Saturday, June 11, 2011
Small Spaces
4:08 PM | 
Posted by
Aunt Juicebox |
Part of the reason I wanted to start this blog is that I live in the city, and I live in an apartment. Well, technically, it's a condo, and we own it, but it's apartment "style", so I have neighbors who live above me. I feel that this is a challenge that many people face, who would like to become more prepared for the downfall of civilization as we know it (or just want to stock up in case of financial struggles). Space is at a premium here, and I'm sure it is for some of you as well. I think it's a bit of a misconception that in order to be "prepared" you have to have some compound in the woods with tons of acreage. It will be much harder to live in an apartment if the shit really hits the fan someday, but I don't think it's impossible, at least not in the short term. You can always assess your situation, and try relocating if necessary.
There are so many components to survival, and it ranges all the way from just losing your job, to a pandemic where food actually becomes unattainable. I'm going to break it down into every aspect that I can, as I go along, and hopefully you will try to educate yourself more on any area you feel applies to your own situation. Mostly I am going to be operating from the viewpoint of someone who is a city dweller.
The biggest hurdle I have faced, living in a two bedroom condo, is storage space. We have 3 people living here, 2 cats and a dog. The closets are small to say the least, and I've been attempting to store things there first, but am running out of room. I've been trying to purge things that we don't need as I need the room, but there's only so much I can do. My next step is going to be dependent on how "hard core" I want to go with this. Do I want to maintain some semblance of a nice looking "home" or do I want to look like a survival depot?
While I felt I could possibly store plenty of food (I currently have about 4 months worth stocked up, maybe more depending on how tightly we ration it), but I've been having trouble with water storage ideas. I've got several cases of bottled water, that I rotate by using it over time, but what I really want is one of these. Or some similar large capacity water storage. I like this one because it would be easier to handle/move/rotate. I just had nowhere to put it, until today.
For the past 7-8 years we've had a small chest freezer in the kitchen. We've barely used it in all this time, and I've seen it more as an inconvenience than anything else lately. I unplugged it 3 months ago and let it sit there, to see if we missed having it to use. We didn't. Now, this is an issue where some people may disagree with me. A freezer like this can help you to stockpile meat. This would certainly be useful for those people who are only stockpiling food in case of a short term need. I see it more as a liability for long term use, or in a disaster situation. If the power fails, which it did here several years ago, after that big windstorm from Hurricane Ike, then having frozen food that goes bad is a waste of resources. We lost most of what was in our freezer and in the refrigerator as well because the power was out for almost 5 whole days. Once I shifted from just thinking about the short term, to trying to prepare for the long term, I decided the freezer was less important than being able to store more water. I'm also planning to add some shelves in the dining area of the kitchen as well.
It had limited use anyway. Once the food in it was gone, if we're talking about SHTF scenarios, there will be no way to fill it back up, or to keep the food in it frozen if the power goes out. If you have more room, then by all means, take advantage of using a freezer to stockpile food.
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