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Since Endermen are capable of picking up blocks, they can pick up your blocks from your house.

What's the best way to prevent Endermen from stealing your blocks?

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  • Related to your other question? gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/30414/…
    – Joe the Person
    Sep 14, 2011 at 22:18
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    No since the other question is to know if they can wake you up. This one is to know how to protect your house from them stealing blocks.
    – Warface
    Sep 14, 2011 at 22:21
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    @fireDude67 I agree that it's possible to merge the two questions, but I don't see any need to. They are both separate questions which can stand on there own, and having them separate can help with SEO
    – Wipqozn ♦
    Sep 14, 2011 at 23:16
  • 1
    This question has me worried now!
    – wonea
    Sep 15, 2011 at 8:48

12 Answers 12

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Endermen take damage from water. So: surround your house with a moat. As long as every floor tile on the same side of the moat as your house is sufficiently illuminated (i.e., within 7 blocks of a torch, 8 blocks of glowstone, close to burning netherrack, etc.), Endermen should not be able to get to your house to disassemble it.

Bear in mind that, generally, the roof of your house is probably also a valid place for Endermen to spawn—put torches up there, too!

Note that lava is also an effective deterrent, but it will also destroy any dropped items from enemies.

Update (October 3, 2012): a mere moat is no longer sufficient. My current strategy for preventing harassment by endermen to build my house with a diagonally sloping roof and put a water source block at the uppermost point, completely submerging my house in running water; the interior contains only a nether portal in waist-deep water. The nether portal emerges into an enclosed tunnel that spirals down into the depths of the nether and is heavily illuminated, where a second portal returns you to the real world in my actual subterranean home.

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  • 52
    Lava is always the best solution.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Sep 15, 2011 at 2:34
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    Water yes, but lava no. It might keep him away, but it will ruin your house for ever. Trust me.
    – user16692
    Dec 19, 2011 at 9:26
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    Won't endermen teleport immediately once in contact with water? Wouldn't that mean they could potentially teleport in your house?
    – badp
    Feb 25, 2012 at 8:26
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    As of at least 1.3 (if not earlier), Endermen teleport around just for kicks. They don't need to be running from water anymore.
    – SevenSidedDie
    Sep 21, 2012 at 23:43
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    Am I the only one here awed by the total BA of this dude's house?
    – The Ugly
    Nov 7, 2013 at 16:58
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Put vines on the outside of your house. Instead of grabbing blocks from your house, they will grab the vines, and the vines will just grow back. It's a self-preserving defense mechanism against endermen.

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  • 2
    Sounds great but kinda mess up the beauty of my architecture :P Anyway +1 for the idea
    – Warface
    Sep 14, 2011 at 22:22
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    @Warface you could always change the texture of the Vine to a blank one...but that could ruin other things.
    – Joe the Person
    Sep 14, 2011 at 22:43
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    Is this answer still valid? I've heard that Enderman can grab blocks from behind vines.
    – Sonic42
    Feb 20, 2012 at 14:05
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    Yeah, I also heard that they do not grab vines anymore?
    – Joe the Person
    Feb 25, 2012 at 3:59
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    @fireDude67 I just went to check and was able to get 2 separate Enderman to pick up 2 separate dirt blocks covered in vines in Minecraft 1.1.
    – Sonic42
    Feb 25, 2012 at 5:44
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Endermen can't take some types of block, so make a wall around your house with those materials. They can't take obsidian but it's hard to harvest, but if you wait for 1.9 Endermen won't be able to carry stone-type blocks. (Already in 1.9 pre-release 2 they can't)

Last of all: don't look at them so that they won't teleport inside your house!

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5

It's possible to use a cobblestone generator and pistons to build a self-repairing house. If you're clever with the redstone you won't spot where the pistons and circuitry is hidden.

Edit: Here is a video example of a stone self-repairing house.

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4

Endermen are 3 blocks tall, so:

  1. Make a moat full of water as jsnlxndrlv's answer suggests.
  2. Make your house interior shorter than 3 blocks. Not three blocks or less, but no higher than 2 blocks!
  3. Make your exterior walls from diamond blocks as chichiwauwa09's answer suggests.

They can't get to your house, can't steal blocks, and can't teleport into your house! So do this, and you're Endermen-proof.

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3
  • 1) What's the moat thingy? 2) What's the diamond thing? Please add these details into your answer.
    – Frank
    Sep 21, 2012 at 22:31
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    @fbueckert That's just a 1-rep user thinking this is a top-to-bottom forum, not a sortable list of answers. They're referring to the accepted answer and the the last-submitted one prior to this.
    – SevenSidedDie
    Sep 21, 2012 at 23:50
  • Minor quibble: using slabs you can make your house interior 2.5 blocks high, so technically it just need to be less than three.
    – Mike G
    Sep 10, 2014 at 13:03
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As of Beta 1.8 or possibly earlier, Endermen cannot grab slabs. Since you can make blocks out of two slabs stacked on top of each other, you can build structures using double slabs.

It is extra clicking, and slower, but it's Endermen-proof.

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  • 2
    and uses 1.5x more blocks.
    – Joe the Person
    Feb 25, 2012 at 3:59
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    By my calculations it uses 2x more blocks (3 cobble = 3 cobble slab), unless you're using wooden slabs as of 1.2, where it uses the same number of blocks (3 planks = 6 slab)
    – Broam
    Mar 7, 2012 at 15:21
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    Sorry, I was using old version data, although I'm pretty sure all the slab recipes work.
    – Joe the Person
    Mar 7, 2012 at 22:34
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    And a bonus of wooden slabs: they look like wood, and don't catch fire.
    – Unionhawk ♦
    Mar 9, 2012 at 13:16
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It might take a lot of looking (and sometimes hacking, depends which one you prefer) but Endermen can't pick up diamond blocks or bedrock. Try making your house out of them. (You can use inventory or map editors to get diamond blocks too, not just bedrock).

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  • 11
    Overkill much??
    – fredley
    Feb 25, 2012 at 10:37
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Enderman can only pick up a very limitted number of block types. These include: Grass, Dirt, Mycelium, Sand, Gravel, Clay, Pumpkin, Mellons and TNT. See the article on Enderman - Moving Blocks on the Minecraft Wiki (http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Enderman#Moving_blocks) for a complete list. Make you house out of any other block and Endermen will not be a problem when it comes to stealing your wall.

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-1

Make a house inside the pond seems awkward but prevent mobs but not silver fishes 1. Make a space for a pond 2.dig down the house entrance you want in the pond anywhere since it is not important but should need the entrance must be 3 block deep for it 3. Pick up a door well if you want a trapdoor or a simple door not iron door 4. Put up waters in the pond using water buckets

Hope it helps but if the waters keeps ruching inside of your door im sorry but it works on me

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-1

endermanSimply by building a canopy lower than endermen height, which is three blocks high

And of course, the house’s interior height should be lower than 3 blocks, making it near impossible for endermen to enter your house directly.

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-2

Don't use natural blocks.

(You can use bedrock though)

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-2
  1. build your house
  2. make it and the exterior/any land well illuminated
  3. make 5-6 block tall diamond (or glass) walls around the land you want
  4. surround the walls with ?x10x4 lava pits(length changes based on your house) on the inside and ?x22x4 pits on the outside.

It takes a while, but it is worth keeping your structures whole!!!!!!

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