{"id":318098,"date":"2022-09-24T21:30:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-25T01:30:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/?p=318098"},"modified":"2022-09-24T00:58:28","modified_gmt":"2022-09-24T04:58:28","slug":"the-preppers-storage-dilemma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/2022\/09\/the-preppers-storage-dilemma\/","title":{"rendered":"The Prepper\u2019s Storage Dilemma"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Pat Cascio, Survival Blog<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Storage of your voluminous preps can be a real problem. We don\u2019t live in a large house, it is only about 1,600 Square Feet. It has two bedrooms, one is extremely small, and is used as my office. The home we used to live in, on the dry side of Oregon, was quite a bit bigger, it was originally an earth-sheltered house, with most of it underground. And, at some point, in the 1970s, there was another level added and it became a more traditional house. However, the below-ground portion of the house was totally useable. Half of the \u201cbasement\u201d was used for my office\/dojo<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 I also taught martial arts classes in the basement. The other half was our oldest daughter\u2019s bedroom, and a great storage room for our Preps. We miss having it!<\/p>\n

TRUTH LIVES on at\u00a0https:\/\/sgtreport.tv\/<\/a><\/p>\n

We live in a single-level house now, on our small homestead, and it is adequate for the most part. We have a small guest house next door on our property, and our oldest daughter lives in it, it only about 750-square feet \u2013 small, but she is single and not home all that often \u2013 she works all the time, but it suits her needs. We have a small outbuilding for storage, but it doesn\u2019t hold a lot \u2013 it is pretty much full top-to-bottom most of the time.<\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re not much for socializing. We\u2019ve been in this house for coming up on 17 years now, and very few people have been in our digs over the years. We just don\u2019t host parties or gatherings of any type. I\u2019m a very private person, always have been, and I sincerely cherish my privacy, no one needs to know my business \u2013 period!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We are almost full-time Preppers, to be honest. We\u2019ve been at it for a long, long,\u00a0 time. And, of course, living in a small house, doesn\u2019t give us a lot of room for all of our Preps. So, it is always a challenge to find places to put our purchases. If you walk into our living room, it looks like we are still unpacking. Nope, just\u00a0a lot<\/em>\u00a0of canned goods all over. One entire corner of the living room is covered with canned goods, in boxes, underneath an old sleeping bag, and other things. Another corner has cases of canned veggies and fruits, just sitting there. Under my wife\u2019s desk, are more canned goods, as well as some #10 cans of freeze-dried foods, and we even some bookshelves with freeze-dried foods, as well as canned goods hidden under a small bookcase, behind some old cassette tapes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So, storage space is limited, but we still manage to get everything put \u201csomeplace\u201d in our house. So, one means of storage is cardboard boxes. It seems to work. Our utility room, with the washer, dryer, and huge chest freezer, is a total mess \u2013 there is just enough room to walk into it, to the back door to let the dog out into the backyard. Just this morning, my wife managed to knock over a lot of canned goods as she exited the utility room \u2013 that\u2019s how crowded it is. We have Preps in cardboard boxes, as well as in some very large plastic bins.<\/p>\n

Anyone old enough to remember the movie,\u00a0The Graduate<\/em>\u00a0with Dustin Hoffman, will appreciate the scene, at a party, where a guest simply told Hoffman\u2019s character one word: \u201cPlastics\u201d. He was telling him to get into the plastics industry for the future. Well, it might have seemed like strange advice at the time, but it was a great tip. We have big plastic bins all over the utility room, as well as in my office. Truth be told, you would hit your head on \u201csomething\u201d in my office, if you fell down, before you\u2019d hit a wall, since\u00a0all<\/strong>\u00a0of the wall space is covered.<\/p>\n

I know many Preppers will agree with me now on the use of plastics. I remember when the first Glock came along \u2013 the Model 17, and the receiver was and is still made out of plastic. Everyone laughed and said the guns would never last, or blow up in your hand. It hasn\u2019t happened, and every major handgun maker, produces some handguns manufactured out of \u201cplastic\u201d these days. Many call it \u201cpolymer\u201d but whatever name is used, it is plastic of some sort. Personally, I only own a few handguns made with steel and Aluminum. I might be an old dog, but I learned some tricks along the way and plastic is the way to go.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When it comes to semiauto pistols, I have a rule, and that is I have no less than five spare magazines for each gun, in each caliber. Needless to say, you can\u2019t get all those spare magazines in the box the gun came in. So, I used to just toss all the extra magazines into a cardboard box. While it helps solve the storage problem, it was time-consuming to find the right magazines for the right gun. Easily solved problem! I have quite plastic boxes a few that are of shoebox size. In each of these plastic boxes, I have spare mags. Each is a clear plastic box, and each is labeled and most of the boxes, have at least one holster that fits the gun it is labeled for.<\/p>\n

I have plastic boxes for my two-way radios, as well as night vision and even batteries and some injectable meds that I keep on hand for when (not if) the SHTF. One corner of my office has more than 10 large plastic bins filled with Ramen Noodle soup packets. That represents a lot of meals. When things go south, we have enough noodle soup for several years, at one package per day, per person. We also have quite a few bins full of pasta, rice, and beans \u2013 a great way to store these types of things, and it keeps the mice at bay, too. Always a problem living in the boonies, lots of mice get into the house, no matter what you do \u2013 they always get in.<\/p>\n

I have more holsters than I need, and I used to store them in two great big drawers in our bedroom. But I ran out of room. So, I have holsters stored in plastic bins in my office \u2013 and it is still a problem \u2013 whatever holster I\u2019m looking for \u2013 it\u2019s always in the bottom of one of these bins. That is a fact of life!<\/p>\n

Our BOBs (Bug Out Bags) are in the closet in my office, as well as our A.L.I.C.E. gear. It is piled high on side of the closet, and on the other side, we have a lot of extra survival gear, including sleeping bags and sleeping pads. It is a chore to get that stuff out when we are adding more gear, but it is all in one spot. I also have several medic bags with our BOB bags, one is almost a complete ER in a bag, the second is a smaller Combat Medic bag. And presently I\u2019m working on completing one more aid bag.<\/p>\n

Under my workbench in my office \u2013 that I don\u2019t have room to \u201cwork\u201d on any longer, are ammo cans, and on one side of the workbench we have it plumb full of #10 cans of freeze-dried foods. We used to run practice bug-out exercises, and would be ready to leave within 20 minutes or so. But that isn\u2019t ever gonna happen again. It would take us an hour to load up all our ammo cans, and firearms into our travel trailer, an SUV and a pickup truck these days. And just moving ammo cans in order\u00a0to get to<\/em>\u00a0the #10 cans of freeze-dried foods would be a chore, just in itself.<\/p>\n

It would take some monster of an emergency to get us to bug out. So our plan is to stay put, if at all possible. I\u2019m 70 years old now, and my lovely wife is only a few years behind me. We figure we\u2019ll probably sit it out or fight it out \u2014 whatever may come our way \u2014 instead of running. We are too old to bug out on foot, that\u2019s for sure. And our oldest daughter is in her 40s. Our youngest daughter lives 200 miles away, so it is doubtful that she\u2019d be able to make it home to our digs.<\/p>\n

Read More @ SurvivalBlog.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Pat Cascio, Survival Blog: Storage of your voluminous preps can be a real problem. We don\u2019t live in a large house, it is only about 1,600 Square Feet. It has two bedrooms, one is extremely small, and is used as my office. The home we used to live in, on the dry side of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[138573],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318098"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318098\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sgtreport.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}