cacheing in the city

i wanrt to throw this out to the city people as i really don't know how you would go about doing this: how would you cache items as large as a bob in the city. i live in the county and on 30 acres in a local where you can barely see your neighbor's house light. so how do you do it?

Originally posted by wcssar
i wanrt to throw this out to the city people as i really don't know how you would go about doing this: how would you cache items as large as a bob in the city. i live in the county and on 30 acres in a local where you can barely see your neighbor's house light. so how do you do it?

What's a bob? and how big are they? I scanned the other "stolen bob" thread and am none the wiser!

From spines "Survival Terms and Meanings" thread. Might want to check it out

BOB – A ‘BOB’ (or Bug Out Bag), from what I have gathered, is a bag or sack which contains the basics for a few days survival. It is something which can be grabbed on the run and used until other supplies can be located.

www.abovetopsecret.com...


So it's basically a survival kit that you can have in your car, house, or any where else you'd want to put it. It can be as big or small as you want it to be, I guess.

Tough one.

If you can afford it rent some space somewhere, in the city its not gong to be possible to go dig a hole and hide it that way.

It really depends what your planning for, however it might be an idea to have it stored outside the city because thats where your going to want to head. If your plan is to stay in the city then dont waste time and just keep the kit in your house.

I cant really say i have given this much thought because i too am outside the city will be interesting to where this goes

In a survival situation you want to get away from high population density areas. These will be the areas where resources will be most quickly exhausted, where panic and chaos will be more dangerous and more easily triggered, where disease and desperation will become more likely and very likely where governenment 'assistance' will be first focused. To cache in the city is counter-productive. The very best thing urbanites can do is plan to evacuate (bug-out pack) to a less dense location as quickly as possible. Coordinating with someone outside the city (but able to be reached on foot if necessary) would be a good idea. That out-of-the-city person could stockpile more readily and, of course, you'd help defray that cost.

Plan your BOB accordingly: high-energy food, water and water purification, radio, light, clothing (with an emphasis on your feet --- you're going to be doing ALOT of humping), etc.

Originally posted by jtma508
Coordinating with someone outside the city (but able to be reached on foot if necessary) would be a good idea. That out-of-the-city person could stockpile more readily and, of course, you'd help defray that cost.

Good idea, i hadn't thought of that. One thing that bothers me is getting out of a city to a less populated area.

One thing we can be sure of is we do not want to be in a city when the crap goes down.

How far can one person expect to make it from the centre of a city out into the country. Trying to walk any distance out of a city is bad enough but trying to walk out in the middle of a riot would be hellish. Would anyone really consider trying this?

I'm not sure you'd have any option. When food and water start to run out in the city things are going to get massively ugly fast. Pre-Katrina I think most people always held the position that "when the SHTF the government will come to our aid". We all know better now and that's not good. People will be less inclined to wait for help and become more desperate sooner.

Obviously, no one can know what will happen or how it will progress. I would think, however, that at some point people will start a mass exodus out of the cities. By car at first (if possible) --- but panic and gridlock will put a stop to that --- and then on-foot. You'd want to be well ahead of that wave. In short, the idea is to be well on your way BEFORE any riots break out.

There are plenty of spots you could cache in a city. But you have to be willing to potentially lose the items you are hiding, more than otherwise. So I would recommend it more for hiding small bits of food here and there. Especially canned food that will stay good for a long time no matter where you put it.

The first main place you could hide things would be anywhere with dirt/sand/gravel such as dirt paths, sandboxes at local schools, or baseball diamonds. You can't hide things in places with grass, as it will create an obvious disturbance when you put the sod back onto it. But if you dig a hole into dirt or sand and bury items deep down (more than a foot should be safe), and then be sure to really compact it back down and put a bit of water on it to settle it, nobody will be the wiser. Just be sure that you have a clear set of markers to pinpoint the location. In public school, my friends and I did this with Doritos (and dug them up a week later and they still tasted fine), as well as more permanent objects such as toys and books.

A second potential area would be under various public buildings, especially abandoned ones. Some buildings you will find are missing sides or have areas where the ground meets that can be fairly easily pulled up. You could hide stuff here, but there is a good chance someone else will find it.

Be sure to put stuff in bags to make sure no insects or animals get into it, whatever you hide.

Keep your kit compact, you don't want to be carrying the kithen sink around with you. Keep all you survival kit in a cupboard already packed in a 50 litre quality rucksack, try to keep the weight to about 25 kilo's. If the time comes when you need to get out the city, your probably gonna have to tab for about 30 km's to get to safety, 30 km's with 25 Kilo's is going to be tough even at walking pace. But you will be surprised how little kit makes up 25 Kilo's! untill you get to your destination DO NOT remove your rucksack! If their are people near you they WILL steal it.

Just remember:

Compact
Light

and

Nearby

You really dont want to store your kit somewhere far away, keep it where you could find it in 30 seconds in the dark!

Be Safe

I am a city dweller. I have a distant go-to place should the need arise (and by distant I mean more than 1000 miles). They know to be ready for me and the family. How we get there is a different story...one of my family refusing to even be prepared for earthquakes.

However. I have stored some stuff in his garage, so he has a BOB. He doesn't realize it, of course, but it's there. I have two BOBs of my own; one in the house, and one in the car.

Why two? Because if the poo connects to the oscillating device while I'm not home, it might take some time to get home. In that case, I'd rather be prepared to wait it out (or at least have that option) in place, and then get home and get to the BOB there. Then over to the relative. And then we figure out how to get to the distant place.

Bearing in mind, all of the local constabulary has the idea that they will prevent people leaving in a terrorist attack; it's a shelter in place sort of plan. Same with natural disasters unless evac is required (i.e. fast moving fire). However, being a resident here my entire life, I can get out of the city via backroads and much less traveled roads than most people know about. Therefore, I believe I have a better chance to get outta Dodge than the average person.

Regards-
Aimless

Originally posted by Aimless Searcher
I am a city dweller. I have a distant go-to place should the need arise (and by distant I mean more than 1000 miles). They know to be ready for me and the family. How we get there is a different story...one of my family refusing to even be prepared for earthquakes.

1000 miles? Thats a long long way to go in any situation. Much less in a situation where you cant drive out of your city! I would really be interested to hear how you plan to get 1000 miles without a car.

Bearing in mind, all of the local constabulary has the idea that they will prevent people leaving in a terrorist attack; it's a shelter in place sort of plan. Same with natural disasters unless evac is required (i.e. fast moving fire). However, being a resident here my entire life, I can get out of the city via backroads and much less traveled roads than most people know about. Therefore, I believe I have a better chance to get outta Dodge than the average person.

Regards-
Aimless

Seems like a recipy for desaster, when everyone tries to get out your going to be caught up in the gridlock no mater which way you try to get out!

I'm still of the opinion that if you want to get out your going to have to walk, and walk fast. Everyone is going to want what you have so you need to keep away from people which in a city is not exactly easy. The best idea may well be to hold up in you home, atleast for a while till you can gte a better grap on the situation.

under your patio / the corner of your garden

advantages - close to hand , it should escape your house being looted / razed to the ground

disadvantages - too close - unless your property is trashed - its not much better than a cubby hole under the stair .


lockers - ie work / school / gym etc

advantages - semi secure - and remote from your house

if you can get 2 lockers that are in oposite didrections from your house - all the better as you now have an option which way to run - or can have a head start on everyone else


an allotment / small holding

i dunno if these are prevalant in other countries

but a big advantage is that the produce / livestock you can rasise will offset the cost [ or even turn a profit ] during none emergency times - and might still be viable as a farmable resource after the emergency

but you can have a BoB burried under a composting barrel or water butt -

the local chavs might ransack your shed - but they will not did

a garage / lock up / " u-store "

great - roomy , dry , secure

the big downside is the lease - a permanent drain - if you can afford it - great , but not a good option for poor peassants

i have run out of good ideas now - IMHO you need to have some degree of control over the site

just selecting a point 10 paces fro the old oak tree in the park might seem cool - but you really want better security

just burrying stuff on other peoples / public land without permission has legal implications in many juristictions - if the land owner finds it - they are not always required to return it - if it was secreted without permission

just my 0.02 groats - YMMV

I remember seeing a booklet with the title something like, "How To Hide Things In Plain Sight".

Maybe a search on that title will help?

For things that aren't dangerous or particularly expensive, (food, fabric, water) the city park might be a good bet, or utility/maintenance tunnels.

For things like guns/ammo, weapons or tools, I would reccomend a storage facility or the trunk of a car in long-term parking in a garage or the airport.

The last thing you want is for some kids to dig up your stash. :shk:

It's hard to cache in the city, but not impossible. It makes a lot more sense to live in the country if you're interested in preparing for survival situations.

1000 miles? Thats a long long way to go in any situation. Much less in a situation where you cant drive out of your city! I would really be interested to hear how you plan to get 1000 miles without a car.

Never said without a car...should that occur (the lack of cars), there are less reliable people within 100 miles that we could get to. However, much farther than that my elderly relative won't go, not without a car.

The problem that arises is my elderly relative. We're not going very far if there isn't a car...simply because he can't go very far without one. So my options are limited in that regard.

But I suspect that I will be able to get my hands on a working vehicle and be able to get about 1/ way, where there is a "rest" stop, get additional gas, and continue on our journey. There is another "rest" stop about 250 miles away from the final destination, and I will fill up there again. And then on to the hidey hole.

And just a note; the 1000 miles is via back roads and roundabouts...not a direct shot (as I don't think that will be available).

Seems like a recipy for desaster, when everyone tries to get out your going to be caught up in the gridlock no mater which way you try to get out!

Nope - there are roads that are little more than fireroads over some of the more "congested" areas, and once clear of that, it's just a matter of continuing on in the right direction via back roads, farm/rural routes, and that such. I'm not too worried about that - I also know the local constabulary codes for free passage (don't even ask me how I know...nor what they are. They're different for most districts, anyway...).

I'm still of the opinion that if you want to get out your going to have to walk, and walk fast. Everyone is going to want what you have so you need to keep away from people which in a city is not exactly easy. The best idea may well be to hold up in you home, atleast for a while till you can gte a better grap on the situation.

If I can't get a drop on the situation, that is ***exactly*** what I plan on doing; however, not at my home, but at the home of my elderly relative. It's more readily protected (where it's located, and it's building materials, and it's landscaping lends itself to a more easily protected home than where I live right now).

So if I don't/can't anticipate the turn of events, then it's stay put until I can get him and myself out safely.

Regards-
Aimless

Under a dumpster in a dirt alley. They are easy enough to push aside when empty, and no one ever looks under them. The guy in the truck cannot see the spot.

You can hide smaller items in the dirt of a window box full of flowers, or potted geraniums on the porch. Especially if you live several floors up, the only access is through your building. And with the curtains drawn, searchers might not think of such a spot.

Your workplace can have potential, if you are trusted with the keys. This is not quite a cache, but if, in an emergency, you can legitimately go and retrieve specialized tools, then that is functionally a cache of sorts. Being the first one to remember that your company has a set of bolt-cutters and a chainsaw is the same as having a cache with those items in it. And it's under lock and key.

.

[edit on 29-1-2007 by dr_strangecraft]

I don't know if that would work (the dumpster idea), because oftentimes you get two guys working the route, one is in the truck while the other is behind it, either running the lift/compactor, or throwing in assorted crap that's accumulated around the dumpster proper. He would have to be blind to miss the cache if it's just on top of the ground where the dumpster sits.

Another place might be rooftop gardens, lots of buildings have them. They're usually accessible to all tenants, but there are a ton of places you can hide small packages (planters, furniture, crevices in the masonry, behind exhaust vent covers, in the eaves of the stairwell enclosure, etc.). In my experience, most city-dwellers are too busy to spend much time on the roof, they get up to go to the gym or to work, and come home just to eat, watch some television, and go to bed so they can do it all over again. The ratio of Nancy Drew types to schlubs is heavily weighted towards the latter in my experience.

The beach is another possibility. Obviously this only works for coastal cities, but it would be perfect for a place like NY. You could have a nice little cache, complete with inflatable boat, hidden under the sand below one of the piers (I would avoid anything metal, because there are beach combers with metal detectors who might discover your 'treasure chest' and deprive you of it long before Sit-X ever occurs), or weigh down a waterproof package and attach it to the pylons at the mooring dock for the ferry.

Many large-ish buildings in major cities have furnace rooms that are reasonably accessible. Some of these furnace rooms have old furnaces that are no longer in use, either because the building upgraded to a more efficient model, changed fuel (coal to gas is common), or decided to install individual furnaces for the individual apartments. The same could be said for hot water heaters. It costs a fair bit of money to cut them into pieces and cart them away, so building owners have an incentive to leave them where they sit (often these things weigh a ton). They would make excellent cache spots.

I've been to a few cities in the US where there are still cold war bomb shelters in existence. They're disused and locked up in most cases, but some of them are accessible and would make an ideal 'storage bin' for emergeny use. Hell, you might even be able to hole up and live there!

Most cities have abandoned lots, you know, those weed-encrusted wastelands frequented by prostitutes, drug dealers, and winos, who deposit their trash and move on. The trash never seems to get cleaned up, which is a good sign if you're looking for a cache site. I remember a couple of these areas in Chicago, on the North and West side, that were paved over with asphalt. Where the asphalt met the concrete of the sidewalk, there were always loose sections, some of them quite large. One could jack a couple of those puppies up, remove some material from underneath (dirt and sand), and have a nice little hidey-hole that would probably go unnoticed for years.

The hard part would be doing it quickly and quietly, so none of the neighbors see what you're doing. Find the blighted industrial part of town, and make sure to work during the magic hour, after the bar crowd has gone home, but before the crackheads and laborers hit the streets in the pre-dawn hours (it depends on where you live, when the bars close).

If you've got the marbles for it, you could choose to work in a gang-infested part of town instead, because most of the neighbors mind their business for fear of reprisals - they see a dark figure wearing a hoody, burying something in the lot across the street at 4am, they're probably not going to want to know any more than they already do.

After thinking about it a bit more, I've come to the conclusion that a car parked somewhere secure might be one of the best choices for average people of average means. It provides transporation in cases where bugging out is an option, and a large storage capacity if you just need to pick some stuff up, but can't leave the area in a vehicle. When shopping for a car, pretend you're a mafioso; the car should be unremarkable, inexpensive but not an eyesore, and it should have a really, really big trunk.

Whatever you do, I can't stress enough how irresponsible it would be to hide a firearm or any sort of weapon somewhere another person could find it. It would be incredibly foolish, not to mention illegal and immoral. So don't do it. Just don't do it. Secure your firearm(s) as you would your firstborn child.

Originally posted by wcssar
i wanrt to throw this out to the city people as i really don't know how you would go about doing this: how would you cache items as large as a bob in the city. i live in the county and on 30 acres in a local where you can barely see your neighbor's house light. so how do you do it?

I dont think it has occured to many of the posters here.

I have read several books on this topic and have employed some of the techniques.

Suggest a book or books along the lines of .....

"Construction of Secret Hiding Places"

In otherwords Camoflague. Build a hiding place which looks like something which is not a hiding place. Lots of way to do this. Just put your mind to work.
One of the slickest ideas I've ever seen is a guy who bought a new water heater and cut it open in the back. He built some racks inside it and put his guns inside. THen fitted it in his garage complete with false piping going into the walls. To get to it he just disconnected the false pipe and rotated it around and opened the access panel he had closely fitted to it.

It takes some skill to do some of this but the problems are not insurmountable.

Thanks,
Orangetom

a lot of good ideas :

BUT

many seem heaviuly reliant on every one else who has legal acess to the site - and the authority to change things around on thier own initative taking little or no action for the life of your cache

not to pick on any one plan , but roof gardens :

how do you know that in 2 weeks after you hide your cache - the landlord has not planned to ripp out the garden and replace it with decking ? he might do it while you are on holiday

the same with any " hidden in plain sight " strategem - do NOT rely on the assumption that the structure will not be altered

an annecdote ;

there used to be a dairy bottling plant near where i now live - it shut down several years ago - and stood semi derelict

then one night a gang of theves broke in and attempted to strip the shell off electrical fittings - 3 phase cabinets and switch boxes - not little thinks like light switches and plug sockets - plus took a lot of the stainless steel tank fittings , valves , pipe work and such

they even took some of the machine mounts - which though valuable do not look it - so they knew exactly what they wanted

my mate worked for the security firm monitoring the sight - and gave me a tour about 4 months before the threives struck

and there were scorese of tanks , cabinets and inspection spaces that looked " ideal " and suited the sort of cache that members here are discussing

PS - now [ as of october 2006 ] - the entire site has ben leveled - the plot has been sold to housing developers

just my opinion - but relying on inaction , inactivity and a preservation of the status quo is not in my view very prudent .

I still adhere to the belief that anyone living in a city would be best served to get out of the city as quickly as possible if the SHTF for the reasons I've already stated. The only possible reason for caching is if you plan to shelter-in-place. In a city (a high population density area) that is a risky proposition. In a true Sit-X scenario (absence of utilities, services, food, water) things are going to unravel quickly. You don't want to be caught in the middle of that.

In 1978 we had a particularly bad wintere storm up here in New England. Power and phone service went out. Roads were not being plowed as there was 3+ft of snow. We were huddled in a room with a fireplace (no wood stores) and had to scavange the woods for anything we could burn for heat. This went on for several days. The morning after the snow stopped a roommate and I hiked through the snow teh 2+ miles to the grocery store. It was open but all the 'necessities' were gone: milk, eggs, water, canned soup, bread. We're talking a huge super market here --- not a corner store.

There was no real panic in this scenario. It was mainly a huge inconvenience. Most people still had water and there was plenty of snow. Plus, even getting to the store required a huge effort. Yet enough people made it to strip all the basics. And this was in an area with a very modest population density. Imagine what will be left when the residents of all the highrises and apartmnent complexes head out in search of water and food.

IMO, equip yourself and plan to evacuate the city as quickly and as soon as you possibly can. Establish your cache at an out-of-the-city location that you can reasonably expect to reach on foot.