Can you work from a home office as a private investigator and is it dangerous?

The short answer is, yes, you can work form home as a P.I.

I did it for years and it can be great, if… (and honestly, there’s no way to say this that doesn’t sound mean, but) if you can be left alone to work!

Working from home has three main problems for a P.I.

1. You’re family will probably not understand you are “at work”.

That means you will be frequently interrupted (at least it will feel that way) and if you are left alone (usually because everyone else has actually gone to a job), you will be drafted to put out all the brushfires that come up during the day in normal life.

Of course, being “flexible” for those things is a great benefit of working from home, but still, it can be rough.

If someone else is home during the day, you may find even more interruptions.

2. You may lose your mind.

I don’t mean you’ll go crazy, but you can lose the healthy perspective you gain by leaving the house regularly.

Working from home you may tend to spiral inward and focus too heavily on your own little world.

Get out! Remember how big the world is and that there are other people whose lives are just as important as yours.

As Matthew Kelly teaches in his great book Resisting Happiness, “Everyone is carrying a heavy load and fighting a hard battle.”

3. Danger.

Okay, maybe just the possibility of an increased level of danger.

After all, we are working cases where people lose custody of their children, lose worker’s compensation benefits and even go to prison. You may find someday, maybe even years after a case is closed, that a guy is sitting in a bar on his daughter’s birthday complaining about how “that P.I. took my little girl from me”.

Never-mind that he’s an alcoholic who beat his wife and kid, he can still find a way to blame you. The next thing you know, he’s pounding on your door and waving a gun.

Huge Tip: Get and use a “private mail box” (that’s different from a “post office box”). Get one from a company that will hold your mail and packages then use that address for EVERYTHING.

Hopefully, when the guy climbs off his bar stool at midnight, grabs his gun and shows up at your “address”, he only finds a closed business. (Heck, with a little luck, maybe the cops are keeping an eye on the businesses at that strip mall!)

Committed to your success,
Larry Kaye, P.I.