Home defense is something everyone should think of, and if you’re a prepper you have more reasons to plan for it than the average person does. In normal times there’s always a risk of criminals targeting your home because they want nice things, but are too lazy and stupid to work for them – but what’s it going to be like when the SHTF?
Imagine the scenario: A crisis has hit, but you were prepared for it and you’re doing OK. You have food and water. You’ve either adapted your home so you can get by without electricity, or you have your own power source. Things are difficult, but you have the resources to get you through.
The problem is, all around you people are struggling, starving and desperate. Now you’re not a target because some scumbag is too much of a parasite to buy his own laptop; you’re a target because most of the population see your stuff as the key to staying alive.
How you deal with desperate neighbors or refugees is a whole different issue, but whether you help them or not, what you can’t allow is for them to break into your property and take your supplies. You need to be able to defend your home and its contents. Here’s how I go about that.
Marking a Perimeter
A fence makes it clear that there’s a difference between inside and outside, and encourages uninvited guests to stay outside.
It’s possible to make a fence that will physically keep them outside, but security fences are expensive and ugly; unless you’re a multi-millionaire they’re not really an option.
An ordinary barbed wire fence can be climbed or cut, but it does mark the perimeter and can put off casual intruders.
Even if someone isn’t deterred they will be slowed down, and anything that delays an attack – even by a little – is worth doing.
Clearing Sightlines
It’s much harder for an intruder to get close if they don’t have anything to hide behind. I’ve cleared my property as much as possible, from the house right out to the perimeter fence.
Related: How to Harden Your Home Against Intruders
Almost every part of it is visible from the house. There’s one area where a dip in the ground creates a hiding place, and it looks even more tempting because the grass in there never gets cut.
What intruders can’t tell is that the reason that grass never gets cut is the dip is filled with a low wire entanglement.
These are simple to create; just bang a load of stakes into the ground in an irregular pattern, then string barbed wire between them. Vary the height of the wire from six to 18 inches off the ground, and don’t pull it tight enough that someone can stand on the strands.
That way you have a very nasty obstacle that just disappears into long grass.
Protect Entry Points
There are a lot of ways you can make your home harder for intruders to enter.
I didn’t want bars on the windows or anything else that’s too obvious, so I went with low, thorny bushes under all the ground floor windows. Kept trimmed to about two feet high, these don’t interfere with sightlines – but they’re wide and tall enough to make reaching the windows a real struggle.
On the other hand, there are no bushes around the front and back doors. In fact, there’s nothing an intruder could use for concealment.
I can easily check there’s nobody lurking near the doors, and I can do that from inside or outside the house.
Use Technology
One reason it’s so easy to check for intruders near the doors is that I have half a dozen cameras set up. Motion-sensing cameras with night vision capability aren’t expensive now, and in anything short of a full-scale crisis they can even send an alert to my phone if they pick up any movement.
Armed and Ready
I generally say that the best home defense weapon is a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, but that’s based on the assumption that I’ll be dealing with intruders inside my home. In a SHTF scenario you need to push your security bubble out a bit further, so a semi-automatic carbine comes into its own.
My personal favorite here is a DSA58 FN FAL with 16” barrel and folding stock; it’s a solid and reliable rifle, and its .308 round turns anything on or around my property from cover into concealment, but an AR15 will do just as well.
Of course, if anyone makes it through the front door the shotgun – a Remington 870 with eight-round mag and another 15 shells stowed in loops on the sling – is easily available. I don’t really bother with handguns for home defense. A handgun is just what you use until you can get to a proper weapon.
Have a Redoubt
If intruders have the firepower and numbers, you might not be able to keep them off your property – or even out of your home. If that happens you need a fallback position inside the house, a place where you and your family can make a last stand. In my case that’s an old stone shed at the back of the house.
The outside door was bricked up years ago, and from inside the house the only access to it is through the kitchen. With the kitchen door open you can shoot from the shed, all the way down the hall to the front door, so this redoubt commands most of the ground floor.
The shed itself has a decent store of food, water and ammunition, plus my everyday toolbox; even if I lose everything else, I won’t go hungry for a while.
Related: How to Get a Cheap Survival Shelter and Bug Out Location
Obviously what I’ve done suits my own property, but the basic principles can be adapted to almost anywhere. The main points are to establish a boundary, make sure you can see – and shoot – out to that boundary, and build in layers of defense that intruders have to penetrate one after the other.
You’ll never make yourself totally invulnerable to attack, but you don’t have to. The sort of attackers you’ll face when the SHTF aren’t fanatical soldiers prepared to take you down or die trying; they just want food, fuel and safety. If your home looks well defended, they’ll look for an easier target.
Did you ever hear the joke about the two tourists in Africa who saw a lion? One of them takes out his running shoes and starts putting them on. His friend says “What are you doing? You’ll never outrun a lion.” He replies, “I don’t have to outrun the lion. I just have to outrun you.”
Home defense is your running shoes.
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pretty decent article,
The Fal was always a interesting weapon and i would add some “alerting sounds traps to give you a heads up”
have your family take a small teams fighting course and learn how to fight as a fire team. You can really become a force mulitiplyer with that skill set.
The only thing I’m a little leery of is not using a pistol.
It’s alit easier to carry your pistol everywhere with you 24/7 than a shotgun. And will provide some protection untill you can reach for something stronger.
I’m still going to maintain that fences and other visible security measures draw attention, and the higher and tougher and newer they are the more interesting they are and the more curiosity and attention you’ll be the focus of. The only reason for protection is because there’s something to protect. Like… I would use tripwires and audible alarms, but not around *my* place because when they go off the people who tripped them know they are near some good stuff for the pillaging. Put that stuff far away from your own place.
We’re all pretty much aware of the gray man concept. Smart people are going to apply gray man principles to their dwellings too.
If it’s hidden, and not obvious or findable, they won’t be trying to get in it when you are asleep or not there, etc…. or otherwise bushwhack you.
One thing that we have locally is hawthorn. It’s a tough plant growing in to a tree with sharp thorns. It tends to branch out also, making the vicinity impassable.
Kind of like when Han Solo said “Just fly casual, but don’t look like you’re trying to fly casual…”
Have security, but don’t look like you have security.
Of course there’ll be some good and different thoughts and opinions on this, good to look at it from another’s perspective.
@WoodStock
You mentioned hawthorn; have you heard of Hardy Orange? They grow all over the US except the most arid parts, I think. They are AWESOME perimeter greenery (along with locust trees and male bodocks). The inch-long thorns are wicked – they puncture tires and are hard enough to use as toothpicks.
We’re in the process of planting these all along our property lines, mostly from seed & transplants from adults that are already in the interior. When the plants are mature our perimeter will keep livestock in and intruders out without any other fence.
You can read about hardy orange here: http://www.eattheweeds.com/hardy-orange/
The site is safe, and active. Deane is extremely knowledgeable, too. Good place to learn about foraging, too.
Mags: Trifoliate? they’re supposed to be banned in Arizona and a number of other states because they spread easily. That’s weird because most citrus here uses it as a rootstock. Everything likes the fruit, but it’s like a lemon. But, they bloom late and ripen early. Yuzu orange (related to) is also good and hardy. Kumquats are also very hardy, down to 15F. niio
Red,
We don’t have much trouble with the orange spreading. But we do keep the pastures mowed (mostly).
The roses are super invasive for us, and the blackberries. Both grow sooooo quickly here that it’s an ongoing fight to keep ‘em somewhat controlled. I’m afraid to put those on the property lines – my neighbors would be highly po’d!
Mags: Goats work and lambs are bringing going on 2 bucks a pound liveweight. niio
@Woodstock: I disagree. there are LOTS of home with fences now. For Privacy, and yes, for security. When TSHTF, those who choose to raid and ‘pillage’ won’t care about fences protecting preppers with “good stuff”, they will just go for all homes in general, and ones that are easier to get to and into, will be the first ones looted. Those that are harder to enter for WHATEVER reason will not be tried until all of the other easier ones have been taken. So, my nice fence that isn’t easy to get around/over, will help me keep what I have for longer.
what you do to prevent everyday variety burglaries and what you do for defenses immediately post-SHTF are two diverse topics – what you do to heighten your defenses as a SHTF deepens is a topic not even broached here …
I can tell the article author one thing for sure – unless you have the windows covered in some fashion – bushes under the windows aren’t doing damn for someone plugging the occupants close up or even at a distance – more cowardly backshooting ambushers around than warriors …
Warrior, well said, but for now, raise roses or yucca, prickly pear (every state in the lower 48 has a native variety). I live in a very low crime area because everyone is a shooter. Before the dingbats opened the borders in a Weimar Republic-like invasion of foreigners, even Tucson’s crime rate was dropping. niio
Gmrs radio with with headphones for privacy can be a big help. Inferred binoculars are cheap now can give U a big time heads up. A couple if pitbull can’t hurt either..Speaking with like minded neighbors to form a better perimeter partnership or defense is a must , safety in numbers. You can booby trap areas of you property easy and cost effective. Fire extinguisher a must also. If you live in densely populated area U probably won’t be able to bug out better to stay home.Or course food water and a BIBLE standard supplies.
What if the big SHTF scenario is something we didn’t prepare for? Then, we’ll be as desperate as our desperate neighbors. While we can, maybe we should be forming a little mutual reliance rather than planning ways to kill them?
the trouble with your hypothesis is: the unpreparedness extends to knowledge also – the sheeple won’t know what to expect with a particular SHTF >> won’t know to load up Grandpa’s Elmer Fudd double barrel – won’t know to expect looters & worse – won’t know the electric won’t last – the water & sewer goes with the electric and if that isn’t bad enough – Don Lemon is their reliable source of SHTF info ….
Good article. Still developing my plans which include a good deal of desert flora. Medium sized cactus, and mesquite bushes in all the right places
Nice article for those who are able to move to an area where one can purchase a lot big enough to develop as outlined. I submit a significant number of followers of this list are city or suburban dwellers who don’t have the room for an installation of tanglefoot.
I also submit a 4-strand barbed wire fence only keeps the honest folks out. It takes less than a minute to cut through such fencing. Not much of a deterrent to determined invaders.
As those unfortunate enough to live in an HOA development can attest to, many have restrictions even on what plants you can use in your landscaping. All well and good to say, “Humphf!! shouldn’t have bought in an HOA restricted development,” but we have to play the golf game of life from where ball lies, not where we wished it lay.
Where are the connected fighting holes around the property? An isolated bunker is impossible to defend against a dedicated attacker. Very few castles, the ultimate in defensive homes, survived an attack from a force determined to take it.
Constantinople is one example but it’s walls were extremely high and wide enough to allow passage of large groups of defenders. It, too, eventually fell.
I visited a number of castles in Japan. They were all surrounded by moats and very high stone walls. They were cleverly designed so that an attacking force had no direct path to the keep. Every single one of them fell at one time or another.
One very important feature: They all had a secret, hidden escape to allow the daimyo and his family to escape while his followers fought on to provide a distraction.
If you build a bunker with no hidden escape feature, it will become your tomb.
LCC as you know any obstacle that isn’t covered by fire is only an annoyance.
A fence gives the unwanted visitor a moment to reveal his-her-it’s intent. If someone gets plugged snipping a wire, maybe the rest might think a moment? We are dealing with humans, not the walking dead, I hope.
A Castle that falls to the persistent attacks of an Army willing to take casualties still did its job. It delayed and destroyed a lot of the enemy. The escaping daimyo still had to make his way to a friendly castle. Running away without a fallback position is the life of a refugee.
I wonder how many casualties a Mob will be willing to endure IF you’re targeting the Leadership. I find a parabolic microphone plugged into a set of shooters ears to protect my hearing useful in ID’ing odd noises and movement around my home. Even a Ghillie Suited Sniper breathes. A co-axial laser points out the target for resolution.
I’m a bit of an historian myself and found a lot of castles fell to either Bad Sanitation (Disease), Loss of Clean Water (Dehydration, Disease), lack of food stuffs (Common to drive peasants into the Castle to eat them out of house and home) or betrayal. That hidden exit route has been used more than once as the access route of a medieval “Special Forces Team” to get the Main Gate opened for the assault.
Direct assault is very hard on the morale of the Army as casualties pile up. I suspect that Mobs have less cohesion or loyalty to their Leadership than an army.
Nice job folks.. I guess the 2 worst things would be fire, or targeted by a quiet few. I guess when the time nears hopefully my lights and dog will raise me. If there is fire.. I’m likely screwed.. Im still reading about backups. I think we are ok until the Olympics are over.(ala Putin with Sochi).. Much of our can openers are cheaply made..imo everyone should have backups.
In 1836 the Parker family and a number of their friends settled along the Navasota River in Central Texas. At that time there were still a number of Indian Tribes living in the area, and the river was a principal route for the Comanche as they traveled to trade and raid. The Parkers built Fort Parker, a large enclosure with a 15 foot stockade that had firing ports, several cabins inside and larger fortified cabins on two corners. It was well designed and built, much too strong for the Indians to attack successfully. Sadly, the residents got to feeling comfortable with the tribes and one morning the men went off to work in the fields and left the gate open. Several hundred of the Indians walked in and looted and burned the cabins, and raped, murdered, or kidnapped all the women and children.
It’s hard to turn your home into a prison and then stay locked up. Shoot, even now we have to more or less fortify our homes, and there’s always a little uneasiness about what might happen while we’re away. I was reading on NextDoor some posts from a neighborhood about 20 miles from me, they’re having trouble with meth heads stealing property even during the day. The general sentiment is to Castle Doctrine a couple of them, but nobody has done it yet. Sometimes I think the decline might be slow and steady to the point we don’t even realize it when the stuff hits the fan. My butcher is asking 120.00 for a full brisket these days, maybe the economy already collapsed and I missed it?
@Judge Holden
Hey, Judge. Hope you’re keeping well. Winter has arrived for me today. Official temp right now is maybe 30F or so but with that brutal wind chill probably closer to 20F. Darn heck is it cold out there with the wind.
Even up here in the land of milk and honey last time I checked a full brisket was around at least 70/80 bucks. But I haven’t checked for a while. Wouldn’t know what to do with a full brisket. My little fridge freezer is full and I don’t have one of those big chest freezers. If I did manage to get a full brisket I would have to cut it into small pieces anyways and that would defeat the purpose of it.
The economy hasn’t QUITE collapsed yet. You would definitely know if it had. I’m slowly getting used to your dry sense of humour. Take care and stay safe. The young punks are trying to take over. Violence and crime is increasing the most in that demographic. One of the latest things I’ve come across is that there was an 11 year-old jacking a car. 11! People are becoming very desperate especially with the cold weather just around the corner. We may as well call 2022; 666.
A freezer will get you a solid bang for the buck if you bug in. Imo there will be anarchy on streets before houses. I rotate everything. When riots start we will be able to shift gears, organize, yet stay calm with great food. Although it would be wise to eat less. Hehe
A great article! as some said, yes, urban + suburbanites will have different environment to prep and survive. Different from those of us in rural ‘spreads’ but it can be done and will require ‘creative’ thinking.
Oh My! This article is published on December 6th st. Nikolaus Day! Better think twice or you’re gonna for sure be put on the Naughty List!
Nice article..Nice Comments.. More information for me to digest.. I was in a congested s florida and moved to mixed housing much north. Its not ideal. I have like minded neighbors and some not so. My back is against the woods. I may be more inclined to a diy safe room. I could possibly add a temporary outside cement shelter. Still reading. I like the idea of putting a perimeter line. I have cut trees, uneven ground and absolutely no lawn. I have one friend that shares my dead end road. I would be glad to hear feedback.
The photo, with this very good article, has a sign with “you loot, we shoot”. I wonder how many languages that sign needs to be in, along with descriptive sketches like the assembly instructions put out by Ikea.
We have so many various groups coming across our open borders. Some of the southern border signage is in English, Spanish and Chinese. In the more liberal part of town, people have signs in their yards welcoming “refugees” in English, Spanish and Arabic.
How about sand bag you home from the inside. Sand bag the door all the way to the top of your head, so they can’t kick it in. Use a sand bag box six foot high block the door, use a pallet on the bottom of the box, and use a pallet jack to move when you need to get in or out. Sand bag the walls and windows to the top of your head double thick. Sand bags are great to stop a variety of bullets that are common, and will harden your home enough to allow you to inflict severe casualties during a attack, and allow you time to respond. Have a shoot room, concertina on the walls, sand bagged corner for you to engage from. The assailants will have nowhere to go but the center of the room. It seems extreme, but we are talking about shtf no holds barred. Niceness has to be put away, and vigilance needs to take over or you won’t survive.
I may use this for safe room.Cool beans.
A few words, you have to sleep sometime. Bullets go both ways, and they only have to get lucky once. Molotov Cocktail. Fleeing a burning house to the tender mercies of your attackers seem, ah BAD.
NEVER Defend from your home. Defenses must be away from it and yet the home will still be damaged or destroyed.
I served in Bosnia during the civil war. Their homes that folks survived in were mostly concrete and stone with blown out windows filled in with salvaged bricks and such. Toilets were a hole in their walled back yard. Nasty with random shooters around.
That’s the thing that scares me the most, Michael. Molotov cocktails. I don’t know how to defend against that.
Armin: Use fire to fight fire. 1 really gross defense is the burning doggy bag. That was a paper bag with dog crap in it. L:eave it on someone’s porch, set it on fire and pound on their door, then run. who? Me do that? Perish the thought!
For a defense, gas resistant bags that can be sealed. Manure or your own feces, bury under flower beds and let them alone. I don’t know how long they do last, but heard about them. 1 ‘cocktail, the creep lights it, and sewer gas explodes around him.
the other night, the javelina warned someone off. I went to check the aquaponics unit out front–they had knocked off the lid trying to get a drink and knocked out the inlet. since then, they have a pan of water there. no more troubles. But, the other morning when I was taking care of potted plants (25 gallon pots, eggplants and chilis, mostly) I found part of the plastic window frame laying in one pot. Someone tried to break in but the pigs scared him off. Natural defenses are still the best, when you can’t use electric high tensile fencing 🙂 niio
Armin, this reply isn’t an article about this but a decent start.
First look to the structure of your home. Unless it’s brick or concrete it’s likely flammable. Vinyl siding is very flammable BTW. Even brick veneer does a decent job keeping the effects of burning gasoline at bay.
A bottle of flaming gasoline against a flammable house isn’t the end of the world per say BAD but not EOTW. More later under tactics.
A Bottle of flaming gasoline INSIDE the House (like through the window) is VERY BAD.
Unless your prepared to quickly cover that flaming gasoline with a bucket or two of sand you’re in real trouble. 3 5-gallon buckets of sand per room seems right.
Then look to the range a person can throw a beer bottle full of liquid (gasoline mix). Traditional Molotov Cocktails are wine bottles but beer sized still works well sorry to day.
Yep, assuming you’re of average health get some cheap beer in bottles and throw it against the house to see how far you can throw it and hit hard enough to break that bottle. No break no real Molotov effect.
Now knowing that, you can draw out a window sized target and try again. See how far you can throw and hit that window to get inside a home.
This establishes your RED Zone for defense planning.
Now that you know these facts you need two people and a something to draw up a range style card. You need to know where folks can walk up without being seen from inside. You will likely find out awaiting nasty visitors from inside your home a BAD IDEA.
Then with the observer-sketcher outside have the walker go out to the edge of the Red Zone and walk around. Observer makes notes anywhere the knees of the walker is hidden, that’s crawl up zones. Note anything that hides the walker. Both areas require special attention.
Repeat this operation to cover pistol-shotgun range 50 yards out Zone Yellow. (yes, some can shoot farther but most running shooters not so well). Repeat for 100 yards Green Zone and so on.
Yes, kibitzers plenty of paper punching range shooters can shoot far better but most folks being shot at trying to rush a home are not that great a shot. You have to start somewhere. Sniper defense is a different subject.
Molotov Tactics assume the young thug will be running up to deliver the package. Assume his “friends” will be shooting at you to keep your head down. Assume they WILL USE the hidden crawl routes and concealment you noted to get closer safer.
Your tactics, stop the Molotov Rush. Tripping hazards like 12-inch-high stakes and wire mesh patterns help. Make sure you have rude ways to punish folks using those crawl up areas. Clearing away concealment to make sneaking up harder. If you cannot clear then you must figure out rude ways to disrupt them hiding behind that cover.
Now Fire Fighting under fire is hard. That’s why I ALWAYS say Never Fight From your Porch. Establish Fighting positions AWAY from your home with those positions covering each other as well as covered from the home. I suggest you think about raised bed gardens set up to cover those noted crawl areas and concealments. If set up well you have a decent prone fighting set up. Typical potting soil is NOT Cover (as defined by stopping small arms fire) so YOU are going to make knee high or better raised beds and the bottom 12 inches or so are playground sand, then typical gardening soil. Foxholes and sandbag bunkers are nicer but in “Normal Times” folks get weird about them.
I also STRONGLY suggest you establish a Chaos Kit with pre-measured and cut welded wire covers for your windows with the screws and such to install them quickly when things go Weird. Doors are almost always weak parts in homes. Having a set of cattle panels, fasteners and at least fencing posts to establish an “Air Lock” style gate to your door is really nice. Hard to swing a battering ram or get a rush-kick on a door that way. Other items (too many to list here) include sheet plastic and such to replace broken windows (and a way to clean up broken glass without electricity, (no vacuum cleaner). We talked about firefighting outside the home. Assume you Don’t have working water pressure so have Several Large Fire Extinguishers rated for flaming gasoline.
Enough for now. Hope this helps.
unless your home sits on a concrete slab – you will be fighting from your basement or crawlspace level of your home >> the joist supports on the average home can’t begin to support sandbag weight – code is around 300lbs per square foot – and that’s just in case uber uber fat guy stands still in one spot tooooo long >> for example bathtubs need to especially supported to handle water filled plus occupant(s) weight ….
Armin, that’s a great point and I haven’t heard it raised in many years – so long ago that I’ve pretty much forgot the idea. Thanks for bringing it up.
Michael, great suggestions on how to defend against Molotov cocktails. Probably, at best, it’s a difficult and unsure outcome against them, especially multiple devices but your post gives a lot of things that seem worth trying. Thanks!
If someone gets hurt, even while trying to kill you and your family, from a booby trap you’re likely to be arrested and successfully sued. Booby traps are a great plan but, until the S really HTF, they should be no more than a plan. Collect the materials, even test the plans and dismantle them, but save booby traps for now.
In a SHTF scenario, your cameras won’t be sending pictures to your phone. But cameras are very handy during “peaceful protest” times and possibly even for monitoring your surroundings post-SHTF. Research and study surveillance system design – things like higher resolution at choke points and entries, wider resolution in other areas, every camera within the field of view of another camera. And buy high-quality. Hikvision or Dahua or better.
Number one defense measure, though, and not discussed at all, is dogs. Big or little ones, hardly matters, but dogs that are protective and are trained when and when not to bark. I hear geese are pretty good noise makers when there are intruders.
Just more thoughts on the dog idea. Don’t use your family dog for your noise maker; the likely way you get woke up at night may not be the dog barking; it may be the gunshot that kills the dog when the bad guys are trying to shut the dog up.
Since the dog does need training and training requires trust and a relationship, Dad has to man up to owning that dog and, potentially, living with it’s loss. I’m not an expert and this is just my thoughts but it might be better to minimize contact between the family and the guard dog; don’t let them get close. What do you all think?
Great stuff..I said recently on another post that fire and an organized few are far more threatening than a zombie attack. Will upgrade extiguishers.. great ideas for using metal wires. Also a great idea to take the fight away from the house, just have to be awake.. Keep up the good work.
Dogs can be a great asset. But remember, it is another mouth to feed.
John: Yes and no. Most small breeds and so-called privative breeds still have some hunting instinct. During SHTF look for bodies to pile up and hordes of rats to be all over. It was the same after every battle, and during times of famine. A good dog will feed himself and keep away most intruders, and small dogs are better than large ones.
We have a mountain xolo, a very ancient breed about 35Lbs. A lot of them run wild around the world. They have good instincts and are usually (if raised by people) not aggressive until an emergency. They’re not yappers so when they do bark, you better check to see why. Even when outside, when neighbors’ dogs are yammering at something, he stops, looks, and waits. If a person, he’ll bark. Not at a housecat or another dog. niio
two tourists in Africa who saw a lion. One of them takes out his running shoes and starts putting them on. His friend says “What are you doing? You’ll never outrun a lion.” He replies, “I don’t have to outrun the lion. I just have to outrun you.” Now, that’s a good one, and a good take on shtf.
Better make that hedge something thorny. In most of the country and Canada, Rugosa roses make a thick hedge, and nothing tries to break through them. They produce a lot of petals, which combined with lard make a good bruise ointment, and large hips. From the sea shore to high, dry mountains, they work. For wet tropics, something else can be used.
Good call on the wild roses. Planted about 4 feet apart, they’ll create a hedge 6-foot high and 6-foot deep – at least the ones I have. There’s no going through them. Consider running a wire over the top of them when they’re small. Run the wire at about 3 feet high. There are lots of ways to use the wire to trigger an alarm on motion.
Concrete Bin Blocks and Jersey Barriers, used, are fairly inexpensive. Yes, they are UGLY. Place a few near the front wall of your home. Dress them up. Lattice, or stucco, ivy. Plant around them. You get the idea. They’ll provide a degree of cover for those inside, and, of course, reduce the chance a vehicle will ram your house. You can also dress up sandbags, or Gabions, this way.
Big Tee: We use an Arizona form of hugelkultur gardening. Instead of going up, we dig down to remove caliche. Beds are 2-3 feet wide, 3+ deep, and the soil so soft you do not walk on it without sinking in. Beds near the road are planted with fruit trees like jujube, dates, and some citrus, all very thorny. Under windows are things like desert hackberry, lots of thorns and good eating. A cactus fence is coming up around the back, but i wish I could find manzanita to plant. The wood is so hard it dulls steel. This is old-time natural defenses. The less obvious, the better. niio
Ocotillo is another Arizona plant that has been used as a fence for many years.
Hal: It was favored as laths, too, before colonists brought in block. Raw adobe is easy to cut with wet rawhide, but Indians made lath and plastered over layers of them. Try to dig thru and you’d run into stout, needle thorns. niio
My heart skipped a beat when I read DSA 58 FN FAL. Is it weird that some guns make me flutter? The words H&K, CZ, FN all make me feel like I want to dance. I actually have an emotional attachment to some of my firearms. Yup, it is weird.
I just took a bunch of money that we were saving to repair the car (friends and family seem to always be willing to drop us at the public bus stop) and I hired an electrician. He is going to install 6 new motion sensor lights around the house WITH battery backup. Our camera system is all POE with battery backup. I do not believe in cloud storage so instead I store to an external hard drive and I back up to a redundant system. The backup system is in a cold cellar. We let the woods grow into that area so it is very difficult to see that a structure is hidden in the earth. I Faradayed (a term that is popular in our group (I hope Michael Faraday does not mind)), the cold cellar. I tested it by closing the door and I had my husband call my cell phone. My cell phone did not ring. I opened the door and I had my husband call again. The phone rang. I have a few more tests to do. Our ex best friend (he still likes us, but his wife won’t let him hang out with us anymore) gets a lot of wire mesh in his work. He used to give us scraps and that is how we Faradayed the cold cellar.
Now, I just changed my whole attitude about defending the home. I like it. Now we have to plan and train. New plan… Defend our HQ from OUTSIDE the perimeter. It may just keep the house safe (thank you for thinking of it).
Thank you Jack! And red, and Judge, and LCC, and CC, and Sage, and Armin (I still want to chat with you about crossbows), and Michael, and… oh wait, I could go on all day. Thank you all for the comments. I appreciate all of you so much. I wish I could send my favorite commentors some peach preserves (I may have over canned this season).
Great job.. When you faradayed what was the diameter of the mesh?
I don’t know the diameters (there are a bunch of different sizes), but the largest hole size looks slightly larger than a normal window screen. The material is thinner than a window screen though. It is actually kind of pretty. If I were the arts and crafts type, I could probably find artsy uses for the mesh. But now that our friend is banned from hanging with us crazy, prepper types, I don’t know if we will get anymore scraps. The husband and I miss our friend. The friend and I have known each other since we were 11.
Hi again.. Silent but deadly gets new meaning with crossbows..haha I have one with.a very good name and a scope.. Please remember to do maintenance on them. Also I recommend to get the tool that can pull the string back for you.. They are online. Getting extra arrows is a good idea as you should practice using this armament. Never know if you would ever get a Burt Reynolds moment but knocking off 1 or 2 intruders silently would be optimal.
Thanks Skip. Do you like peach preserves?
Yes Tee.. I like all peaches..hehe I like your words on your high end guns also.. I think I got all ranges covered.. I am working on things every week.. But I am painfully lacking in security.. This week especially worries me as there was an incident. To make matters worse I am not currently home… I wish I had your neighbor…
My last post did not show.. So I hope I am not duplicating.. I saw on another post that a microwave with the cord cut off and disabled is best model for a faraday for short bursts. I remember a documentary on Faraday with electricity and/or long bursts. With huge open areas.. Hence my asking the size of the mesh.
Im new at prepping… but I had done alot of similar things up north. Ive been planting this week. Thank you
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During this essay writing activity, the student is forced to understand the topic as well as conduct thorough research before starting to, which makes him read intensively about the topic, thus enhancing his or her reading skills, knowledge as well as research skills, that in fact turns out to be very important during post academic life