Outdoor Life Prepare for Anything Survival Manual (28 page)

Keeping your residence in working order means more than just doing the dishes and vacuuming the carpet. Your home is a shelter from the elements and an environment meant to keep you healthy by managing heat, atmosphere, water, and waste. If you take care of your home, it’ll take care of you in return.

Whether you need to unclog a sink, replace a U-bend, or fix a leaky pipe, here’s a short list of tools to help you become your own in-home plumber. (Mustache and overalls not included.)

• Crescent wrench, monkey wrench, and/or pipe wrench

• Basin wrench

• Channel-lock pliers

• Propane torch

• Hacksaw and/or pipe cutter

• Metal file and plumber’s tape

• Plunger

• Plumber snake, or drain auger

• PVC cement

• Drain cleaner, lye, or baking soda and vinegar

With your household properly stocked and maintained, you can potentially keep yourself, your family, and your home safe for years to come. But what about sanitation? Don’t waste your valuable pantry and storage space on any chemical cleansers—they’re really not that necessary. Here’s a list of some far simpler substances that can do just as thorough a job if used properly. As a bonus, they’re free of potentially toxic chemicals.

BAKING SODA
This old standby does more than just help around the kitchen. It’s a mild abrasive, which means you can use it to polish pans, metal, and ceramic fixtures. It’s a known odor-fighter, and it can also help soak up spills like ink and oil. Plus, when mixed with vinegar (see below) it can clear drain clogs.

WHITE VINEGAR
Aside from pickling foods, the mild acid in vinegar is a proven remover of stains, a de-tarnishing agent, weed killer, fabric softener, and mildew remover, among many other uses.

LEMON JUICE
Another good stain remover like vinegar, the acid in lemon juice can also be used to brighten metals, and clean glass and toilets. It’s also an insect repellant, a useful remedy for sore throats, and a treatment for the itch caused by plants like poison ivy.

OLIVE OIL
Not just tasty on pasta, it’s a useful polish for wood and a rust guard for steel. Olive oil can also help remove tar stains from clothing, lubricate squeaky hinges, and condition leather.

When it comes to panic and safe rooms, you just need to focus on making an interior room of your house safer and more secure. It doesn’t have to be high-tech and ugly. In fact, there’s no reason to change the purpose of a bedroom or home office. All you need to do is make it safer, so start with the outside of your whole home and then move inward. A home security system with a loud alarm is a start. After that, consider these construction tips before you go crazy with the surveillance system.

GET THE RIGHT DOOR
Most interior doors are hollow core with an emphasis on noise reduction and privacy. Get a solid exterior door instead. You’ll still have the functionality of an interior door, but it will be tougher. Many exterior doors also are steel, for greater security.

REINFORCE THE FRAME
A strong door is pointless with a weak frame. Make sure the frame around the door is equally sturdy. Today, most frames are sold with the doors, so ask how much force the frame is rated for. It should be sturdy enough to withstand a grown man repeatedly throwing himself against it.

LOCK IT DOWN
Just as you lock your exterior door with multiple locks, including deadbolts, do the same with your interior door. Also consider a drop-bar lock for even more security, and add more locks at the top and bottom of the door and frame to make it even harder to leverage against a single point.

REPLACE THE WINDOWS
It may seem like a pain, but it will be necessary to swap out entire windows, frame and all, with security windows—not just the panes. Cover the windows with heavy curtains, too. Even with the lights on, the right curtains will prevent an intruder from seeing exactly where you are inside your safe room.

Once your room is fortified, make sure you have the necessities just in case you have to barricade yourself inside. Depending on the circumstances, you should prepare for hunkering down for a few minutes or a few days. As with everything else in this book, err on the side of overpreparing. Assuming you’ve fortified an existing room of the house, consider these steps:

MAKE IT A SAFE ROOM
Add an actual safe; in this case, the room can double as your gun room. A solid safe can be bolted to the floor. If the rule of thumb is self-defense, then be sure that, no matter what the circumstances are, you’ll be able to arm yourself. Store guns, ammunition, and cleaning supplies here, and include some basic tools.

DON’T FORGET WATER
You can survive for quite a long time without food. But it’s easy to find yourself dehydrated in a short time. The safe room also might be used during natural disasters, so plan as if you were preparing for an earthquake or hurricane. Have enough water stored away to last you three days.

CALL FOR HELP
The most important tool is a phone. No help is ever going to come if you don’t have a means of contacting the outside world. Hollywood does a great job of scaring us with mastermind criminals cutting phone lines and disabling security systems. But chances are, you won’t have to worry about it in reality. Just in case, keep a cell phone and charger inside the safe room. As soon as you are inside, call emergency services and stay on the line.

REMEMBER THE NECESSITIES
If you or a love one needs prescription medicines, be sure you have them stashed. And speaking of the medicine chest, ideally you’ve reinforced a master bedroom with bath as your safe spot. If not, make sure you also include a method for waste collection (see item 274), because you’re going to need a bathroom of some sort.

One of the best things you can do to make your safe room even safer is to install a video monitoring system. They can be expensive, but can you really put a premium on your life?

If you are serious about reinforcing a room, then go the extra mile to allow yourself to monitor the situation fully. Once you’re inside, you need to know what’s going on outside. If you’re being robbed, you can explain to police who is doing what. The level of detail you’ll be able to relay in real time will be much appreciated by the authorities, who will know exactly what to expect.

For a really reasonable sum in most areas, you can purchase a four-camera, split-screen monitor system that can patch directly into your safe-room television or computer. You can also consider going with a security firm for installation. Remember, they make most of their money not on the equipment they sell you, but from services like contacting authorities on your behalf.

You can contract them just to purchase your equipment and install it, and handle contacting the authorities on your own. If you’re the type to travel often, however, there’s nothing wrong with having a security firm watch out for your home.