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Check in chests (non-locked), desks, cabinets, and end tables. These are the only places I've ever found them. They have a VERY low drop rate, less than 1% I would say, but you can find them if you look hard enough. If you're dead set on getting them I would suggest raiding an entire city of their houses, logging out, then logging back in and looping through again, assuming you got a different phase than before and the chests/desks/etc. aren't instanced specifically to you.
A follow-up question: I was told that containers were player specific (someone can't come in a raid an entire city leaving you nothing). But twice yesterday, I entered a house after someone else left and all the containers were empty.
Are we sure that content is specific to the player?
"Funny that magic doesn't work when a mace caves in your skull."
Playing on a PC, NA Server, since that very first day ...
The containers are specific to the player. However, this does not mean that they aren't already empty. If you've played any previous TES games think back to how many times you accidentally opened an empty container and got angry at that 0.5 seconds of game time you lost.
Yes, I've been playing TES games since Morrowind. You're correct, I testing this today by entering a building, leaving, exiting the game, and re-entering after reload. I must have been having bad luck.
"Funny that magic doesn't work when a mace caves in your skull."
Playing on a PC, NA Server, since that very first day ...