House as fortress

The premise is that the SHTF and you are in a semi urban country area, meaning 30 minutes away from Urban Center ..small town. You have a two story house with yard and fence. Two car garage, no out buildings. 2 weeks worth of food, two dogs, two trucks, one is four wheel drive. No weapons. Normal camping gear-tents, sleeping bags etc. Modest work bench with standard hand tools and garden tools. Modest home library.

1. First issue is that the S might not HTF.
2. Second issue is Money. Preparing must be on the cheap.

What are your first preparation steps? What is the most important thing? How do you prepare without going overboard?

reply to post by amazing


My first thought is keep the 4x4 truck loaded and ready to roll at all times in case of the SHTF.

Or at least have travel bags and gear in large duffle bags ready to throw into the back.

non perishable Food, Some fresh water plus a water purifying set up, ammo, a shotgun, a rifle, 2 hand guns, an axe, a large knife, a baseball bat, multi tools. 2 days worth of clothes, rain gear, tarps, camping gear, lighters, fishing pole, bait, 2 full Gas Cans, Cash, First aid kit, snare wire, SAS survival guide, compass, maps, rope, playing cards, dice, a grill or a few metal rods for cooking, suppliments, soap, you get the idea.

As far as having your house ready to go? Assuming you want to ride it out

Keep a supply of 2x10 boards in the garage along with a big box of 3.5 inch deck screws and drills and saws to barricade the house by boarding up all the windows and doorways if need be.

Establish a common area for sleeping, chances are power would be out, a large living room or upstairs master bedroom might be good to keep noise to a minimum, never stay in a basement, if inglorious basterds taught us anything besides how the war should have ended, never fight in a basement.

Make it clear that entering your house isnt worth someones time and dangerous if they try, maybe coils of barb wire to make the message quite clear.

On the cheap:

1) Ruger 10/22 or 2 of them. price about $200.00 each.

2) 500 rd bulk pack .22 ammo from Walmart (about $20 each)

3) Learn how to shoot them.

4) If the electricity, water, and natural gas no longer work... now what? Especially in winter. Do you have back-up heat? How do you get water.

5) Answer question 4. Any number of possible answers from "finding" a place with water / shelter that is secluded, dependable, and provides adequate shelter.

6) What happens if that SHTF scenario happens? What are your neighbors going to do when they have no food in a week? I ask this because I have seen many of post on internet boards where IF an event were to happen, a good number of whacos will go murdering and stealing as soon as it is evident that there will be chaos.

7) Answer question 6. What do you do if it is evident that you cannot stay at your residence? Where are you going to go?

Other questions: "Individual posts" with specific information:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
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I think true survival planning should be done from a nomadic viewpoint, at least to some degree.

Face it, you may outfit your home as a fortress, then WTSHTF, you aren't even home. You may not even be able to get back to your home and if you do, it may not even be there!

Survival mindset and knowledge are the most important tools to start with.
Then keep a quality knife on your person at all times.
After that, you should get a BOB ready.

reply to post by amazing

I'd pick up a copy of "Life After Doomsday" by Bruce Clayton. While it's somewhat 90's post-nuclear, if it provides one tip (and it has) then it's worth checking out.

This unique manual shows you how to survive a nuclear nightmare by providing an exhaustive investigation of survival strategies and of the problems that will face those who survive. The author outlines step-by-step procedures for preparing and defending shelters, storing food, treating illnesses and injuries and understanding the psychology of survival. With its dozens of useful charts, lists, drawings and photos, this book also serves as an excellent reference on surviving any major disaster. (review by Amazon)

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck




This is available as a free pdf document here: Life After Doomsday - Survivalists Guide to Major Disaster.pdf

Originally posted by amazing
The premise is that the SHTF and you are in a semi urban country area, meaning 30 minutes away from Urban Center ..small town. You have a two story house with yard and fence. Two car garage, no out buildings. 2 weeks worth of food, two dogs, two trucks, one is four wheel drive. No weapons. Normal camping gear-tents, sleeping bags etc. Modest work bench with standard hand tools and garden tools. Modest home library.

1. First issue is that the S might not HTF.
2. Second issue is Money. Preparing must be on the cheap.

What are your first preparation steps? What is the most important thing? How do you prepare without going overboard?

*Remove the batteries and the syphon the fuel from the vehicles. This should detour looters from trying to steal your ride. Leave one car in the yard. Make it look abandoned. The second car should be placed in the garage (this will become your escape vehicle). KEEP THE GARAGE OPEN. Take anything of value out of the garage and move it into your 2nd floor. Anything you don't need, cast around like junk.

*Throw a bunch of trash and junk out on the yard to make the home appear looted from the street.

*Take all of your supplies and move them upstairs. Your downstairs area is about to become unused.

*Barricade the doors by bracing them against the far walls. (Nailing boards and pushing debris against the doors does nothing against 2 full grown men)

*Going against what I just said: nail boards and place debris in front of any accessible windows (in this case you have no choice).

*Destroy the staircase. If looters do come calling, you'll want to eat up their time trying to navigate to the second floor while you escape. If its a real SHTF scenario, you won't be caring about the destroyed staircase. Barricade the entranceway at the top of where the stairs used to be with the heaviest furniture available.

*Try to hold out as long as you can. (I.E. try and and really stretch out those 2 weeks rations). Keep your Bug Out Bag or G.O.O.D. bags packed with everything. Keep the gas and car batteries next to your exit.

*The emergency exit. If your Garage is attached to your home, try and have your escape route be a hole cut into the ceiling of the garage so that you can drop right down into your safety vehicle area. If the garage is not connected, your exit should be a window on the same side of the house as the garage. One or two people should remain in the house while the vehicle is being fueled and the battery attached. This person or persons can cover the prep-person from the exit hole or window.

Just by going on the info given, this contingency should work pretty well. Note that this contingency can be rendered completely nill depending on the SHTF scenario.

Thanks mates! Good advice. My thought was that if the SHTF that it will be bad for a while and then slowly come back to norm so to speak. I'm ready and willing to bug out if need be and live close enough to mountains, foot hills and timber lands to stand a good a chance as any. Fresh water, firewood aplenty. My thought is that I won't need to bug out though. If I can keep safe for a couple of months, then I'll be fine. Roving bandits and petty thieves aplenty but nothing too hard to deal with. Of course, I realize I could be completely wrong and thats why I have a few plans. Simple home defenses and supplies. Rain water catch system and a couple of filtering systems etc etc.

Originally posted by amazing
How do you prepare without going overboard?

A few simple steps you could make using the tools and materials you listed...

Pits dug around vulnrable perimeter areas of property, such as along the fenced area, to dimensions of a heavy-grade bin-liner and filled with water to act both as a cache-supply and defensive measure

Tarmacced driveways or paths to the property could have a grid pattern of 4" nails driven into the surface 2" apart and 2" deep to shred tyres/soles and create chokepoints

Removable hatches behind front and back doors and underneath windows on the downstairs. Can be kept in place and covered back up when not in use. If you have to contend with the possibility of a SHTF looting invasion, remove the hatches to create drop-pit obstacles for those who attempt to break-in.

Same goes for stair-treads. Once removed will make ascent to the above floors very difficult.

Sleeping quarters, essential equipment, and foodstuffs all moved to uppermost floor/attic. Sandbags placed at the inside edge of walls where floor joists meet wall-supports to take the additional loading (to determine which walls support joists, they will be at 90* to floorboards) these will provide an extra protective layer of matting to sleep/sit on should any firearms be discharged into the ceilings to dislodge occupants

Don't forget a couple of CO2 fire extinguishers, as retreating upstairs will increase any dangers from a fire attack. Can also be used as a last-resort defensive measure.

Hope that helps with the lateral thinking

Put broken glass pieces, light bulbs, and aluminum cans on the outside of your perimeter. This way any unwanted visitors will create enough noise for you or your dogs to hear.

How high is your fence, and what type? I would recommend barbed or razor wire on the top of your fence. If your fence is higher than 4 ft. put sharpened bamboo spikes underneath and well placed sharpened pieces of metal. If someone jumps over your fence, they'll face a pretty good injury.

Make your yard impassable for a car. Dig trenches, place as many large, heavy metal "things" in the yard as you can. Dig a few tire size trenches and fill with metal shards to puncture car tires, or cause injury to a person on foot. Place signs on your fence and yard claiming that you will shoot to kill all trespassers. Put the signs up even if you have no guns.

On your doors, drive very long nails or screws through the inside of the door with the points facing outside the door. Start from the very bottom and continue about 5ft. up. This way people will be less like kick open your door or ram it open with their shoulder. If they do they'll get injured Next, board up the inside of the doors and barricade them with everything you can.

For the windows, board them up. Dig a deep trench underneath each window and fill with all sorts of jagged metals and spikes. Hide the pit with leaves, thin twigs, branches, and foliage. Create the best scenario for injury that you can!

If you have basement windows, board them from the inside and cover them on the ousted with dirt and rocks.

Place bricks, metal shards, etc. near the upstairs windows. While the people are fooling around with the nailed door and window trenches, you can start to throw all the projectiles at them.

Also, near each upstairs window, put escape ladders or knotted rope for an emergency getaway.

Something you might want to think about is some very cheap fortification of your hard room walls. At least one room in your house should be a hard room. The walls are made from fiber reinforced concrete board instead of gypsum wall board. The wall cavities are filled with sand instead of insulation material. The concrete board is installed into hard wood or light steel framing for added strength.

This can be done for more than one room if you can afford it. You should have a firearm. It should be low in cost and have some knock down power. I suggest a 12 gauge shotgun if you have no shooting skills or training. Make sure to train with hearing protection. Get yourself some 8 ball buck shot. It is like firing 8 x 9mm pistol rounds at the same trigger pull. If someone breaches your fortification just keep firing your 12 gauge 8 shot buck into the breach. Pray of course.

Stock up over time, and hope you never need it.

Store dried foods (like rice and other basics) in food grade buckets.
Get water rations, made for a 5 year shelf life
Get ration bars (5 year shelf life and provide 3 days of nutrition)
The .22 does seem to always be the weapon of choice (here's why)
****** It's cheap (as is the ammo)
****** It's good for hunting small game
****** Still good enough for protection
****** You can carry a lot of .22 ammo easily
****** It's extremely reliable (especially the Ruger)
Don't forget some non-electronic lighting and entertainment (books, cards, games, etc.)

A lot of the other steps will depend on the nature of the SHTF scenario.
A lot of the prep would be no different than other, storm-proofing measures you might gradually do, such as protective film on the windows, having boards for the windows (here in FL, we have ready cut boards with pre-drilled holes and bolts for quickly putting up/taking down for storms), etc.
Having plenty of gas on hand is also a good idea, if you have to leave your fortress.

In my opinion the first thing that you need to buy is a Handgun for protection. Then i would worry about
1.Water 2.Food 3.Medical Supplies. In that order.

Also keep in mind that 99% of SHTF scenerios are not end of the world stuff where your going to have to fortify your house and hunker down with your family. In most situations your just going to need a wallet full of cash....and a pistol.

uhhhh... upon reading some i the posts i have to say... wow..barbed wire? moats and trenches? whew!. lol
first, when you decide you do wanna stay in your home:

do

put boards over the windows. don't try to make it a fortress, just a couple of boards. remember, anything can be a deterrent.

black out the windows with spraypaint. if you're downstairs with a candle or flashlight, passers by won't see the light.

make one vehicle look abandoned, knock out a window, let the air out of a tire. don't puncture it, just let the air out, you may need it later.

bury any valuables. this includes precious metals, jewelry, and any sentimental items you can't take with you.

trash your yard

grafitti a few walls downstairs

trash the downstairs area. you want it to look like it's already been looted, which will deter a would be violater.

keep all your stuff, bob or good either in the truck or very close to it.

don't

do too much physical damage to you're home. hopefully you'll be back. the walls can be painted over, the windows cleaned and trash picked up.

make it look like you have alot to protect. no barbed wire or trenches

draw attention to your house. again. no barbed wire or trenches. people will want to know what's inside that's so important that you'd wanna go through all that trouble.

let your guard down.

Maybe this is already posted;
If you have a clothes dryer vented outside. Make sure you plug
or board this hole up. Someone could gas you out of the house.
Maybe even get a good clear shot at you.

Have a hidden bail bag near the house but out of sight of the house.
if some one you can handle with out problems comes to try to break in you will not need it but if a group of looters show up and you have to run for it you will have something to survive on.
You also need a hidden area in your house, add a fake wall to a closet or under a stairway.
something with no visible door but a place to store survival supplies.

I have guns but i do not keep them all in my gun safe.
why because no gun safe is perfect it may take a while to get into but they will.
Plus if like in New Orleans after katrina the cops went around collecting guns and they find a gun safe they will make you open it and take any guns in it.
In a SHTF the cops may disarm every one if they can.

If something happens and i can not get to a gun i will just take a gun from a criminal i find with one.
and he will not be able to object.
If SHTF most criminals will be looking for three things booze. drugs and valuables.
When they find the booze or drugs they will party.then sleep it off. guess who will be waiting.
I might even help them by leaving a bottle of booze with sleeping pills mixed in it.
Or something like nitroglycerin heart medication. drink some booze with enough of that in it and they will not even be able to set up without passing out from low blood pressure.

reply to post by amazing


Oh dear the fortress concept is not very wise . Your attackers could just simply choose to starve you out like that you to happen in the days of castles and bow and arrows . Where there is nothing wrong with having a base of operation you need to secure it when you are not there . A flexible doctrine build around mobility is a smarter option by far sheez .

Cheers xpert11.

shotgunshell yard mines and booby traps.

dig your yard up and install a saturation sprinkler system. then place stainless steel chain link fence horizontally over saturation system, then cover with this sod or AstroTurf. then hook fence directly to power main or large AC generator with control switch.

the idea is that when you turn the sprinklers on, they saturate your lawn and while your lawn is soggy, any one sneaking acrossed it, will be fried to a crispy critter when you flip the main to the chainlink. almost like a giant bug zapper but better

air compressed human sized bear traps, that when tripped cut you off at the waist

funneling door traps with spike beds, wood chippers, flame throwers, acid baths, or starving hogs...lol

your best bet is to save your money and have a backup plan somewhere more secure than your house. preferably a sleeper cab buried under sandbags camouflaged with ivy or a burnt shop building or burnt barn on top of it.

my best idea was to build a nice underground in a new insured barn, where no one could see you building it. because it was inside the barn while you were excavating, then create the entrance under a tractor you left in the building, and then burn the building so all the sheet metal falls over the tractor and your hidden entrance

the insurance pays, the property remains as it did the day you burnt it, with everyone clueless whats hidden secured beneath, for your bug out survival hide

I understood you to mean that the S might not hit the F; but the thread reads like a total decimation of your home in order to prepare.

1. I'd buy some 3x5 sheets of plywood. Small enough that you won't have to cut them much. You CAN nail them over broken windows if the problem is weather related.

2. I'd buy a gas barbeque grill, and some spare propane bottles. We cook out all the time, and my bottle will cook several times a week for six months or so. This is the most convenient method of food prep. The kitchen will be useless once the utilities are cut off.

3. I'd buy some camping lanterns. They're safer than candles.

4. I'd buy hand-tools on the cheap from a pawn shop (not the "pawn stars" kind of place, either).
look for:
handsaws and hacksaws,
hand crank augers
bolt cutters
garden tools like shovel, hoe, rake, and hand scythe
idiot spoons (post-hole diggers) these are priority over all other tools.
axes, sledgehammers, wood-splitting wedges

5. An old coleman campstove, the kind that run on either propane OR gasoline (you have to pressurize the tank with a small hand pump). This goes in your bug-out gear.

6. Some containers you can cut-to-fit the rain gutters on your eaves. This will catch graywater you can use on the garden you'll be starting. Some spare small-bore hose would help with the watering chores.

7. Build a composter. This will be key as the days turn into weeks.

8. Stock up on coffee and liquor. I'll be using lots of both, once the chickens come home to roost economically.

9. Toilet paper. Not a lifetime supply, but enough to, um,....ease the transition to leafy greens.

10. A couple of "high lift" step jacks, like what would lift a 2 & 1/2 ton truck. You can use these to build presses, knock down walls, even break into buildings that have iron bars on their doors. Not that I'd know; just what people told me.

11. At least two come-alongs. If you don't know what a come along is, then you haven't farmed. Basically, it is the opposite of a jack, and forces things together instead of apart. Throw in some rope or chain in light to medium weight

12. Hurricane fence in a roll, along with some t posts, in whatever size you can afford. This can be used to fence your dogs, or chickens, pigs, goats, etc., once you start raising those things. Cut with the bolt-cutters, it can make your windows molotov-cocktail-proof. you can also use it to build a fishing weir if there is flowing water nearby.

Again, my response is flavored by not knowing which version of econo-hell I'd be faced with.