Keeping valuables at home is an open invitation to burglars, so why not keep them in a secure vault. asks Mark Keenan.

A wealthy Dublin-based entrepreneur is heading off to see a hypnotist this week – to help him remember where he stashed a wad of tens of thousands of euro he had hidden in a “safe place” in his house.

Having hidden away several stacks of cash for a rainy day, he recently went to retrieve them and discovered he couldn’t account for that last hiden hole.

Household stash mishaps are becoming far more common among the super rich.

Last year the gardai recovered more than 200 grand concealed in the former home of developer Tom McFeely on Ailesbury Road in Dublin 4 (Mr McFeely has denied it is his). Whoever put it there, had certainly hidden it away, believing it to be safe.

Then there was the case of the Barnardos curtains in highbrow Dublin 6. Charity shop staff discovered thousands of euro sewn into a pair of curtains donated by a resident in the area. The money was returned to the embarrassed owner after the shop issued an appeal through the gardai.