Redditor Asks People To Imagine They Have 5 Minutes To Hide A Paperclip In Their Home From A Detective Who Has 24 Hours To Find It, And The Answers Are Brilliant (30 Replies)
Fan of detective TV shows and movies? One of your nighttime hobbies includes binge-watching true crime shows on Netflix? Well, now is a perfect time to prove it!
Imagine you're given five minutes to hide a paperclip in your home from a detective who has 24 hours to find it. If they don't, you get $10,000. The question is, where are you going to hide the paperclip?
Such a puzzle was posted by one Reddit user in one of the most popular subreddits of all time—r/AskReddit. With almost 80k people liking the now-viral thread, it was only obvious we'd find some amusing, hilarious, and smart replies there. Ranging from laugh-out-loud funny to alarming (you'll find some suspiciously genius answers below), these 30 replies will surely be entertaining to read. After you're done reading the list, think up a strategy of where you'd hide a paperclip in your home and share your answer with all of us in the comment section down below!

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inside the rubbing alcohol bottle. that way the paperclip sniffing dogs can't find it.
Somewhere safe where ill find it later. Just like everything else I can't find.
I'd un bend it. Then force it down the tube of a near empty pen.
I would bend it so that it's tiny enough to swallow, and then--you guessed it--swallow it. They say home is where the heart is, and my heart is inside of me, so if the paperclip's inside of me...
OR better yet, put it in my underwear. They'd never look there if they know what good for them. ;)
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Burying it with the last detectives who tried.
You live in the cemetery? I mean, the rules do say to hide the paperclip in your home.
I'm gonna pass. Something tells me this detective is gonna do more than 10,000 worth of damage to my house looking for it. So unless he has a warrant I'm gonna say no.
Honestly, I would just put it in a pile of 100 paper clips. He/She would have a 1/100 chance of finding it.
I'd put it in my mask to form the nose bridge.
I’d glue it to the bottom of my shoe. I’d literally be standing there watching him look around my house, and trying not to look down.
You'd have to be up for 24 hours. "Why aren't you in bed yet?" "I'm not tired." "It's 3 AM in the morning..." "...I'm a college student."
Your shoe would make an odd noise if your walking on anything but carpet.
If and when that happens, you're screwed. xd
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Just hide a bunch of paperclips, when he finds one he'll stop searching
Technically the guy has to find the paper clip not refinements of the paper clip...
Load More Replies...Geez, really? How hard could this be? Drop it into a bottle of hand lotion. They'd never see it. This whole idea is sort of dumb-- I mean, come on. There are so many places... there has got to be some limitations. I can think of a lot of places that I could hide it in 5 minutes. Shove it into a cooked beef roast. Stick it in the tub of creamed cheese. In a box of cereal. In the dirt of a potted plant.....
I would've hidden it in my mouth, detectives don't look there for paper clips
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Give it my toddler...never to be seen again
No, I believe her face is just a liiiiiiittle bit deformed.
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Force it down the corrugation of one of the Amazon boxes I've yet to take out to recycling.
Push it through a drywall wall between studs and it should fall to the blocking at 4' increments off the ground code requires. If you can, put a nail into the hole and hang a painting or w/e to hide the small hole, or some Spackle. Later, use a magnet to attract it through the drywall and draw it back up to a hole or other opening in the wall. Even if the detective saw the hole, the paperclip isn't there, that's just the retrieval and drop point. It'd basically be impossible to find without ripping all the walls out. I doubt they could detect it, even using a metal detector because of all the background ferrous metal in nails, nail stops, Simpson clips, wiring, etc. that the detector would pick up everywhere else.
who said they weren't allowed to rip out the drywall? Why do you think the reward for hiding it well is $10,000 ;)
In the junk drawer. Good luck finding anything you're looking for.
That would actually be very easy to find. Just take out all the non-paper clips and there's not much left to sort through. Maybe 5 minutes?
Between the radiator fins of the split-type air conditioner. It's easy to insert, yet the position is not very accessible and would need to disassemble that aircon just to get a glimpse of it.
in the spine of a book (i have a room of ceiling to floor shelves)
I have a bookcase in my house that's three stories high, it goes from my basement to the second floor.
I gave you an upvote - but picture or it didn't happen.
Load More Replies...1. Push it into a fresh turd in the kitty litter. 2. Straighten it out and insert it into one of those pin and string pictures 3. Shape it like a large staple and then use that to staple together some papers.
I'd tape it on the inside of one of the fabric labels on my winter coat, which is currently in a suitcase in my closet with the rest of my winter stuff
I was just saying I'd put it in the seam of a piece of dirty laundry and mix it back into the laundry pile/bucket.
Firstly I'd straighten it out so it doesn't immediately look like a paperclip. That might help both if it's spotted and in finding a place for it. I would then push it into the gathered fabric at the top of my living room curtains, where it would be absolutely impossible to distinguish from the curtain hooks.
In the attic insulation
Why is that isolation lying there like rubbish? Don't you just put on the ceiling on the attic like we do here in Europe?
I'm not even sure what you're asking. The insulation is neatly tucked between the joist bays. The two rectangles were likely cut out when the air ducting was installed, and simply left there by the installer.
Load More Replies...I would go into the roof and slide it in between two tiles in a random spot.
With the rest of the paperclips. He'll never know which one is the right one!
The person deciding whether the detective found it or not wouldn't be able to tell if it's the correct one or not, plus even if they could tell which one it is, the detective could just say "it's this one" and the person deciding will say "no, it's not that one" and the detective could just go through all of the paperclips asking and using the process of elimination until they found the right one, unless they can't do that. In that case, the person deciding must need a distinctive difference between THE paperclip and other paperclips, so they know if the detective found the right one. In that case, the detective could probably identify the correct paperclip. Unless there was a very specific pattern of coloring or bends or dents in the correct one, and there were random patterns and bends and dents in the other ones, the detective could probably find it, but you probably don't have a bajillion paperclips with little color patterns and bends and dents in them just lying around in your house.
Behind the plate that's screwed into the wall for my carbon monoxide detector Straighten it out and glue it to the inside of a reusable straw Bra underwire Dryer lint trap
Male bras also have underwire. So they say... 😂
Load More Replies...Burn one of the many Yankee candles in the apartment until the wax melts, drop it in, let the wax solidify over it.
in that case, burn ALL of the candles in your house, and put them ALL in the freezer
Load More Replies...Straighten it out push it down through the wax , take a lighter and melt just the wax you disturbed. Put it on a high shelf. Will have enough time to cool by the time the detective gets to it.
And be burning a separate one to cover the smell.
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In an electrical socket.
ha ha.. Im assuming they will unscrew it and stick it behind.
Load More Replies...Push it through a hole in the silicone lining of my tub. Then reseal it.
like if you have a tub that is attached to the bathroom you can straighten out the paperclip and put it in between the tub and the bathroom and seal the hole.
Load More Replies...One extra ring in a spiral notebook.
I would put it in a chair put sunflower seeds in it then sand it then paint it... DIYS
Load More Replies...In the attic, stuffed between insulation. I doubt he/she will want to risk fiber glass splinters looking for it.
I'll just temporarily make someone else the owner of my house and when I'm homeless I'll just chuck it in the woods somewhere.
I don't think that would be able to happen within 5 minutes, but it's smart as hay! XD
Between two slices of bread in the freezer.
I'd straighten it out, and put it under the meshy part underneath my carpet, in the corner behind my bed. :) in fact, I'll do that, see if anybody finds it ever.
I expected someone to say underneath the family cat. That's where my remotes like to hide until kitty changes the channel.
I just realized I could put it openly on my cat's collar, and no detective is getting it, b/c my cat vanishes when strangers enter the house!
Load More Replies...Straighten it out, then curl it around my finger and wear it as a ring.
Unfortunately this post was actually created by that detective so he will look in all of these spots. you are all doomed
Slide it under the fridge. If I was the detective I would bring a metal detector with me. Knowing that, I'd hide it somewhere a metal detector would go off anyways and somewhere too inconvenient for him to want to search.
That's what I said. Nothing that goes under a fridge is ever found until you get a new fridge anyway. Or not all of it, anyway.
Load More Replies...I'd stick it in my jean pocket and just not leave. Tape it on the inside of my dog's collar. Hide it in the fish food. Open my window and tape it to the wall next to the previously mentioned window. Put it on some papers in my filing cabinet. Shove it in the lawnmower (it stays in the garage) Hand it to the detective as soon as he walked in. He didn't find it, I gave it to him, thus he gets no money.
I think those people secreting it on their person would be found out very quickly. Detectives would expect that straight away.
I expected someone to say underneath the family cat. That's where my remotes like to hide until kitty changes the channel.
I just realized I could put it openly on my cat's collar, and no detective is getting it, b/c my cat vanishes when strangers enter the house!
Load More Replies...Straighten it out, then curl it around my finger and wear it as a ring.
Unfortunately this post was actually created by that detective so he will look in all of these spots. you are all doomed
Slide it under the fridge. If I was the detective I would bring a metal detector with me. Knowing that, I'd hide it somewhere a metal detector would go off anyways and somewhere too inconvenient for him to want to search.
That's what I said. Nothing that goes under a fridge is ever found until you get a new fridge anyway. Or not all of it, anyway.
Load More Replies...I'd stick it in my jean pocket and just not leave. Tape it on the inside of my dog's collar. Hide it in the fish food. Open my window and tape it to the wall next to the previously mentioned window. Put it on some papers in my filing cabinet. Shove it in the lawnmower (it stays in the garage) Hand it to the detective as soon as he walked in. He didn't find it, I gave it to him, thus he gets no money.
I think those people secreting it on their person would be found out very quickly. Detectives would expect that straight away.
