because no one can take what they cannot find

First time burying something underground? Feeling paranoid? Don’t worry, burying valuables underground used to be considered crazy or extreme; but since the Y2K and Mayan apocalypses, survival prepping has gone mainstream. If you’ve never considered this option before you will quickly find that there are dozens of survivalist websites, forums and blogs to get you started. Best tools for digging? …in my humble opinion, are shown in the photo below. A small hatchet, a small flat pick, a mattock and a shovel should be all you need. Although I have never needed them, in some situations you may also find post-hole diggers to be useful.
A common term used to define an underground stash is “cache” and here are 10 tips, just some suggestions to consider in order to give your valuables maximum security.
1 – I would feel remiss if I didn’t state the obvious. Do not tell anyone where your cache is, no one, period. Not your spouse, best friend or child. That one person who you really really trust will tell someone else that they really really trust and so on. Ensure that no one follows you to your caching location and do not repeatedly travel back and forth. Do not draw any maps or directions; the only directions should be the ones locked away in your own memory. If you can help it, don’t even tell anyone that you have a cache at all. Be creative and build multiple caches as backup or you could even ‘mark’ a false location as a dummy cache.
2 – If you are concerned about hackers or electronic surveillance then don’t use your Garmin to locate your hiding spot. When digging or checking on your underground cache, do NOT take your cellphone with you. Leave all of your electronic devices at home, including your digital camera. You do not want any electronic record of you ever having been at this location. Also remember that your vehicle’s Tom-Tom, OnStar or LoJack can also be your undoing.
3 – Remember “High and Dry” and stay away from lakes, rivers, valleys and any flat area of ground. The water table of any flat area, regardless of elevation, can hold large amounts of water for an extended time. You want to dig on hilltops, hillsides and ridges; far away and above any body of water.
4 – When choosing a location, try to find a place as close to home as possible but far enough away that it cannot be found by simply sweeping your backyard with a metal detector. If you live in a rural or suburban area, then this should be easy enough. If you live in a strictly urban setting, then you may be forced to choose a location that requires driving some distance. In an ideal situation, you want your cache located on or near a hilltop, in a wooded area within walking distance of your home that is unlikely to be disturbed by construction or logging companies.
5 – You’ll have to research your location’s “frost line” (those who live in Calgary will have to dig deeper than those who live in Juarez) and try to place the top of your container at or below that depth. I’ve buried above the frost line before and never had problems; but if you’re not checking your cache at least once a year, then you will want to get below the frost line. Burying above the frost line means extreme changes in temperature that will cause something called ‘frost heave.’ This can not only actually move your items around, but can cause condensation inside your containers. Frost heave can also crush your containers.
6 – Do NOT ‘mark’ your spot. Do not pound a stake in the ground, put a big rock nearby or tie a rag around a tree. Markers like these can not only be found by others, but they can be moved. Depending solely on a marker to find your underground cache could lead to disaster. You just need to ‘know’ where it is. Pick a certain tree, curve in the ridge line or an outcropping of rock and remember it. Also, you will want your underground cache to be located somewhere that no one who knows you would ever associate with you. Do not bury valuables near your favorite camping spot, your favorite fishing spot or near your deer hunting tree stand. Keep in mind from the very beginning that if your cache was to be discovered, you’d want everyone who knows you to think, “Really, he hid his stuff there?”
7 – I’ve traveled considerably and every small town that I’ve ever lived in had rumors about a nearby creek where the water flowed uphill. While constructing, arranging, placing and covering your cache, actually picture the water running uphill and remember that this is a scientific impossibility. Water flows downhill and this is the basis for what I call my “Bell Method.” The Bell Method is based on the fact that you can take an empty drinking glass, turn it upside down (like a hanging bell) and push it down into a bucket of water. Anything attached to the bottom of the glass would remain perfectly dry. I started using this concept during my teenage years and no matter how deep underwater (within reason) there will always be a pocket of air inside. In the following webpages, I’ll go into more detail about the Bell Method and include some photographs.
8 – Insulate whatever you are burying against rapid changes in temperature. It’s useless to waterproof something only to have moisture condensate inside your sealed container. Take an empty 20 ounce Coca-Cola bottle, rinse and dry it out completely. Screw the lid on tight and alternate placing the empty bottle in the freezer, then outside on a hot summer day and back in the freezer again. Sooner or later, if you continue to do this, moisture will start appearing on the inside of the bottle. This is the exact same thing that can easily happen to all of your ammunition, each circuit board, each paper document and each firearm you bury underground. Burying below your area’s frost line and using temperature insulation is critical.
9 – Steel wool will rust very easily. Buy some fine grade (0000) and place a piece of it with whatever you are burying. Say for instance, that you dig up your cache once a year and check everything out. Every year you should place that exact same piece of steel wool back into your container(s), if the year ever comes when it suddenly has rust on it; then you know that you have a problem.
10 – Lastly, I want to reemphasize my first tip. Do not tell anyone anything about the location of your underground cache. Burying your valuables keeps them absolutely safe because of the single solitary fact that no one knows where they are. If your geocaching is the result of a group project, then make damn sure you can trust your fellow preppers with both your property and quite possibly your life; furthermore, whether you are digging in an urban, suburban or rural environment remember that there are probably more people watching you than you realize. Use common sense when traveling to and from your location, wear camouflage or dark clothing and try be quiet when digging. Be sneaky, dig at 4:00am during a full moon without using a flashlight or be creative; only visit your cache during a severe thunderstorm.

Tricks and Tips for Caching

Because no one can take what they cannot find

I’ve put together this webpage to share a few little tricks that I’ve learned over the years. It’s a little haphazard and disorganized but I’m hopeful that this page might save you some time, money or frustration.
Don’t underestimate good old-fashioned Zip-Loc brand (not generic or any other brand but ZIP-LOC brand double-zipper) baggies in either quart or gallon size. These things are great; cheap and totally watertight.
Just burying a single flashdrive or a few pieces of jewelry? Use the simplest version of my Bell Method. Take a Vitamin Water bottle like this one that I found in the corner of my garage.
Drop your flashdrive into a Zip-Loc baggie, seal it and then drop that baggie into another one. Leave just enough air so that the flashdrive would float and slip it into the bottle.
Screw the cap on firmly, bury the bottle upside down and boom! Just like that, you’ll have a cache that will last remain secure for many years. A bottle this size should be good-to-go for a depth of no more than 24 inches, any deeper and the weight of the dirt could crush it. Be sure to bury it upside down so if the cap does leak, water still won’t get in. Need to shield it from EMP?…just wrap it in aluminum foil or copper mesh; FYI the copper mesh is best since it’s the better conductor. Total cost is probably less than 5 bucks, it requires no tools and it will protect your flashdrive for many years.
You can see by the last photo, that the flashdrive itself is lodged near the bottom of the bottle. This is ideal since the Vitamin Water bottler will be upside-down, placing the usb drive near the top of the bell.

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SanDisk makes a model called the “Extreme” and it has solid reviews for both reliability and durability.

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When using plastic drinking bottles to cache your valuables underground, do NOT use clouded plastic containers like milk jugs. Liquids like milk and motor oil are usually bottled in HDPE marked as #2 on the SPI recycling label. This label is located on the bottom of every plastic container; it has 3 arrows in the shape of a triangle and usually says, “Please recycle.” Drinking containers and small bottles made from HDPE plastics will crack, split and break apart very quickly (within a year). Stick with clear plastics; PET/PETE or #1 on the SPI recycling label…
…and remember that this rule applies only to drinking containers like milk jugs. I believe most 5-gallon buckets are HDPE or #2 on the SPI recycling label and I’ve used plenty of them over the years; when using Tupperware or Rubbermaid type products, look for a #5 on the SPI label.
If you are looking to safeguard important photographs or documents, just bury them in your yard for convenience. Remove any staples or paper clips and use only plastics to cache them. Without any metals present, they would be virtually invisible to most technology. You could actually tell your neighbors that you had valuable documents buried in your garden or flower bed; and anything short of ground penetrating radar would be useless in locating them.
I rummaged through my garage today and found several items worth mentioning. I found an old cooler with a lid and it’s just perfect for depths of up to about 3 or 4 feet.
Bury it upside-down and make sure you bury it with the lid. Without the lid, the weight of overhead soil will slowly push it deeper, displacing precious air. Place your valuables in waterproof containers on the lid of the cooler. If the cooler does not remain level, it won’t matter at all because any water entering along the bottom will just make these two Outdoor Products dry boxes float.

I also found an old garden spray bottle with a broken nozzle. Instead of throwing it away, one could roll up documents, jewelry or flashdrives in Zip-Loc’s and bury it upside-down using my Bell Method.
Set it on a piece of wood to prevent dirt from being pushed up inside. Garden sprayers like these are long lasting and very tough. I’m just guessing, but it could probably withstand depths deeper than most of us care to dig. Just as I did with the cooler, I used a ratchet strap to secure the package as one piece. You can count on a quality ratchet strap lasting about three years underground.
Always remember that just as in everything else in life, creativity counts; some preppers get creative and use tire nozzles to purge their PVC pipe caches with nitrogen and leave 3-5lbs PSI of pressure inside the tube. Without oxygen, nothing can rust or oxidize; and with constant internal pressure, you are guaranteed not to have any water leaking in.
This may sound paranoid, but watch your air cover. There are more eyes in the sky than we realize and all of the precautions in the world won’t matter a bit if there is a photo of you on Google Maps digging a hole in a field

My Personal Cache

My Personal Cache – A Step-by-Step Guide

How to Bury Your Stuff: The Ultimate Step-by-Step Guide

Because no one can take what they cannot find

Take an empty 20 ounce Coca-Cola bottle, rinse and dry it out completely. Screw the lid on tight and alternate placing the empty bottle in the freezer, then outside on a hot summer day and back in the freezer again. Sooner or later, if you continue to do this, moisture will start appearing on the inside of the bottle. This is the exact same thing that can easily happen to all of your electronic circuit boards. To guard against this, I will be going through a step-by-step process and showing you exactly how I am caching my own external hard drive.
For this demonstration, I’m going to be copying my laptop’s files onto an external hard drive. I will then cache this hard drive at another location, but first I will be photographing the steps I am taking in order to show you the proper way to shield your electronics and digital devices from both condensation and electro-magnetic pulse.
In this photo, you can see my silver Seagate 1tb Backup Plus HDD.
This Seagate HDD model has moving parts that may not withstand long-term exposure to moisture and extreme temperatures; so while burying this particular hard-drive, it will be critical that I dig below the frost-line. When burying digital storage devices, it’s preferable to use an SSD (solid-state drive) whenever possible; they are expensive but also incredibly tough and able to handle many times the abuse.
I have already saved my laptop’s important files (music, photos, vacation videos and a couple of my favorite films) to the HDD and then placed it inside a FoodSaver vacuum bag with two bags of desiccant.
I then wrapped the FoodSaver bag with a cotton t-shirt for temperature insulation and placed the wrapped HDD inside an Outdoor Products brand dry box. These little things are great for water-sports, however after about 3 years the seals will start to dry-rot. So if you’re caching for several years, use all-purpose silicone around the seal. If you prefer, substitute a small Tupperware container in place of the dry box. You will still need to use all-purpose silicone to seal the lid and I would wrap it with half a roll of tightly-bound electrical tape for insurance.

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I now have a Seagate 1tb Backup Plus inside a sealed container made completely out of plastic and silicone, both of which are good electrical insulators. I want to shield my hard-drive from electro-magnetic pulse (EMP) so I’m going to construct what is called a Faraday Cage. I won’t go into details about how the Faraday works, there is plenty of data available elsewhere online. As you can see below, I’ve wrapped this plastic container with copper mesh, successfully shielding my HDD from electrical disturbances.

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At the last minute, I have decided to add several more items, including another Outdoor Products dry box to this cache. The second dry box contains an extra pair of reading glasses, a pocketknife and a few other personal items. I will be using sections of foam swimming pool “noodles” to keep the boxes evenly spaced while inside the tube. This practice maintains a good temperature buffer and also prevents damage during transport by holding everything inside the tube in place.
As you can see in the photo below, the two boxes and the styrofoam noodle “spacers” will only take up about two-thirds the length of the pipe. The remaining space will be used for a few more personal items; I’ll leave it to your imagination what they might be.
I have taken both of my Outdoor Product dry boxes and placed them inside a section of 6-inch PVC sewer pipe. I’ve used epoxy resin to seal one end and petroleum jelly to seal the other; using a permanent marker to designate which end of the pipe can be opened and which cannot.
The “dead air” space inside the pipe acts as a second layer of insulation against rapidly changing temperatures and the pipe itself acts as a second water-proofing device. Since the pipe and endcaps are also electrical insulators, when I bury the pipe I will wrap it completely in heavy-duty aluminum foil to act as a second Faraday Box.
Remember to cut slits in the aluminum foil along the bottom of the pipe for drainage; the last thing you want is water pooling around your cache. I’m also using the aluminum foil to attach a flat screwdriver to one end of the pipe.
Well, there you have it.  I’ve done this more times than I could begin to count and I know that as sure as I sit here, that many years from now, this HDD can be safety retrieved in pristine condition. I plan to launch this website about a week or so after burying this cache near a cabin in the Daniel Boone National Forest. I’ll bury the pipe over the Labor Day holiday weekend on a ridgeline about 24 inches below the surface, exactly as it is shown in the above photo.
With double redundancies insuring against water damage, electrical surge and condensation, I can rest easy; knowing that all of my digital data is securely protected against anything and everything.

10 tips on caching underground

Recently updated page; 10 tips on caching underground http://www.howtoburyyourstuff.com/general-tips/

Good reasons why NOT to trust safety deposit boxes

http://cherylkicksass.blogspot.com/2011/04/why-safe-deposit-boxes-arent-safe-in.html

www.howtoburyyourstuff.com

“For where thy treasure is, there also will thy heart be.” -Holy Bible: King James Version

“When people bury treasure nowadays they do it in the post office or the bank.” -Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

How to Bury Your Stuff is now on Facebook!!

How to Bury Your Stuff is now on Facebook! For new preppers and survivalists, just a little help to get you started successfully caching your gear or valuables in the safest possible place. Why bury? Because no one can take what they cannot find.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/How-to-Bury-Your-Stuff/220064754835153

My Seagate HDD

This what the HDD in the following post looked like before packaging.

My personal hard drive; currently underground

Seagate Backup Plus sealed in FoodSaver bag with desiccant; planning on digging it up in 

three years, swapping it out and testing it

Pelican rifle case; best method for burying long guns

For more info, check out www.howtoburyyourstuff.com

Best method of packing ammunition for caching underground

Sealed with desiccant inside a FoodSaver bag – Ammunition can be packed in this way and buried safely below the frostline for years with no danger of damage or corrosion. For more information visit http://www.howtoburyyourstuff.com

PVC pipe cache; unassembled - www.howtoburyyourstuff.com

Best way to seal documents

PVC pipe cache

One of the most popular methods of caching just about anything underground.

Tools for caching underground

Everything you need to get started.

How to bury your valuables and survival gear

For preppers and average citizens alike, detailed instruction written by someone with years of experience about caching underground.