Bambo is a very good idea. It looks like something that just happened to grow there but it requires a lot of effort to penetrate.
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SHTF Barrier
- Thread starter Laufen
- Start date
Most effective deterrent is forcing people to march on foot. Properly fallen trees will even stop a tank. There's info on how online for those interested. A chainsaw, bowsaw, AXE. You CAN stop people from coming into your area in large numbers, it's easy. Humans are lazy.
I'm bumping this nearly 4 year old thread.
Lately, I've been considering the choice between bugging-out and hunkering down to stay in place.
If I'm staying here, I want to turn my home into a fortress. Yeah, it might make people think I've got "more stuff to steal" than my neighbors. Or, it could meant that I've got the same amount of stuff, and am just more determined not to let it become some looter's or robbing crew's stuff.
Some ideas to consider for a lot of homeowners (not all of these would be viable or useful for all homes, though).
As mentioned already in this thread:
(1) Fence around the property, including a gate for the driveway. If criminals come to rob my house, I want them to have to make noise and take some extra time to get over or through my perimeter. That gives me early warning. If I'm not home, it gives my neighbors some early warning. If I've got an alarm system and it's armed, the robo-call to 911 or the text to my phone and my neighbor's phone (we have a mutual defense pact) goes out that much sooner.
(2) Identify what you would use for a real barrier to block the driveway. Fell a tree across it? Sure, you're blocking yourself in. But maybe it's worth it, to block the others out?
As others have said, if bad guys are going to come to attack my home, I want them to have to hoof it and separate themselves from their support vehicle where they have more supplies, power tools, ladders, etc. If they're going to steal my stuff, I want them to have to carry it all the way to the public road, not load their getaway car right next to my front porch.
Other ideas:
(3) Alarm system that doesn't just rely on ADT or Rollins or Ackerman or whatever service. I'm thinking of an alarm that alerts everybody in the area, with a flashing light that can be seen for hundreds of yards. A big problem with alarms these days is that it's difficult for good guys to identify where that sound is coming from.
(4) Making upper story windows into defensive positions. If the S.H. the F., what would it take to turn a few of my upper story windows into defensive (hard cover) fighting postions? What would I want to stack around and under the windows to stop incoming bullets? Wood? Logs? Bricks? Cement blocks? Sandbags? Steel plate? These are things to consider ahead of time, even if you don't install those things in times of relative peace and prosperity. But if things go bad, I want to be able to turn my windows into firing ports to drop bad guys that may be in my yard, or assaulting my neighbor's home.
(5) Seal-off or reinforce lower floor windows. Board them over? Install burglar bars? I'd do something to the windows on the ground floor of my home. Ditto for a sliding glass door. Maybe treat it with 3M security film (a heavy duty, flexible and tear-resistant barrier)? Add a new barrier screen behind it made out of remesh (strong steel screen that is buried in the wet concrete of driveways and garage floors)? Put up a cargo net, so that anybody who smashes the glass and tries to rush through the door frame has to deal with this net, and while those of us who live here can unlatch the net and get past it in 2 seconds, a stranger will have to take much longer to figure it out or pull a knife and cut his way through (all while being very vulnerable to my gunfire).
(6) Reinforce the locks on your doors, and the doors themselves. Replace the 1.5" short screws with 3.5" long deck screws. Your door frame is attached to your house wall studs with skinny strip nails, shot from a nail gun? Add some 3" screws to back up the nails, too. Add a deadbolt to your lock set. Wrap steel anti-splinter shields or "wraps" around your door around the lock sets, to help hold the door together where is is extra thin from being hollowed-out for the lock hardware.
(7) Get medieval about door reinforcement. Add an anti-kick bar that runs from the door (about waist-high) down to the floor. Or get a crossbar, with a steel or heavy wood bar going across the entire door and frame, engaging in slots that are bolted (lag bolts, 5" x .25" or thicker) to the wall's studs. Yeah, that would make your home look like a castle. It could be a fashion faux pas. Maybe that will cost you your chance of having your home pictured in Better Homes & Gardens. But it will be effective at keeping out intruders, or slowing them down long enough for you to put lead into them.
(8) Safe room. If the bad guys DO get in your home, and you're in there but can't fight them off, how about you retreat to a small room which itself has a hardened and reinforced door, and maybe extra-strong walls too? Don't make this one of the bedrooms-- a group of thieves will insist on getting into all the main rooms of the home as part of looting it. But they may skip the bathroom or a walk-in closet if they think it's only you hiding in there, not you and all your valuable stuff. The one entrance to this room would be the "funnel" for your defensive fire, if they break in anyway. It would be great if you had hard cover to put in front of you in that room, so when the bad guys come in, you can keep stacking corpses at the door even as some of them manage to get some shots off in your direction.
(9) Remotely-activated gas (Pepper spray, CS, CN, whatever you like) inside your home, but not in the safe room, and you activate it from the safe room, and you have gas masks you can put on.
The idea here is to give the bad guys an incentive to leave your home quickly after they manage to force their way in. Yeah, you'll have to decontaminate your home later. It'll be ugly and messy. Up to you if it's "worth it" or not. If not, don't push the button. Don't trigger the chemical irritant spray.
Lately, I've been considering the choice between bugging-out and hunkering down to stay in place.
If I'm staying here, I want to turn my home into a fortress. Yeah, it might make people think I've got "more stuff to steal" than my neighbors. Or, it could meant that I've got the same amount of stuff, and am just more determined not to let it become some looter's or robbing crew's stuff.
Some ideas to consider for a lot of homeowners (not all of these would be viable or useful for all homes, though).
As mentioned already in this thread:
(1) Fence around the property, including a gate for the driveway. If criminals come to rob my house, I want them to have to make noise and take some extra time to get over or through my perimeter. That gives me early warning. If I'm not home, it gives my neighbors some early warning. If I've got an alarm system and it's armed, the robo-call to 911 or the text to my phone and my neighbor's phone (we have a mutual defense pact) goes out that much sooner.
(2) Identify what you would use for a real barrier to block the driveway. Fell a tree across it? Sure, you're blocking yourself in. But maybe it's worth it, to block the others out?
As others have said, if bad guys are going to come to attack my home, I want them to have to hoof it and separate themselves from their support vehicle where they have more supplies, power tools, ladders, etc. If they're going to steal my stuff, I want them to have to carry it all the way to the public road, not load their getaway car right next to my front porch.
Other ideas:
(3) Alarm system that doesn't just rely on ADT or Rollins or Ackerman or whatever service. I'm thinking of an alarm that alerts everybody in the area, with a flashing light that can be seen for hundreds of yards. A big problem with alarms these days is that it's difficult for good guys to identify where that sound is coming from.
(4) Making upper story windows into defensive positions. If the S.H. the F., what would it take to turn a few of my upper story windows into defensive (hard cover) fighting postions? What would I want to stack around and under the windows to stop incoming bullets? Wood? Logs? Bricks? Cement blocks? Sandbags? Steel plate? These are things to consider ahead of time, even if you don't install those things in times of relative peace and prosperity. But if things go bad, I want to be able to turn my windows into firing ports to drop bad guys that may be in my yard, or assaulting my neighbor's home.
(5) Seal-off or reinforce lower floor windows. Board them over? Install burglar bars? I'd do something to the windows on the ground floor of my home. Ditto for a sliding glass door. Maybe treat it with 3M security film (a heavy duty, flexible and tear-resistant barrier)? Add a new barrier screen behind it made out of remesh (strong steel screen that is buried in the wet concrete of driveways and garage floors)? Put up a cargo net, so that anybody who smashes the glass and tries to rush through the door frame has to deal with this net, and while those of us who live here can unlatch the net and get past it in 2 seconds, a stranger will have to take much longer to figure it out or pull a knife and cut his way through (all while being very vulnerable to my gunfire).
(6) Reinforce the locks on your doors, and the doors themselves. Replace the 1.5" short screws with 3.5" long deck screws. Your door frame is attached to your house wall studs with skinny strip nails, shot from a nail gun? Add some 3" screws to back up the nails, too. Add a deadbolt to your lock set. Wrap steel anti-splinter shields or "wraps" around your door around the lock sets, to help hold the door together where is is extra thin from being hollowed-out for the lock hardware.
(7) Get medieval about door reinforcement. Add an anti-kick bar that runs from the door (about waist-high) down to the floor. Or get a crossbar, with a steel or heavy wood bar going across the entire door and frame, engaging in slots that are bolted (lag bolts, 5" x .25" or thicker) to the wall's studs. Yeah, that would make your home look like a castle. It could be a fashion faux pas. Maybe that will cost you your chance of having your home pictured in Better Homes & Gardens. But it will be effective at keeping out intruders, or slowing them down long enough for you to put lead into them.
(8) Safe room. If the bad guys DO get in your home, and you're in there but can't fight them off, how about you retreat to a small room which itself has a hardened and reinforced door, and maybe extra-strong walls too? Don't make this one of the bedrooms-- a group of thieves will insist on getting into all the main rooms of the home as part of looting it. But they may skip the bathroom or a walk-in closet if they think it's only you hiding in there, not you and all your valuable stuff. The one entrance to this room would be the "funnel" for your defensive fire, if they break in anyway. It would be great if you had hard cover to put in front of you in that room, so when the bad guys come in, you can keep stacking corpses at the door even as some of them manage to get some shots off in your direction.
(9) Remotely-activated gas (Pepper spray, CS, CN, whatever you like) inside your home, but not in the safe room, and you activate it from the safe room, and you have gas masks you can put on.
The idea here is to give the bad guys an incentive to leave your home quickly after they manage to force their way in. Yeah, you'll have to decontaminate your home later. It'll be ugly and messy. Up to you if it's "worth it" or not. If not, don't push the button. Don't trigger the chemical irritant spray.
You forgot to add brier bushes/poison ivy to the outside perimeter of the fence you install. Having to fight your way through a natural growth area with thorns is a big deterrent against lazy thief's, plus you'll notice an area they are cutting through if they are taking their time. This way you'll mostly have to focus on the routes that aren't guarded by nature.
Bamboo is also a great way to install an impenetrable barrier around your house. Easy to tell if someone starts to hack away at it to make an entrance.
Bamboo is also a great way to install an impenetrable barrier around your house. Easy to tell if someone starts to hack away at it to make an entrance.
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blackberry bushes. sweet sweet defense
lol I just saw this was a thread Laufen started and that dates it before I clicked on it. There has been so much resurrection I thought this was somehow that guy selling CBD oil.
More of a way to attract people to your fence when they are bearing fruit. Better off planting fruit tree's on the inside perimeter where people can't see it.
Just get a 12 gauge.
