PREPPER: 7 Home Security Measures That Could Save Your Life
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Unless you happen to be the duke of a large estate with a fortified castle, you’ll have to put in a little preparation to secure your home from invaders. While taking precautions to protect yourself from a home invasion is important now, it will become even more critical in the event of a catastrophe.
A SHTF scenario will drastically widen the gap between the Haves and the Have-Nots. When you plan for such an event beforehand, you have to consider the possibility that there will be crowds of people who will try to take your possessions, shelter, and even your life.
Prepare for the worst with these 7 home security measures that could save your life someday.
1. Reinforce Your Doors
The first step toward successful home defense is pinpointing your weak points, which first and foremost will include the doors leading into your home. Reinforcing your doors is the best way to keep bad guys out, since doors offer the easiest and most intuitive path into your home.
Consider these four options for optimally reinforced doors:
Metal Frames – Installing a metal doorframe is the best, most secure measure you can take for reinforcing your doors. A bad guy can easily kick in a door that is set into a wooden frame, no matter how strong and intricate its lock system. Metal frames are much harder to break through.
Steel Doors – In addition to having metal frames, upgrade your wooden door to a steel door for extra strength. Another perk to having steel doors is that they are resistant to fire. Even if you decide to keep a strong wooden door, make sure it is solid and without any decorative windows—you’re surviving, not winning House of the Year.
Steel Conduit – To take the metal frame concept even further, you can install a small length of steel conduit running a few inches into your doorframe. This way, your deadbolt will be anchored into not only a metal frame but an entrenched metal sheath as well.
SIMlock – The best reinforcements in the world won’t stop a lock from being picked. Install SIMlock onto your deadbolt to keep it from being opened by some a few hairpins and some clever fingers.
Additional Reinforcements – If metal frames, steal conduits, metal doors, and a SIMlock are a little beyond your means, you can still reinforce your doors with doorstops, extra deadbolts, or even boards mounted to the walls (if your door opens inward).
2. Strengthen Your Windows
A bad guy’s other main point of entry into your home is typically through the window. Strengthen your windows using any or all of these methods:
Security Bars – The first and most obvious way to secure your windows is to fit bars over them, either on the inside or the outside. This prevents bad guys from entering, jailhouse style.
Plexiglas – If bars aren’t your thing, you can strengthen the window itself by using Plexiglas instead of regular glass. Plexiglas will deter all be the most resourceful home invaders, as it takes much more abuse to shatter it.
Dowel Rods – Windows, like doors, are still a weakness if they can be unlocked. While you can secure your windows with deadbolts and the like, a cheap, efficient additional security measure can be found in the form of a dowel rod. Simply place one in the gap where your window slides to ensure it can’t be opened enough for someone to get in. This is also a great solution for sliding glass doors.
3. Upgrade Your Fence
If you can keep unwanted people off your property altogether, you won’t even have to put your reinforced doors and windows to the test. A fence is a fantastic deterrent, and you can upgrade it however you want.
A simple privacy fence can be reinforced quite a bit: wooden posts can be changed to steel posts, wooden slats can be covered with corrugated tin, and of course barbed wire or razor wire can be installed on top. In addition, the height of your fence can be increased and the gates can be strengthened (although if you live in within city limits, check your regulations for fence height).
4. Fortify Your Perimeter
Undetected is the last way a bad guy should enter your property. While not a deterrent in and of itself, having motion detectors that alert you to the presence of a home invader will let you prepare yourself, whether that means entering a panic room, arming yourself with a shotgun, or activating any sort of booby traps you might have engineered for such an occasion.
5. Build a Panic Room
Building a panic room ensures your safety when all other safety measures fail. In a SHTF scenario, most people looking to unlawfully enter your property want your stuff, not you. If you can’t keep them out of your home, at least escape the encounter with your life by stealing away into your panic room. It doesn’t have to be elaborate like in the movies or built to withstand a nuclear blast; it can simply be a small, undetectable space with a few days’ worth of supplies.
6. Landscape Defensively
Use shrubs and trees to your advantage when planning for your home defense. Thorny vines are a great way to top your fence, and prickly bushes are a great way to block access to high windows in your home. You have to strike a balance, however: bushes and shrubs can also offer concealment to would-be invaders, so make sure your landscaping still offers 360-degree visibility.
7. Enlist Canine Help
Man’s best friend is also one of your home’s best defenses. With superb hearing and scent detection, defensive dogs such as German Shepherds, Rottweilers, Doberman Pincers, and several other breeds will add extra home security as well as love and affection. Again, you have to strike a balance in your security needs: an untrained, large dog can be a detriment to your survival in some scenarios. Make sure you train your dog to stay silent on command and to always listen to your cues.
How to Build a Bug Out Bag
When SHTF and you have absolutely no other option but to leave and never come back what are you going to take with you? Are you going to pack up your toys, collectibles and video games like a moron? No you will need to grab the absolute essentials for survival and put them into a bag. Not just any bag but a bug out bag. In this post we will talk about how to build a bug out bag.
Before we move on let me clarify what I mean about bugging out. There is an absolute difference between evacuating and bugging out. If you are evacuating from an emergency like a fire or natural disaster there is a possibility that you will be returning. However, when you are bugging out you are planning to never return.
It is important to clarify the difference because not every situation is going to call for you to bug out. A lot of people get that confused in the preparedness community. If you are evacuating then you will need to grab a GO Bag which is less extreme than a bug out bag.
Extreme situations may call for you to bug out. Examples include a nuclear fallout, army invasion, plagues etc. So it is important to know when and if you should bug out.
Now you are not going to survive the apocalypse based on the contents of bag alone. The bug out bag is simply just a tool to help you survive until you are able to access your bug out location. The longest you want to plan on surviving on a bug out bag alone will be 72 hours. It’s just impossible to pack everything that you need to survive the rest of your life.
Your bug out location will provide all of your preps and gear that you need to survive an apocalyptic and collapse type event. There you should have all of your food and water preps along with other tools to rebuild your life. Again the bag is just meant to help you get from point A to point B.
In this post we are not going to talk just about what goes inside of a bug out bag. I have provided a checklist of items that you should pack in your bag that you can download HERE. Instead we are going to talk more about how to build a bug out bag.
How to Build a Bug Out Bag
Determine what you need
Before you pick up a bag you need to determine what you need. Again I have provided a checklist that includes foundational items to pack. Overall, you will want to start with the Rule of 3’s which states: you can survive only 3 minutes without air, 3 hours in rough in weather conditions, 3 days without water and 3 weeks without food.
So items that will help you survive using the Rule of 3’s would be essentials. This is what you should start with and then build from there. You don’t want to buy the bag first then pack around the bag’s limitations. The essentials that you purchase shouldn’t be dependent upon the storage of your bag. You don’t want to begin buying items only to find out that you can’t fit it into your bag. So you will need to know what to put in a bug out bag first.
How much can you carry?
Now you don’t want to go out and buy a whole lot of gear without knowing how much you can carry. There are many factors that come into play here especially if you are sick or have a handicap. You don’t want to be carrying a 75 pound bag if you have a bad back or leg problem.
When considering how to build a bug out bag you need to determine how long you can carry those items as well. The average HEALTHY person can walk about 20 miles per day. Now when you begin to add a heavy bag into the equation the distance gets even shorter.
Like I said you will want to access your bug out location within 3 days. So you need to factor the walking distance to your location into building your bug out bag. You bug out plan shouldn’t be developed around using a vehicle. That can break down or get stolen.
To figure this out I suggest that you practice hiking to see how far you are able to walk. You should also try doing this with a bag full of items. Weight the bag and test out your walking distance.
This will help you determine what gear and supplies are essential and what you can do without. It will also give you an idea on lighter options that you can look for to lighten up your pack. In the prepper community it is widely accepted that your bug out bag should be 25 pounds. However, I say it is all personal preference. Personally my bug out bag is about 40 pounds and I am able to walk at a consistent pace. If you can carry up to 45 pounds without sacrificing mobility then go for it.
What elements will you be facing?
When determining how to build a bug out bag you will need to consider the elements that you will be facing on your bug out. For example, if you live in a tropical or humid location that rains a lot then you will certainly want a pack that is water resistant or water proof. At the least you will want to make sure your important items inside of the pack stay dry by placing them in Ziploc bags.
If your bug out route is rough and will be faced with sharp objects or plants then you will want to have a really tough back. You will want to buy a bag with at least 600 denier nylon. However, you may be sacrificing bag weight when you are buying stronger materials.
Finding the right bag
When determining how to build a bug out bag you will be faced with a few more considerations. You will need to determine if you want an external/internal frame or frameless. There are only few bags still on the market that are external frame. Internal frames are built with the purpose to give you stability while hiking. If you have ever gone hiking or backwoods camping then you know you will be faced with an obstacle course.
So maintaining balance is important and probably crucial when it comes to bugging out. This is because you could be running or trying to hide from someone. The downside of having a frame backpack is that it adds weight to your pack.
You could go with a frameless backpack but you will want to be sure that it hugs your body. This is why I love the Condor 3 Day Assault Pack because it provides chest and waist straps that keep that bag close to your body. Now it is not as stable as having an internal frame but it is much lighter. In a previous post I wrote about important things to have in a bug out bag. Check it out before looking for a pack.
Top 50 Items To Be Bartered After SHTF
10 Ways To Prep For Survival Without Spending Money
Image source: Pixabay.com
Many people recognize that preparing for an uncertain future is wise, but far fewer actually do it due to cost. All that food, water, gear and equipment isn’t cheap.
Fortunately, there are other ways that you can prepare for the unknown without hardly spending a dime:
1. Research the biggest risks of your area. How much does it cost to surf the Internet or visit your local library? Nothing. If you’re serious about prepping and survival, you need to be ready to invest countless hours into research. Specifically, you need to focus on researching the biggest risks that your local community or area faces so that you know which type of disaster is most likely to occur.
2. Have a plan. Simple, right? You should always have plans written down for specific scenarios before they occur so that you’re more ready when a crisis does hit. Other than the cost of the paper and the writing utensils, writing down a plan is completely free.
3. Learn how to reuse basic items. There are numerous items, lying around your house right now, that you can apply to a survival situation. You can make miniature grills out of Altoid tins and torches out of drinking straws, and use dental floss as fishing line.
Learning how to use these items in a survival situation, and then actually practicing to use those items, will pay off long-term.
4. Set aside cash. Think of it as saving money rather than spending it. Over the course of a long-term disaster, you might not be able to access the funds in your bank. Offset this by setting aside a few bills each week into a large jar. You’ll be surprised at how fast it will grow.
5. Build improvised weapons. Survival naturally requires you to be creative, and a major priority in a survival situation is security. Therefore, it makes sense that you may need to get creative in regards to how you defend yourself. Learning how to build improvised weapons, such as a bow and arrow (out of sticks) or a spear (with little more than glass shards and poles) can be a fun activity.
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6. Learn advanced first-aid skills. Every injury, no matter how small, requires attention in a survival situation – simply because it can develop into something far worse if it goes untreated. You can learn advanced first-aid skills on your own time without spending any money.
7. Pre-assign survival roles to your family. Everybody in your family, or your entire survival group for that matter, needs to be contributing to your survival efforts. If you pre-assign roles to your family members now, you’ll save a lot of time and confusion when the survival situation actually does occur.
8. Learn how to start a fire without fire-starter. Anybody can take a match or a lighter and get a fire going, but very few can start a fire with two sticks. Learn about the different ways that you can start a fire without fire-starters, and then practice using this method in a safe environment. It will be an incredibly valuable investment of your time.
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9. Learn how to mend clothing. Taking care of your clothing will be essential in a long-term survival situation when stores may not be an option. Learning basic knitting or stitching methods will be well worth the effort – and it’s a good way to pass the time when you’re bored.
10. Practice. The old saying goes that practice makes perfect, right? Don’t just learn how to survive. Actually practice what you have learned. While this tip has become a little clichéd in the survival world, it’s still completely relevant.
10 Top Myths About Preventing a Cold
Like the game of party line we played as kids, myths about colds and other short-term illnesses prevail. The reality is that the common cold is caused by a virus that is passed from person to person. They can occur anytime during the year and not just during what is commonly referred to as the “cold season”.
So what are those myths? Contributing author Dr. Joe Alton is here to debunk these myths and to reinforce what I have always said: thoroughly washing your hands is one of the best ways to avoid sickness, including the common cold.
Fact or Fiction When It Comes to Preventing a Cold
by Joe Alton, MD
I’ve written books about Ebola, Zika virus, and other epidemic diseases, but your chances of getting these viruses are pretty small.
One virus that you are likely to get, however, is the common cold. It’s the most common illness on the planet, and is one that 75-100 million Americans present to a medical professional for treatment every year. Only a small percentage of these people go on to have secondary respiratory infections such as pneumonia, which can lead to a life-threatening situation.
The common cold is an infection caused, usually, by a virus in the Rhinovirus or Coronavirus family, although a number of others have been implicated. Affecting the upper respiratory system (nose, throat, sinuses), it’s a rare individual that hasn’t dealt with a cold at one point or another.
Like many viral illnesses, there is no cure for the common cold, and attention should be paid to methods that might prevent it. Many people have their own strategies for prevention, but some of these methods are ineffective and have little basis in fact. Here are time-honored (but false) ways that you can (can’t) prevent a cold:
Prevention is only an issue in the winter
You can only catch colds then: In reality, colds occur most often in the Spring and Fall. Many viruses actually become dormant in cold weather.
Dress warmly and you won’t get sick
Dressing warmly for cold weather is a smart move to prevent hypothermia, but it won’t prevent colds. A cold is an infectious disease caused by a virus. Regardless of what you wear, you can be infected in any type of weather.
Stay inside during the winter to avoid catching a cold
Staying inside actually increases your chances of getting infected. Enclosed spaces can expose you to a higher concentration of the virus.
Take antibiotics to prevent colds
Antibiotics kill bacteria. Colds are caused by viruses, an entirely different organism. Therefore, antibiotics are ineffective against them as a preventative or a cure. Although many people ask their doctors for antibiotics to prevent or treat colds, this is a practice that has contributed to an epidemic of resistance in the U.S. Indeed, one out of three Americans leave their doctors’ offices with a prescription for antibiotics to treat an illness that is completely unaffected by them.
A weakened immune system will cause a cold
Certainly, having a strong immune system is a good thing, but even the healthiest person can catch a cold if exposed to the virus. Most people who catch a cold were perfectly healthy until the virus gets a hold of them.
Vitamin C will prevent colds
Although supplements like Vitamin C and Zinc may decrease the duration of a cold, they don’t do anything to prevent your catching one.
Keep your head dry
A wet head will cause a cold: Having a head full of wet hair is thought by some to predispose you to a cold, but it just isn’t so. You may feel a chill, but it won’t make you more likely to catch a virus.
Turning down the heat in the house will prevent a cold
Many feel that central heating causes the nose to dry up and make them more susceptible to a cold. A virus can colonize the mucus membranes, regardless of the temperature or level of humidity.
Wearing Garlic or other herbs will prevent your getting sick
What? Wearing garlic may repel vampires (and everyone else), but its health benefits mostly derive from being ingested in its raw form.
Avoid kissing to prevent colds
Interestingly, relatively small quantities of virus reside on the lips or in the mouth. Most of it is found in the nasal cavity. Then again, it’s hard to be kissed without being breathed on as well.
Facts You Can Believe About Preventing a Cold
Those are some myths, but here’s a fact: Hand washing is an effective way to decrease your chances of catching a cold. Viruses are transmitted less often if hands are washed regularly and frequently throughout the day. This is especially true if you want to prevent colds in children. Instill hand-washing as a part of daily routine in kids when they’re very young, just as you would teach toilet training.
Don’t forget to use disinfectants frequently on common area doorknobs, kitchen counters, and work surfaces.
Natural remedies can make a cold less debilitating. Here’s one of my favorites: Green tea with Lemon and Honey. Chicken soup is also great. Drinking the tea or soup and breathing in the steam helps the hair follicles in the nose to drain germs out. Lemon is known to thin out mucus and honey is a great natural antibacterial agent.
Starve a fever, feed a cold? It’s never right to starve yourself when you’re sick. Eat a healthy diet, with lots of antioxidants, and you’ll have a better chance to stay healthy.
How To Talk To Non-Preppers Without Turning Them Off to Prepping
Do you know someone who is thinking about preparedness, but isn't quite sure they want to become a "prepper"? Perhaps your spouse doesn't share your enthusiasm for survivalism? Maybe you're trying to warn your brother/co-worker/friend/neighbor that he needs to get serious about building self-reliance and readiness for whatever the future might hold?
Here's what not to do:
1- Avoid too much doom-and-gloom.
2- Avoid jargon. acronyms and "military" talk.
3- Avoid politics as much as possible.
4- Put away the tin-foil hat.
5- Don't nag.
Preppers and survivalists are often unfairly portrayed as backwards, paranoid, right-wing nut-jobs, gun-nuts, conspiracy-nuts, or just plain nuts. This makes "regular" folks reluctant to hear the prepper message of self-reliance and commonsense preparations for any future difficulties. Don't confirm these stereotypes in how you talk to your non-prepper friends and neighbors!
Many people (especially women) are also turned-off by too much doom-and-gloom and over-the-top scenarios. It is very scary think about end-of-the-world subjects (nuclear war, civil war, economic or political collapse), and some people simply tune out such talk rather than deal with such scary subjects. Instead of scaring them away with extreme dangers, emphasize building security and safety for more common situations (winter storms, hurricanes, the next recession, etc.).
You can also turn people off by always or only talking about prepping, survivlism, and similar topics. Sometimes its a good idea to just talk about the football game, or to have lunch together without mentioning prepping. Show an actual interest in them. Ask how their day is going, or about their kids, or what plans they have for the weekend. Pick and choose the best opportunities to talk to them bout preparedness.
Here is what to do:
1- Adopt a conversational tone.
2- Emphasize building security and safety.
3- Use personal experiences & real-life events.
4- Remain calm.
5- Use humor.
Have an actual conversation with non-preppers. A conversationisn't a lecture, an argument, or a dire warning. A conversation isn't riddled with technical jargon or acronyms that one participant doesn't have the first clue about what it means. A conversation is a two-way exchange of ideas, presented calmly and rationally.
Pointing to your own personal experiences or actual real-life events works much better than abstract ideas about what mighthappen sometime in the murky future. Sharing how you handled an unexpected job loss is much more effective in reaching people than trying to tell them how they should get ready for the coming economic collapse that the world's elites are intentionally planning.
You can also point to what happened in real-life events like Hurricane Katrina, a terrorist attack, or even the current economic disaster going on in Venezuela.
Here's what not to do:
1- Avoid too much doom-and-gloom.
2- Avoid jargon. acronyms and "military" talk.
3- Avoid politics as much as possible.
4- Put away the tin-foil hat.
5- Don't nag.
Preppers and survivalists are often unfairly portrayed as backwards, paranoid, right-wing nut-jobs, gun-nuts, conspiracy-nuts, or just plain nuts. This makes "regular" folks reluctant to hear the prepper message of self-reliance and commonsense preparations for any future difficulties. Don't confirm these stereotypes in how you talk to your non-prepper friends and neighbors!
Many people (especially women) are also turned-off by too much doom-and-gloom and over-the-top scenarios. It is very scary think about end-of-the-world subjects (nuclear war, civil war, economic or political collapse), and some people simply tune out such talk rather than deal with such scary subjects. Instead of scaring them away with extreme dangers, emphasize building security and safety for more common situations (winter storms, hurricanes, the next recession, etc.).
You can also turn people off by always or only talking about prepping, survivlism, and similar topics. Sometimes its a good idea to just talk about the football game, or to have lunch together without mentioning prepping. Show an actual interest in them. Ask how their day is going, or about their kids, or what plans they have for the weekend. Pick and choose the best opportunities to talk to them bout preparedness.
Here is what to do:
1- Adopt a conversational tone.
2- Emphasize building security and safety.
3- Use personal experiences & real-life events.
4- Remain calm.
5- Use humor.
Have an actual conversation with non-preppers. A conversationisn't a lecture, an argument, or a dire warning. A conversation isn't riddled with technical jargon or acronyms that one participant doesn't have the first clue about what it means. A conversation is a two-way exchange of ideas, presented calmly and rationally.
Pointing to your own personal experiences or actual real-life events works much better than abstract ideas about what mighthappen sometime in the murky future. Sharing how you handled an unexpected job loss is much more effective in reaching people than trying to tell them how they should get ready for the coming economic collapse that the world's elites are intentionally planning.
You can also point to what happened in real-life events like Hurricane Katrina, a terrorist attack, or even the current economic disaster going on in Venezuela.
