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#168364 - 03/02/09 04:33 AM Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home
Chisel Offline
Veteran

Registered: 12/05/05
Posts: 1562
I was thinking about starting a thread about "bugging in" where you are forced to stay bugged in by civil unrest or whatever. Let's say you become 'homeless' but with a home sheltering you. No power, very little drinking water, and half empty pantry.

What to do and how to survive for a month or two or three ?

I have a week alone in the house when DW and kids were visting grandparents. Meanwhile I have been thinking about several scenarios including this one I just mentioned.


Weather ? Geography ?
Something like Texas.

Furniture will make lots of firewood. Pigeons all over the house will provide some food ( if someone/something fixes my twisted psychology). Small garden will add few veggies. Solar oven is a possibility. Water quantity and quality can be a problem. Maybe a solar still can help (multiple units - running full time ).

Any ideas for being 'homeless' in your home ?


BTW, it not that inpossible to happen. I know a guy who lost his job and couldnt afford to pay the bills and lost power ..etc.

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#168367 - 03/02/09 05:08 AM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: Chisel]
Susan Offline
Geezer

Registered: 01/21/04
Posts: 5163
Loc: W. WA
The first thing to do is rip off the lower part of the roof gutter downspouts and put containers under them.

Most furniture is treated with something: varnish, paint, plastic coating, etc, so you might not want to cook over it directly, or burn it indoors where you would be exposed to the fumes. I have a small wood stove, and it can go through a LOT of wood. Just to keep a campfire burning all night (to keep bears and zombies away) takes a lot more wood than most people think.

For the pigeons and crows, put out some cornmeal or oatmeal to attract them, then put up a net that you can trip with a long string. If you've got a gun, you could eat the neighbors' pitbulls that are always running the streets. When you run out of dogs, there are always the neighbors. Eat the nasty ones first and tidy up the gene pool just in case things get better.

If you don't have much food, you'd better have seeds. In addition to planting them, you could probably trade some for food you could eat immediately, like moldy Twinkies.

Sue


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#168369 - 03/02/09 05:46 AM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: Chisel]
wildman800 Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 11/09/06
Posts: 2846
Loc: La-USA
Water, as Sue has pointed out, is going to be a major problem. As Sue pointed out, rainwater collection will be a must!

Food should already be squirreled away.

Heat for cooking & warmth is going to be both required and create a fuel problem. Extreme tree trimming will help a wee bit but wood burns faster than most people realize, perhaps because most people tend to build bigger fires than what they actually require.
_________________________
QMC, USCG (Ret)
The best luck is what you make yourself!

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#168375 - 03/02/09 06:45 AM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: wildman800]
haertig Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 03/13/05
Posts: 2322
Loc: Colorado
We've got lots of geese around here during two parts of the year (the north-south and then south-north migrations). You walk out of your house and you almost trip over the dang things. If you get too close, they're just as likely to charge you as run away. Let 'em charge and whack their heads off with a knife. Sounds brutal, but it's an instant dinner. If you don't want to put up with a charging goose, make one of those bolo things - three rocks tied with string in a three pointed star fashion. You can easily walk up within ten feet of a goose and get it with that. Squirrels are pretty big around here too. An airgun would bag those guys. If you want "Manly Meat", go for the coyotes. They're overrunning us here (Denver metro area and surrounding towns). Jumping six foot fences in suburbia and eating pets. In my town three people have been bitten by them recently (two adults and a child). Bold critters. Shouldn't be too hard to find something to hunt them with. A stick would do it. We used to have lots of rabbits and raccoons around here. But they're gone now - I think the foxes ate them. We used to find foxes lounging around in our yard. But not anymore. I think the coyotes ate the foxes. We have the occasional mountain lion that wanders into town (I'm not sure I'd want to mess with trying to shoot one of them though). When the lions hear about the coyote population explosion, they'll probably come on down and eat those. Bears are rare, but do make it down here. I don't think they could catch the lions however. And I'm sure not planning on shooting a bear for lunch.

I have two, one million gallon city water tanks behind my house. I wonder if a battery powered hand drill would get through their walls? Drill it, tap it, and use a spare machine screw as your on/off valve.

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#168376 - 03/02/09 07:28 AM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: Chisel]
LED Offline
Veteran

Registered: 09/01/05
Posts: 1474
Water is everything. Well, almost. What if it doesn't rain for awhile? Or doesn't rain enough? And setting up a rain catchment in a hostile environment may be difficult and might attract the wrong kind of attention. Or lets say you did have plenty of water stored, what about your neighbors? Sooner or later they're gonna realize you've got potable water.

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#168377 - 03/02/09 07:49 AM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: LED]
wildman800 Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 11/09/06
Posts: 2846
Loc: La-USA
Show your neighbors how to catch and purify rainwater.

I live in an area that normally gets plenty of rain, although there come dry spells everywhere.
_________________________
QMC, USCG (Ret)
The best luck is what you make yourself!

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#168380 - 03/02/09 10:51 AM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: wildman800]
MedB Offline
Member

Registered: 10/08/05
Posts: 108
This is a great question/scenario and one I've thought about.

Water is the key.

By definition, you have shelter. And warmth can be found with the tineist bit of fuel from furniture and trees if you make one (small) room warm and bundle up.

Food is a challenge, but you are home so hopefully have some set aside. Plus critters or gardens can provide for quite a while.

So, back to water... The rain collection from down spouts is spot on.

Also if you are fortunate to live in a home with a well you have a very good option. A generator that is only run for a few minutes each day can last for a LONG time. And in that few minutes your well pump can produce gallons and gallons and gallons of water for you.

Normal generator runtime is around 8 hours for half load? And most wells produce more than 4 gallons per minute flow. So say you run that generator for <10 minutes a day to secure fresh water only. You are talking about 8 weeks or more without a refill. And a single 5 gallon can of extra gas/diesel can get you through months. And don't forget... there is gas in your lawnmower, trimmer, and autos.

_________________________
MedB

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#168384 - 03/02/09 12:20 PM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: MedB]
scafool Offline
Pooh-Bah

Registered: 12/18/08
Posts: 1534
Loc: Muskoka
It is not a bad thing to think about bugging in and what you need to do to be prepared for it. I think that is the whole point of emergency preparedness for homeowners.

Well, furniture won't provide a lot of firewood.
Not only is it usually made out of other stuff instead of wood, but even wooden furniture does not make much of a pile of wood once it is broken down.
Then you need to deal with having a fireplace or stove to burn it in. You would be better scavenging from dumpsters and construction sites for wood it you were going to do that.
Cooking will likely be outside with a barbecue pit or can stove simply because you likely don't have a fireplace in your house, but if you do have a fireplace or wood stove it suddenly becomes a useful feature instead of just an architectural ornament.
Straw (dead grass) can be a useful cooking fuel. Chinese peasants have relied on it for thousands of years.

Consider oil lamps, slush lamps, or candles for heat and light.
If it is cold you will be wearing more than just one sweater too.
Most houses can be managed to stay fairly warm, opening drapes in the daytime and closing them at night to trap heat from the sun, that sort of thing. Anything that adds insulation is good.
If you are forced to gather water and need to filter it cheaply you might want to try slow sand filters (bio-sand filters) because they are cheap to make and 5 gallon pail version should deliver about a liter an hour.

Food will likely be scavenged in your scenario. You won't have time to grow a garden if it is not already being grown. You better understand urban/suburban trapping and the raising of domestic meat sources too. (rabbits, pigeons, squirrels, possibly ducks and geese, maybe even rats if it gets to the starvation point.)



Your basic proposal pretty much suggests Paris under German occupation in WWII or Berlin when they were isolated from the west right by the Russians at the end of WWII. ( Berlin airlift,not East Berlin after the wall so much)
_________________________
May set off to explore without any sense of direction or how to return.

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#168387 - 03/02/09 12:46 PM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: scafool]
UncleGoo Offline
Enthusiast

Registered: 12/06/06
Posts: 390
Loc: CT
Make sure you get all the pigeon poop--from the roof--out of your water. sick
_________________________
Improvise,
Utilize,
Realize.

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#168390 - 03/02/09 01:27 PM Re: Scenario : 'homeless ' inside your home [Re: UncleGoo]
Eugene Offline
Carpal Tunnel

Registered: 12/26/02
Posts: 2995
You need to start thinking ahead now. Get the garden started now, don't want until you have to bug in to try planting seeds. Same with catching water, get a tank and put it under your porch/deck and get the gutters plumbed in to it now. Look into grey water recycling inside the house, a tank in the basement/crawlspace that the shower and washer feeds into to use for flushing the toilet.
if the family is going to be gone you can test, shut off the power, water, gas, etc and see how long you last.

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