Keeping safe your supplies at home

[PreppingPingu]

Something that has been brought into sharp focus recently for me personally is keeping secure my food supplies at home.

I have a family member who has a severe eating disorder for years and various associated mental health issues. I keep my kitchen cupboards well stocked to bursting point. Some of it due to prepping some some because I used to enjoy making lots of cakes and desserts etc. ( I don't now, but I still like to keep a variety of ingredients just in case .) Now due to her eating disorder, even a large bag of demera sugar will be consumed over a month's period, spare boxes of cereal is a no go as they get devoured. I also get through an inordinate amount of toilet cleaner and air fresheners.

Because I have now had to start hiding my food surplus securely ( as under my bed, in wardrobes no longer works,) it got me thinking about how we would ration, control our supplies in the event of any full on food shortages. Keeping safe from rodents too needs to be considered. My shed is a no no due to rats etc.

I have a lot of my food surplus now hidden in my locked garage which is separate from my house. I am fortune in that we have a spare gun cabinet in the house that I can put some stuff in as it isn't holding guns atm. I would like really to get a sturdy metal box that I can secure. I have a small lockable box that my spare meds and medical stash are kept in, as we need to keep meds hidden due to the current mental health of my daughter but that got me thinking about security of meds too.

What are your ideas re food and med distribution to family living/regularly visiting with you during any crisis? You never know when someone might be driven to taking more that they should, even those you know well. Mental health issues can effect anyone and particularly so during a crisis.

Note this is NOT a thread about home defense!

[Yorkshire Andy]

Under the kick boards then secure with screws?

Look on local selling sites.. lockable filing cabinets/ van vaults/ tool cupboards...

images(88).jpg (10.87 KiB) Viewed 5362 times

For the shed galvanized dust bins and lid should stop Roland and Kevin getting at food

[Arzosah]

That's really important, and potentially devastating. Initial thoughts in bulletpoints:
- communication. Does everyone understand how serious the crisis is? Are they *able* to understand it, or do they panic/ go into denial/ verbally attack you?
- keeping all food, medical (and hygiene supplies, in your case?) supplies locked up - maybe gather all the lockable containers into a single room in the house, put a padlock on the room? Two padlocks, actually - so nobody can go in there alone. The house is more crowded because of that, but everyone's alive.
- keeping the meds locked away. I remember that - if you need to do that, and a family member might work at getting round your precautions, do you have enough expertise or antidote to treat them? If the external crisis is a pandemic, or a flood, for instance, you might not be *able* to get out of the house to get help, even in an emergency. Research and training is going to help here, I hope.
- writing things down. Not only writing down your inventory, but rules, writing down that no one goes into the storage room alone, what you do with "excess food" (though there probably won't be any in a crisis), what the allowance is per day, what meals are planned. Anything and everything.
- consequences for breaking the rules? That's going to be very specific to the group, and really depends on the level of mental health problems that's being faced. I'm reminded of the blog Captain Awkward - a lot of commenters face various degrees of problems, and the vibe there, amongst themselves, is "being neuro-atypical doesn't mean you're an asshole"! Consequences could be anything from saying "I'm disappointed with you", to "you stay in your room to do your knitting, and don't join in the hour a day family time", to "you're the one that cleans the house this week". Don't know. Age appropriate, crisis appropriate.
- maybe the people who are most likely to misuse supplies could volunteer some distraction methods that help them? Then everyone can pitch in, and help them help themselves. Are there any supplies that could remain accessible to them that would help them keep their mental balance? Might be worth having a separate stock, if there are.
- thinking of your locked garage, how visible are you and your supplies when you access it? I mean, by people outside your group? Because that *could* be a security issue.
- keeping secret the amount of supplies you actually have. This might be appropriate, or not, I think there's for and against.

Have I gone completely off on one, or is this the kind of thing you were thinking of?

[PreppingPingu]

Yes Arzosah, exactly what I was thinking about! I thought it worth sharing as it wasn't really something I'd given much thought to till recently. It got me thinking about the broader implications of rationing and securing food stocks. And thanks, Andy, lockable tool boxes is a good idea.

[Deeps]

I don't have to keep stuff under lock and key but I'm very aware that anyone going into my garage will see a lot of my food so I've been keeping an eye out for second hand lockers/cupboards to stash it instead of being on shelves. Its more for discretion than actual security though. As its just me and Her Maj, the only thing that I would have to keep under lock and key would be chocolate/sweets. She doesn't have any in her car bag for a good reason.

[Arwen Thebard]

Our food stocks are spread around [shed, workshop, outside pantry, behind kitchen kick-boards, attic and "other" places] on the basis that our main risk is probably be from someone breaking in. The more places the less we might loose in one go. Same theory applies to our meds but we include the car boot space. Ditto for aMmO / fIrEaRmS and essential docs, hiding them in numerous places helps spread the risk. The attic is probably the hardest and most inconvenient to access, can be easily protected with a clasp and padlock, but might draw extra attention from a determined person.

What about the diversion tack-tick of leaving out some cheaper items to be more easily found? Could that be an option in your case for certain food items? Not an ideal solution I know but the lesser of two evils perhaps?

I do know someone who keeps "things" under their sofa. She had to cut away the underneath fabric but there was a surprising amount of space. She does have to tip the sofa to get at things but in her studio flat it works well.

Distribution and sharing is a very tricky one. One young couple [family members] are included to share our food stocks with us, but they contribute as we go along, by helping out rather than financially. We keep the bulk storage as they have planned to come to us if SHTF, however other members of our family have not been invited to join the party. We have all practiced living and working on 1250 to 1500 cal per day, not as easy as it sounds, being hungry makes people act very differently.

[grenfell]

I keep a fair amount of food , packets and tins , in washed out 10 and 15 L plastic paint and tile adhesive tubs . It was done primarily to keep it secretish as well as easy to move and keep tidy . Not that we have an awful lot of people who may say something about shelves and shelves of food but it removes the chance. I work in maintainence so a stock of paint doesn't seem out of place and I'm also known as someone who throws very little away . Now as long as those zombies arre only after brains and not magnolia emulsion...

[Deeps]

I keep a fair amount of food , packets and tins , in washed out 10 and 15 L plastic paint and tile adhesive tubs . It was done primarily to keep it secretish as well as easy to move and keep tidy . Not that we have an awful lot of people who may say something about shelves and shelves of food but it removes the chance. I work in maintainence so a stock of paint doesn't seem out of place and I'm also known as someone who throws very little away . Now as long as those zombies arre only after brains and not magnolia emulsion...

I like that idea for packets of stuff, not sure I could fit all my tins in pots of paint though.

Those zombies will have to prise the tins of magnolia from my cold dead hands.

[grenfell]

Biggest problem with tins is the wasted space but packet food fits in nicely. Couple of other things with plastic tubs is that firstly they only have a limited life if they are in the sun , they go brittle , but that shouldn't really be a problem with tubs stored in a garage and secondly they aren't 100% rodent proof. I brought a bulk lot of rat poison and put it in the greenhouse in a 10 L tub . Mouse chewed it's way in and eat itself to death .

[Yorkshire Andy]

Biggest problem with tins is the wasted space but packet food fits in nicely. Couple of other things with plastic tubs is that firstly they only have a limited life if they are in the sun , they go brittle , but that shouldn't really be a problem with tubs stored in a garage and secondly they aren't 100% rodent proof. I brought a bulk lot of rat poison and put it in the greenhouse in a 10 L tub . Mouse chewed it's way in and eat itself to death .

We had that at work hungry rat ate it's way in to a 5kg bucket of jaguar bait and died in there ....

Be aware bulk of rat poison need a license to buy now!

Few traps give a good indicator of issues