Looting is often a direct result of a widespread disaster or other SHTF situations.
This is especially true of areas that have been evacuated because the unattended homes are ripe targets for the more criminally minded of society.
Unfortunately, there is not a lot you can do to prevent looting when you are not in your home, but if you plan to bug-in, you need to be ready to deal with the potential of widespread looting in your area.
Hide Valuables And Supplies
The best way to prevent something from being stolen is to ensure a thief never finds it. There are countless ways to hide your valuables, and you can DIY many of these options if you have some basic carpentry or construction skills. The type of storage you use will ultimately depend on the size of the items you need to conceal.
Smaller things like coins, cash, or jewelry can be hidden in false drawer bottoms, behind pictures, in false compartments in furniture, or hollowed-out books.
Larger items such as weapons, survival gear, or food and water stores can be concealed inside walls, under floorboards, or in hidden rooms.
Related: 5 Survival Tools And Gear You Should Avoid When SHTF
Creating hidden rooms is as easy as building a wall with a secret entrance in a crawlspace or basement. Even inside rooms within your house, you can make a false wall behind which you can store whatever valuables you want to protect.
Don’t Disclose The Extent Of Your Preps
I have said in many previous articles that exercising good operational security (OPSEC) is vital to all preppers. Too often, people brag about what they have, which means that other people become aware of how good a target their home will be.
Ideally, no one should know you’re a prepper, but this is often difficult to pull off. Close friends and family will undoubtedly become aware of your prepping tendencies and some of the gear and supplies you are stocking up on.
Even though some people will know you are a prepper and have food, water, and other supplies, no one should know your stockpiles’ true extent.
Also, don’t brag about big purchases of high-end items online, and limit the number of photos and videos you post. If you decide to post anything revealing inside your home, ensure they do not reveal anything that may interest future looters.
Set Traps And Alarms
Installing cameras around your home is a great way to monitor what is happening on your property, but you shouldn’t stop there. It is not difficult to figure out where the blind spots in the coverage of surveillance cameras are, so you should definitely have the ability to know when someone is moving through these areas.
Setting out alarms triggered by trip wires, pressure sensors, or even motion sensors will allow you to clandestinely monitor all the areas around your home and be alerted to looters before they get close.
Discover here how to build automatic backyard traps and alarms against looters and intruders, in order to protect yourself and your family from looters and dangerous intruders.
However, it is important to remember that setting traps for intruders is often illegal in many areas, and doing so can open you up to possible criminal charges.
Secure The Perimeter Of Your Home
To secure your home’s envelope, install the highest quality doors and locks you can afford and upgrade the door frame and hinges at the same time.
Security film can be installed on windows to make them resistant to breaking. You can also add security bars or shutters on your windows, making breaking through difficult.
You may not want bars and shutter on your home outside an SHTF situation, but they can be purchased to be installed when needed.
Even if you have the best door fame and locks, you should have a way to barricade each entrance door to your home.
Installing a heavy bar or piece of timber across each door is a good option as long as the brackets are secured with the heaviest and strongest hardware directly into the studs around the door frame.
The weak point for entry into your home is the garage door. You cannot do much to prevent someone from taking it down by backing a vehicle into it or smashing it with a sledgehammer or axe.
Your best defense is to secure the doorway from the garage to the house rather than the main garage door.
⇒ This “Quick Fix” Is More Effective In Keeping Out Looters Than A Solid Steel Door
Form a Neighborhood Prepper Group
Joining forces with like-minded families in your neighborhood is a great way to get many sets of eyes on your home and mutual support if your home becomes surrounded by a mob of looters.
They can also provide a place to escape if you become overrun and are forced to evacuate.
It is important to remember that these need to be families with the same prepping mindset and ones in whom you can place a significant amount of trust.
Be Ready To Fight
Long before you are faced with an armed mob looking to loot your home, you should have already identified all the positions you will fight from and have a plan to defend these positions.
In addition, there are ways to provide ballistic protection, such as sandbags, metal plates, or ballistic panels, and you need to have some form of protection from small arms fire at each fighting position.
Likely, you will not have enough people in your home to cover all the windows and doors. In this case, you’ll need to have a plan for barricading these points, so they do not have to be manned by a person.
Along with being ready to fight people, you must also be prepared to fight fires. One tactic that a group of looters may use is to set fire to your home to force you to evacuate.
To combat this, you need to have enough fire extinguishers to outfit each room in your home. If someone throws a Molotov cocktail through a window, you must be able to extinguish the resulting fire as rapidly as possible.
If a group of looters really want to get into your home, they will eventually succeed. You can only make the task so difficult that most will abandon the effort in favor of weaker targets.
Fortunately, many of the preparations you would undertake to secure your home against looters will also aid in securing your home against the common criminals that may try to break in before SHTF.
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You are talking about the ATF and other .g.o.v. agencies.
They are the only ones that I know that would loot your home, for their own gain.
Watch out for anyone that is coming to help you…
stay sharp
O’ the DOJ just bought over 7 million rounds of ammo, and we paid for it. lol
France is not our allies anymore; they are going with china. Just as the rest of our allies…
when shtf happens, those that do not prep or refuse to prep, will come looking for supplies. these people could very well be your next door neighbor, co-worker or even your best friend. if they are hungry and thirsty, they will do whatever it takes to take care of themselves.
Actually we have no trade agreement with France, we have a great trade agreement with China. (All of your clothes and belongings are made in China) The issues with China are created propaganda from the right.
Stop watching Fox news.
Have you gotten your check from Biden ( i mean China) yet?
Lisa Blake, even the Mass Media is acknowledging the problems with China, you can’t still blame it on Fox any longer. Or have you completely missed the reports on ABC about China and Russia agreeing to cooperate on any number of things that are inherently NOT USA friendly? Or Egypt agreeing to build and send 40,000 rockets to Russia?
Lisa , try getting your news reports from a VARIETY of sources, please. I for one hope for ALL Americans to stay alive and free. Even the less informed ones, such as my own son seems to be becoming. And he didn’t start out that way, it’s only since he married a gal who’s parents are vehemently liberals.
We WON’T be free if our country becomes more like China and Russia and even Canada.
What an asinine and ill informed, biased, and libtarded thing to say.
Stop watching PMSNBC, you hysterical mangina.
Wow tough times when you worship pagan idola
be prepared to do the unthinkable
arson is an almost 100% part of looting – especially when the “looting” is just a small tangent of racial inspired rioting >>> they’ll go loot a half dozen brand new boxed wide screens – they don’t need your old junk ….
better have a whole well-thought-out and functional “fire fighting/prevention plan” – not only necessary for a rioting/looting SHTF but other SHTFs as well ….
if you can do nothing else about your windows – remove the flammables from a Zippo attack – remove any window dressings – stack upholstered furniture farther into the room – have your fire fighting gear mustered for a flaming bottle hitting the room ….
fire extinguishers only go so far – should be reserved for selectively fighting a liquid fuel fed fire where water is a No! No! ….
a part of your fire fighting plan should be having garden hose bibs plumbed into your home interior – if lucky you have a water heater drain bib and possibly the faucet on a utility sink >>> having dedicated hose bib(s) into the main water supply lines for hose hookups could prove vital ….
another aspect of fire fighting that transcends both a forest fire and a riot inspired arson attack – watering down the roof and keeping it wet – crucial if neighboring homes are throwing embers and if there’s purposeful attacks on home roofs ….
stockpile as much water as possible – fill the tubs, sinks, buckets, garbage cans – soak towels, small rugs and linen for fire smothering work ….
Illini Warrior: Most(perhaps not all) washing machines are hooked up with the same hose connections as common garden hoses, and every gas fired hot water heater I ever installed has a drain spigot at the bottom to drain the tank. I only imagine electric ones are likely to too. (???)
If you have water pressure in the system, you will at least have a reasonable flow from a hose on either of these two fixtures.
If the water company loses it’s ability to pump the system, you’d have to come up with your own, solution, perhaps a small motorized pump. Assuming you have power or can steal it from another source like automotive or your own generator or something.
If the water pump station fails there maybe a backup a backup of waste water. Possible sewer backup as a pressure vacuum loss may reverse water flows.
Any plumber have suggestions of what may happen when the water pump station fails?
want to get the no grid survival project book with vido and 3 other books free but when going to pay it only shows the first 2 . How do you know your going to get the other 3
Whoops, thought this was about how to loiter-proof my home, figured it was about locking up the snacks and password-protecting the internet router.
First of all, what makes anyone think they have something everyone else wants. They will loot the stores and malls first and there are a lot of them. If something happens, most will die anyway.
Well let’s see if there is anything that someone else would want, that someone has.
Guns
ammo
food
water
clothes
shoes
socks
antibiotics
silver
gold
night vision
body armor
and anything that they may see that you might have.
This is just a small sample of what someone may have that someone else would want.
Lisa Blake are you a lib.???? You seem to be, the way you post.
I hope that everyone here knows NOT to trust you…
You must be a Bud Light fan…
Lisa Blake is just the latest troll.The only difference is that she
(if she is a she) doesn’t use profanity.
Michael what happened to the Raven Crew anyway?
Our garage door is probaby the most secure door in our home. It has hurricane reinforcements. We had to have the spring replaced last year and the tech said we had way more then he’s ever seen. Problem is we have a triple sliding glass door in the back (12 ft opening). I don’t think we can do anything about that. No basements in FL either. Oh well …
Look into a roll down hurricane shutter for that sliding door in the back. If you are in Fha,they should be easy to find. My mom’s condo had roll down shutters for the balconies on the 21st floor with electric motors. Everyone in the building who had them kept them rolled down whenever they left for the summer and some were closed whenever they left overnight. I am looking into installing them on my new house here in Texas and I am not anywhere near a hurricane zone. I just want them for security.
Same here. Our garage is probably the most secure area of our place. Otherwise windows, windows, windows. On the upside, we have cameras and alarms. Rioters coming down the street, we’d probably spot them at a distance. Our house is actually made of bricks, so that helps.
Change the 12 ft. glass door and close in the area and put in one steel door and reinforce it! You will lose some of your view but just might stay safe! Everyone take care the Lord is still in control! We may not know why things happen the way they do but, His ways are not our ways! Read the Word daily! Stay informed that way too!!
If someone wants your stuff, they’ll get your stuff. Even if you have an underground bunker, if they know it’s there, they will find a way to get it if they really want it. “Security is for keeping honest people honest.” Someone in the military police told me that.
Spray paint plywood with “You Lott – We Shoot” and place them on the streets. Wait and see….
It don’t matter what we have to protect, most of the stuff we have is made in China.
The best thing is to prepare to a bug out bag when the time comes.
The big bad metal front door will provide a small amount of time for us to decide to stay , fight or flight to unknown safety.
My personal opinion of the liberal news media is negative, nevertheless I find it crucial to occasionally listen to them as to understand what they are up to. I disagree with Lisa Blake and likely will not go with her line of thinking, but I will listen to what she has to say in order to strengthen my resolve to stay safe. Driving people away that we disagree with makes us weaker, in my opinion.
I don’t agree with all the remarks about Lisa’s comment. Pay attention people, China and Russia aren’t our problem, it’s our government! The real threats are from within. I don’t watch tv, don’t care what media lies are published. Should be obvious to all what America has done (that is the elite). Divided we all lose. Stay strong and pray.