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.
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.
How would you find it at the end? One of the rules is you have to be able to produce it if they don’t find it.
Perhaps memorize the location, or keep a piece of paper on your person (or a note on your phone) that tells you where it is?
Why not just hide it elsewhere leaving the piles as red herring?
Exactly. You got it. Screws up any chance of metal detection.
Eh, the crew would undoubtedly gather up all the paperclips they find and one would start verifying the clips one by one while the others search. If you win, the piles would be smaller but you would still have to search through the piles they didn’t get to in order to prove your victory.
Exactly. And while they waste their time searching the obvious ones, I’d have it hidden in one of hundreds of much less obvious places. Of course I could identify it. I never said the key clip would be in the thousands of obvious ones.