Are Items safe lying around my house?

Question

I'm a bit of an untidy thief and often end up with a few things lying around the house. I've also left open a book next to my Alchemy lab in Whiterun for cosmetic and reference purposes. Obviously the proper way to keep all this stuff safe is to put it away in my chests etc which are safe containers.

My question is; is this stuff safe in my house without being stored in a container?

It so far for me seems to be so since a lot of random replaceable stuff hasn't disappeared however I have a few books that I'm pretty sure I can't replace (PS3 so no console :( ) and don't want to take the chance.

Answer 1

Yes but with a few FYI's and 1 exception.

Items are safe for the most part but can and do tend to get kicked around either by you or house guests. Items when first dropped in your house create a "spawn trigger point" this meaning

Say I drop a nice helmet to display on some shelf, so I drop it on the floor then Drag and drop it onto the shelf,then exit the house and come back later.

You will now find the helmet not on the shelf where you moved it but in the place it first was dropped. Now if you drag and drop from this point it should stay on the shelf or whereever you decide to place it, rule being redecorate with the item after you have initially dropped it,exited and returned. FYI on rare occasions even this rule breaks and the first drop and drag holds ,so go figure :)

Exceptions to both the safe and placement rules.

When you own more than 1 house and you have say already redecorated using the rules above And then bought another house and did the same,THEN decide to go visit your first house you may find things or items out of place - even sometimes finding the whole house exploded. Most items regardless of whether you ever touched them or not get thrown everywhere.

This is because of a "Spacial Placement BUG" which sometimes links owned property.

The last is the safe exception.

There are times and I have personally had this happen where you drop an item even a unique and irreplaceable item down in your house and it will either go poof then and There or right after you exit and re-enter said house. This has happened when only one house is owned as well as when multiple houses are owned.

It tends to happen with smaller items but some large items i.e. swords or shields or staff.

This seems to be a rare event but like I said it happened to me so to define rare, I've played over 500hrs real time and have so much stuff whose to say, I only noticed because it was a rare book and I was placing it for display on a coffee table in Whiterun and when I reentered it was gone,this being after I dropped it,then exited reentered and placed it. This is the only item I know I have had go poof.

I hope this helped

Answer 2

Yes they are absolutely safe, but with 1 caveat. Things tend to get redistributed when its inside your house. For instance, I had all the claws I've collected from random dungeons organized on a big table all facing down. But every once in a while I might find them all scattered or on the floor.

So you do risk a chance that an item might end up clipping under the floor so you can't find it anymore.

Also, the risk is higher for losing small things like gems and rings.

To be safe (and make things easier to locate), I would put the books onto a book shelf and try to sort the rest of your stuff into various containers.