New Secure house

the drifter

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1KWCMU/all-that-is-interesting.com/post/4956385434/the-first-zombie-proof-house/


want...

CamperMan

depressing looking place

dread to think what it cost to build...

Grizzly 45

Got all the charm of a prision outside.:eek:

touts

So short of doing that to your house and getting a nasty letter fom the residents association what are the best options for securing your home. I have done many of the standard things recommended to have a normal burglar move next door (monitored alarm, gate to stop access to the back, motion activated lights, fence and gate at front but without giving a prowler places to hide).

But in a SHTF situaton whats the best way to protect your home. Bars are probably a bit expensive and not a quick solution unless you have them ready in a shed. Boarded up windows may send the wrong message and how effective are wooden boards anyway. So any advice?

kildare.17hmr

Thats a class house!

Grizzly 45

touts wrote: »

But in a SHTF situaton whats the best way to protect your home. Bars are probably a bit expensive and not a quick solution unless you have them ready in a shed. Boarded up windows may send the wrong message and how effective are wooden boards anyway. So any advice?

Both overt and covert.The Russians call it Maskirovka..The art of hiding,and deception of somthing in plain sight.
By being Overt about it,you make your place look already like it has been ransacked and looted and that there is nothing worth taking anymore.
Smash up and toss out that hideous set of dinner ware your inlaws gave you a few years ago outside the door and drive.Toss out an old broken computor and maybe a boom box or old VCR to make it look better.
Burn out if you can or vandalise a car and leave it in a way that it is impossible for anyone to drive up to your door in the first place.
If there is a dead dog lying around handy somplace chuck it on the lawn or enterance way.Maybe even buy some POLICE! DO NOT CROSS LINE tape,which you can buy online and is very handy betimes.[So long as it doesnt say Garda Siochanna!;)]and tie it off around your property.
Or maybe better is the bright yellow BIOHAZARD ACCIDENT DO NOT CROSS! tape.IAC you want your place to look like its [a] nasty to go there and there isnt anything worth getting anyway.
Covert.
Yes your ply sheets come into play You nail these up INSIDE Your windows behind the drawn curtains or black polysheets you prudently drew and left drawn when this all started didnt you?
I would also consider for rooms that I cant defend or dont need on a daily basis is putting in there a few good coils of barbed wire,[cheap at any farm supply]razor tape or "spider wire"[strong sea fishing monofilimant gut,or shark line,with single no8 fishing hooks along it.:D..Thanks to Clive Barker's Hell Raiser horror film for the idea!] Behind the ply barricades and curtains as an unwelcome mat.

There are plenty of other devices you can do,but cant be unfortunatly mentioned here,:(to secure your home in a SHTF situation.So you'll have to go research and figure on that one!

krissovo

touts wrote: »

But in a SHTF situaton whats the best way to protect your home. Bars are probably a bit expensive and not a quick solution unless you have them ready in a shed. Boarded up windows may send the wrong message and how effective are wooden boards anyway. So any advice?

Grizzly certainly gave some good advice on the home itself but probably the best defence is a community effort.

If you live in a modern Irish estate then you will probably have one entrance to the estate so if the SHTF then how quickly the estate can get organised to post sentries to the main entrance(s) and some kind of roving patrol inside the estate will go a long way to defend the homes.

If your on a road in a string type development on a access route its much harder to defend due to the multiple access points but again a community presence with military age men will give the appearance of an organised community.

If your rural again safety in numbers helps so have your home as a bug out location for townie friends and family.

krissovo

I will (obviously) not give away any of my home defence strategy on a public forum but I can share the holiday home.

Lets face when we go on holiday we kind of let our guard down but it does not have to be.

Here is a estate in Southern Spain which is a great location to hold out in.

The estate is broken in 5 or 6 areas that are surounded by a 7ft iron fence with key entry.

Fence surounding estate:

Camera 4649 by krissovo, on Flickr

Entrance to estate:

Camera 4650 by krissovo, on Flickr

Once you are in the estate every home is well protected by bars on every window and door.


Camera 4661 by krissovo, on Flickr


Camera 4656 by krissovo, on Flickr

Balcony Area:

Camera 4658 by krissovo, on Flickr

eth0

lol, a massive garage.

Somewhere in Florida there is a house on the sea bed that you can rent http://www.jul.com/

Grizzly 45

[

QUOTE=krissovo;76554659]Grizzly certainly gave some good advice on the home itself but probably the best defence is a community effort

.

Kriss & Co.Without dissing anyone and their neighbours..
ButI think you will have to go a long way to find a estate here who will pull together in a normal domestic not to mind a SHTF crisis here in Ireland.:(
We dont really do community efforts here anymore.
Some places community spirt is dead with O'Leary in the grave.
Its as Sparks frequently refers to it on the shooting boards,the 5% rule.5%of the people do somthing the 95% critique it from the sidelines.From personal experiance..I have two friends who live out in a nice little village that has a rural housing estate .IOW somone slung up a row of houses in a perfectly nice area and ruined it in the Celtic Tiger type development.My mate is runing himself ragged trying to keep the private sewage plant running,as it was so shoddily built,but it is the residents problem as to maintence.Not one of them wants to contribute to the upkeep,make calls or whatever.But they all bitch and moan about their sewage backing up to their manhole covers,and want to know from him when is HE fixing it??.
The other is constantly organising community events..Everything for m Xmas shows for the community or somthing community orientated...Small thanks or support does he get from a bunch of ingrates!Small thing I know in the big picture of things but it is just a story repeated Xthousand of times around Ireland.
However if people would rather wade thru their own sewage on the streets than pay20 quid each house PA to keep the sewage pump going which is their property and literally for their benefit as they collectively own the sewage plant...I'd hate to think what that neighbourhood will be like after an event with the power,TV and rubbish collection a thing of the past???
It was one thing my Mum commented on when she first moved here in the 1960s ,how much people were more geared to look out for their neighbours and helped each other.It is somthing Ireland lost by the 1980s and totally forgot in the Celtic Tiger,and is somthing we are going to have to rediscover sharpish pretty soon if that idea was to work.:(
TBH,I see it being more doubling up with fammily and relatives than being reliant on your neighbours here.If they dont want to know you or about your community in good times,what will it be like in bad times??

Just having a look at the Spanish property pics.One thing that strikes me about all the bars...What happens if you have a fire???Unless those bars have some sort of quick release[doubtful as that would defeat the purpose of the security] you are going to be in big trouble pretty fast.ASFIK it is illegal here in Ireland to have bars on a 1st floor window??Iknow the roller shutters that are on the Continent on most homes are disapproved or outright no no in planning permission here?
Anyone enlighten???

the drifter

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Just having a look at the Spanish property pics.One thing that strikes me about all the bars...What happens if you have a fire???Unless those bars have some sort of quick release[doubtful as that would defeat the purpose of the security] you are going to be in big trouble pretty fast.ASFIK it is illegal here in Ireland to have bars on a 1st floor window??Iknow the roller shutters that are on the Continent on most homes are disapproved or outright no no in planning permission here?
Anyone enlighten???

Thats a very valid observation. I spend some time in spain and now you've got me thinking. I dont think anything with bars on it in spain could be used as fire exits anyways. I'm basing this om the houses ive been in. None of the windows would be large enough to work as an exit.

I've also always wondered about roller shutters and bars here in ireland. If someone in the know could dig up some info on it that would be great!

CamperMan

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

[.

Kriss & Co.Without dissing anyone and their neighbours..
ButI think you will have to go a long way to find a estate here who will pull together in a normal domestic not to mind a SHTF crisis here in Ireland.:(
We dont really do community efforts here anymore.
Some places community spirt is dead with O'Leary in the grave.

Ireland had the community spirit before the boom years, people cared about the villages & towns they lived in, they maintained them, they had the community spirit, since the recession in Ireland, the villages & towns have deteriorated, kids have become unruly, pubs are deserted, nobody stops to give a hitch hiker a lift anymore...

Take the winter of 2010 when people were iced in and could not get out of their home for food, and they had no water for up to 40 days.. did the council do anything??? NO!, the council used to care about it's people, now they don't..

Money / greed ruined people..

Thankfully, what I used to see in Ireland and no longer see... I see here in Germany.. only it's much better

Tabnabs

CamperMan wrote: »

Take the winter of 2010 when people were iced in and could not get out of their home for food, and they had no water for up to 40 days.. did the council do anything??? NO!, the council used to care about it's people, now they don't..

Money / greed ruined people..

My local council not only got out every night and ploughed and gritted the roads, they also ploughed the major footpaths to make sure pedestrians could safely access the shops and public transport etc. The local builder got machinery to plough the Church carpark as it was xmas and he was probably looking for browny points for his past sins

I see plenty of community spirit in various parts of Ireland but it's important that as individuals we ensure that the idea of community spirit is not absent from our minds either...

colonel-yum-yum

Tabnabs wrote: »

I see plenty of community spirit in various parts of Ireland but it's important that as individuals we ensure that the idea of community spirit is not absent from our minds either...

Kind of raises the point about community and charity post SHTF.

If you've worked for years to have a secure and prepared home for yourself (and your family if you have one), how do you react when an unprepared neighbour/friend/person you don't know turns up?

It will obviously depend on the circumstance and how prepared you are, but how willing can anyone be to shorten their (and their family's) comfort period where there is still stored food, heat, power etc.?

It's nice to think that we would not turn anyone away, especially friends and family, but how long could that mentality last when food is running low?

Tabnabs

It's an excellent point and one that I think you hypothesise about for pages worth of posts but until you're actually in that situation only then can you know what is right or wrong.

IMO that's why you stay friendly but not familiar with your neighbours unless you can see an advantage in getting close to them. Family, there your hands may be even more tied when deciding what to do.

But staying under the radar and taking some of the tips from Grizz's post about making your home look empty or not worth troubling with may also help you survive that bit longer until things eventually improve.

Apanachi

CamperMan wrote: »

Ireland had the community spirit before the boom years, people cared about the villages & towns they lived in, they maintained them, they had the community spirit, since the recession in Ireland, the villages & towns have deteriorated, kids have become unruly, pubs are deserted, nobody stops to give a hitch hiker a lift anymore...

My community back home in Ireland still has a great community spirit, they maintain them, have town cleaning committees, hold regular charity events, I don't think the kids are any more unruly as they were say 20 years ago and the pubs are still quite full although numbers have dropped significantly, but I put that down to the price of beer

Take the winter of 2010 when people were iced in and could not get out of their home for food, and they had no water for up to 40 days.. did the council do anything??? NO!, the council used to care about it's people, now they don't..

Well to be fair, us Irish aren't used to coping with the amounts of snow and ice we had in Ireland over the last two Winters, so councils weren't very prepared for it, things here in Berlin were a total mess last year, trains stopped running, roads weren't cleared/salted there was mayhem all round and the Germans are well used to snow, so there's no excuse there

biko

Get these for the French and kitchen doors and bars for the windows.




Window bars doesn't have to be ugly




Just have a way to get out from every room in case of a fire. You don't want your paranoia to be what killed you.

CamperMan

The last place we lived in Ireland before moving to Germany was Kilitimagh in Co. Mayo.. what a joke, we lived on the main street in the town and we had absolutely no mains water for 40 days (winter 2010), the house we were in did not have a water tank in the attic so when the water was off, you had no backup, there was no space to put water tanks outside...

The shop keepers inflated the price of bottled water to the point it became unaffordable, neighbours that had water in their attic tanks would not share it.., the council could not be contacted, the council did not even supply water tankers in the town.

We were forced into a situation of melting snow and ice for our water.. in this day and age, that is totally unacceptable..

The council didn't even clear the footpaths in the town of ice, and neither did the locals!!! .. I have a fear of ice after slipping and breaking my ankle in Jan 2010.. So.. I could not even walk to the shops..

A real $hitty situation to be in.

It has taught me a valuable lesson in self sufficiency

Here we are in Germany working hard on being self sufficient, getting prepared for any SHTF situation..

Grizzly 45

biko wrote: »

Get these for the French and kitchen doors and bars for the windows.




Just have a way to get out from every room in case of a fire. You don't want your paranoia to be what killed you.

These are as common as Hell on the Continent,but I've been told that most fire cheifs and planning applications wILL NOT accept them???FFS! They are the same things that are used to secure shop fronts..Just nicer!:(Are they legal in Ireland yes/no??
Biko ,its a human reaction to go towards light in a smokey room.Logically in that case you will try for the window.

Grizzly 45

the drifter wrote: »

None of the windows would be large enough to work as an exit.

I've also always wondered about roller shutters and bars here in ireland. If someone in the know could dig up some info on it that would be great!

Then why bar it??If it is too small to get out,its too small to get in as well.Unless you are worried about East European gangs who train and use their kids to get into places like this??:p

Grizzly 45

colonel-yum-yum wrote: »

Kind of raises the point about community and charity post SHTF.

If you've worked for years to have a secure and prepared home for yourself (and your family if you have one), how do you react when an unprepared neighbour/friend/person you don't know turns up?

It will obviously depend on the circumstance and how prepared you are, but how willing can anyone be to shorten their (and their family's) comfort period where there is still stored food, heat, power etc.?

It's nice to think that we would not turn anyone away, especially friends and family, but how long could that mentality last when food is running low?

Watch this for a good idea of what might happen!:eek::(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuj2yuoC3PY

the drifter

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Then why bar it??If it is too small to get out,its too small to get in as well.Unless you are worried about East European gangs who train and use their kids to get into places like this??:p

Sorry i may have posted that before my coffee...just thinking through the layout of the house. All rooms with bars have doors/ windows with bars that can be opened now that i think of it. So fire have been taken into account!!


The other windows no matter how small are barred and have roller shutters.

bonniebede

Tabnabs wrote: »

It's an excellent point and one that I think you hypothesise about for pages worth of posts but until you're actually in that situation only then can you know what is right or wrong.

IMO that's why you stay friendly but not familiar with your neighbours unless you can see an advantage in getting close to them. Family, there your hands may be even more tied when deciding what to do.

But staying under the radar and taking some of the tips from Grizz's post about making your home look empty or not worth troubling with may also help you survive that bit longer until things eventually improve.

I agree it is very hard to hypothesise about what one would do when confronted with the realities.

however i think it could be an indicator to think about what you do now. It's not like nobody is starving in the world at the moment. They just tend to be a bit further away than one's nearest neighbour. But they are still starving human beings. Does it make a difference to you now? Are yo currently going out of your comfort zone to help them at the moment? Then the chances are you won't then either. But if you are now, then you probably will then too.

The only thing I can see being difficult is having to say no because of having a duty to care first for family and friends. But one of the things about gaining knowledge is you can always pass that on at no cost to yourself. Certainly I would be willing to teach anything I know that would be helpful to anyone else.

I think it could be unhelpful to view other humans as merely a plague of locusts consuming the available resources for you and your kin. They are also an available workforce to get crops into and out of the ground when there is no mechanisation, to share defence tasks, and so on.

Grizzly 45

Did you watch the video link I posted bechance??
I wish I could have your faith in humanity!:)

krissovo

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Watch this for a good idea of what might happen!:eek::(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuj2yuoC3PY

Just watched the whole show, very thought provoking:eek:

kildare.17hmr

krissovo wrote: »

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Watch this for a good idea of what might happen!:eek::(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuj2yuoC3PY

Just watched the whole show, very thought provoking:eek:

Did same at lunch, he could have done with a better door! Id imagine thats what you would be up against tho

bonniebede

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Did you watch the video link I posted bechance??
I wish I could have your faith in humanity!:)

Yep, thanks, love the old TZ.:)

He made some basic mistakes though.

Shouldn't have let anyone know that he had a shelter, or where it was.

He should have offered to take a kid from each family. Girls only as his son will need a wife.

Then held the kids as surety of their parents good behaviour.

And of course he shouldn't have built his nuclear fallout shelter from papier mache. But thats the TZ for ya

bonniebede

@ Grizz....I don't have faith in humanity as such, or at least in the way you mean, I think. I think people will usually act out of self interest, so you have to know how to make that coincide with what outcome you want. But at the same time you have to allow for the fact that people will act with incredible altruism, and not to see that is also to refuse to face reality.

I think the key survival skill is to read what someone is going to do, and to be prepared for the worst, but open to going with the best.

Grizzly 45

bonniebede wrote: »

Yep, thanks, love the old TZ.:)

He made some basic mistakes though

.

Shouldn't have let anyone know that he had a shelter, or where it was.

Was abit difficult I guess to hide this in the suburbs as his friend said they were all sick of the concrete trucks etc with the Doc building his shelter.
Remember too that this was done around the Eisenhower regime,where the US govt was actually encourging[sensibly] people to build shelters and look to after themselves in the event of a nuke war.So for its time it wouldnt have been anything unusual.

He should have offered to take a kid from each family. Girls only as his son will need a wife.

Good thinking..But then you would have had the hysteria of why should THEIR daughter survive to mate with HIS Son??And as the Doc said he had enough for THREE people only.

Then held the kids as surety of their parents good behaviour

.
Wasnt going to happen!! Unless the good Doc had some serious firepower handy,which was missing,he was not going to have any rhyme or reason with the mob.I mean once they busted into the shelter it was useless anyway.But this is the thing about mob panic and human nature.It doesnt rationalise or act coherently when its survival is at stake.
They had plenty of time to develop their own shelters,but as the Doc said,no one wanted to listen or cut out the good life to face a very unpleasent possibility of that ending with a big Bang.

Its the same with us here in Ireland.Everyone thought the Celtic Tiger wouldnt end.We were "Awash with Money"[Brian Cowen]..and "Would the nay sayers and doom mongers all go away and comitt suicide!We are on a roll!"[Bertram Aherne] Well, the three minute warning is going off now,and look how close we are to this blowing up and us acting like the mob blaming everyone but ourselves for this financial Armageddon.

And of course he shouldn't have built his nuclear fallout shelter from papier mache. But thats the TZ for ya

Indeed!A sturdier door would have helped immensely.:D:D

Grizzly 45

bonniebede wrote: »

@ Grizz....I don't have faith in humanity as such, or at least in the way you mean, I think. I think people will usually act out of self interest, so you have to know how to make that coincide with what outcome you want. But at the same time you have to allow for the fact that people will act with incredible altruism, and not to see that is also to refuse to face reality.

Accepting the fact that you can be alturistic,up to a certain point,but after that it is affecting your survival as well.Going back to the TZ example ,we have a doctor who had his [IMHO] pirorities of survival dead right,you and yours first,eveyone else second.He made sure he brought his medical bag with him as well,obviously thinking that post attack he was going to be useful if he survived.Of the whole chacters HE and his son was the only one I would have wanted in a bunker to survive,because he was a valueable asset and his son was young enough to be trained into somthing useful.The rest of them were unfortunatly sheep that turned nasty in the end.

Been a different story if maybe they had built a street shelter and all chipped in,but no one wanted to by the look of things,and thats still the same today as it was in the 1950s.

I think the key survival skill is to read what someone is going to do, and to be prepared for the worst, but open to going with the best.

well then it will be pretty easy to read humanity post an event.THEY will want somthing YOU have had the prudence to look out for,and will do anything to get it or get in.And once they are in ,will they pull their weight or just expect to be carried and the good life to return?
Going and hoping for the best is always laudable and looking for the positive in humanity is as well.Its just that from what I have seen of the human race ,they will act out of self perservation first.:(

Doc Ruby

Grizzly 45 wrote: »

Going and hoping for the best is always laudable and looking for the positive in humanity is as well.Its just that from what I have seen of the human race ,they will act out of self perservation first.:(

I think you may be reading too much into what is basically an entertainment show to be honest. Yes, bad times bring out the worst in people, as was seen in places in Katrina, but it also brings out the best. Altruism and heroism stand shoulder to shoulder with villains and swine in Interesting Times.

When the Titanic sank, official inquiries in 1912 by the British Board of Trade and the U.S. Senate Investigation found that allegations that third class passengers were locked below decks were false. In fact one hundred and fifteen men in First Class and one hundred and forty seven men from Second class stood back to make space available for women and children from Third Class and as a result died.

And lets not forget that the most effective groups are those that look out for one another, whether that be military discipline or community action. The reason we're the apex predator, bacterial and viral monsters notwithstanding, is that we have learned to cooperate and work together. Ultimately that is our greatest strength, the foundation of civilisation, and it is the call to cooperation in anarchy that is the mark of the civilised man.

As with everything, it will depend on the situation.