Estimated reading time: 9 minutes
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: one of the biggest threats during any type of disaster is people who are unprepared. At first, they’ll stay in their homes and wait for the government to send help.
But after several days, when they start running out of food and realize no one is going to save them, you’ll have to be very careful. Even the friendly guy next door could become a dangerous killer if he or his children are about the starve to death.
Even if it’s not a disaster that empties the grocery stores, you’ll still need to watch out for opportunistic criminals. Just look at Venezuela. As the economy has deteriorated, the kidnapping and murder rates have skyrocketed.
When the next recession (or depression) begins, it will be very bad considering we’re already overdue for one and considering the average person never fully recovered from the last recession. This means crime will skyrocket all over the world.
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So unless you happen to be the Duke of a large estate with a fortified castle, you’ll have to put some effort into securing your home from invaders. An SHTF scenario will drastically widen the gap between the Haves and the Have-Nots, and if people suspect you’re one of the Haves, you’ll need multiple security measures to deter and repel them.
Prepare for the worst while you still can with these 11 home security tips that could save your life after the SHTF.
1. Find a Safe Place to Live
When looking for a place to live, use sites like CrimeReports.com to find parts of the city with the lowest crime rates. Chances are, they’ll be safer during a disaster, too.
However, be careful about moving to places that are too isolated. According to Fernando Aguirre, a survivor of the hyperinflationary collapse of Argentina’s economy, isolation often works in favour of the attackers.
It makes sense to flee the city during a worst-case scenario, but during a long-term disaster like a depression, you’re actually safer in places where your neighbors are close enough to hear you calling for help.
You should also look for a place that is difficult to break into. Avoid houses with large windows and sliding glass doors. In my opinion, glass doors may as well be open doors. They’re just too easy to get through.
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If all you can afford is an apartment, remember that second and third-floor apartments are much less likely to be broken into as criminals usually want to be able to make a quick getaway in case there’s trouble.
2. Upgrade Your Fence
It needs to go all the way around your property and be at least seven feet high. Criminals might still find a way past it, but the point of most of these security measures is deterrence, and a fence is a fantastic deterrent. If you can keep dangerous people off your property altogether, you won’t even have to put your other home security measures to the test.
So if you don’t have a fence, build one. And if you do have one, upgrade it. A simple privacy fence can be reinforced quite a bit: wooden posts can be changed to steel posts, wooden slats can be covered with corrugated tin, and of course barbed wire or razor wire can be installed on top.
In addition, the height of your fence can be increased and the gates can be strengthened (although if you live in within city limits, check your regulations for fence height).
3. Get Motion Detector Lights
This should be a no-brainer. Criminals don’t like to be seen, and if a bright light hits them they’ll usually flee like cockroaches. Since power outages are likely during any disaster, make sure you install the kind that runs on batteries or, better yet, solar power. They’re very affordable nowadays, and you could also use them indoors in lieu of flashlights.
4. Landscape Defensively
Use shrubs and trees to your advantage when planning your landscape. Thorny bushes such as blackberry bushes are a great thing to plant in front of windows (and you get the added bonus of delicious berries).
You have to strike a balance, however: bushes and shrubs can also offer concealment to would-be invaders, so make sure your landscaping still offers 360-degree visibility.
As for your fence, plant a thorny vine such as smilax rotundifolia (also known as catbriar or greenbriar). It will quickly grow up your fence and cling to it, covering it with green leaves and, most importantly, sharp thorns.
5. Reinforce Your Doors
You’d be surprised how often criminals go straight to the front door when breaking into a home. Most doors are surprisingly easy to kick in, as I explained in this post, so reinforcing your doors should be a top priority.
Consider these four options for optimally reinforced doors:
- Metal Frames – Installing a metal doorframe is the best, most secure measure you can take for reinforcing your doors. A bad guy can easily kick in a door that is set into a wooden frame, no matter how strong and intricate its lock system. Metal frames are much harder to break through.
- Steel Doors – In addition to having metal frames, upgrade your wooden door to a steel door for extra strength. Another perk to having steel doors is that they are resistant to fire. Even if you decide to keep a strong wooden door, make sure it is solid and without any decorative windows—you’re surviving, not winning House of the Year.
- Steel Conduit – To take the metal frame concept even further, you can install a small length of steel conduit running a few inches into your doorframe. This way, your deadbolt will be anchored into not only a metal frame but an entrenched metal sheath as well.
- Security Deadbolt – The best reinforcements in the world won’t stop a lock from being picked, but a Dead Bolt Secure ensures the knob on a deadbolt can’t be turned from the outside, even if someone has a copy of your key.
- Additional Reinforcements – If metal frames, steal conduits, metal doors, and secure deadbolts are a little beyond your means, you can still reinforce your doors with doorstops, extra deadbolts, or even boards mounted to the walls (if your door opens inward).
6. Strengthen Your Windows
A bad guy’s other main point of entry into your home is typically through a window. Strengthen your windows using any or all of these methods:
- Security Bars – The first and most obvious way to secure your windows is to fit bars over them, either on the inside or the outside. This prevents bad guys from entering, jailhouse style.
- Plexiglas – If bars aren’t your thing, you can strengthen the window itself by using Plexiglas instead of regular glass. Plexiglas will deter all be the most resourceful home invaders, as it takes much more abuse to shatter it.
- Dowel Rods – Windows, like doors, are still a weakness if they can be unlocked. While you can secure your windows with deadbolts and the like, a cheap, efficient additional security measure can be found in the form of a dowel rod. Simply place one in the gap where your window slides to ensure it can’t be opened enough for someone to get in. This is also a great solution for sliding glass doors.
7. Get an Alarm
A very loud one. And as with your motion detector lights, make sure it will work without power. Unfortunately, the backup battery in most home security systems will only last for a few hours once the power goes out.
However, there are other options such as battery-powered door stop alarms, window alarms, and motion sensors. They won’t automatically call the police or anything, but they’ll at least let you know that someone has broken into your home.
8. Build a Safe Room
A safe room is a secure room in your home that you can retreat to in case of a home invasion. The idea is to stay there until the intruders leave.
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In an SHTF scenario, most people looking to unlawfully enter your property want your stuff, not you. If you can’t keep them out of your home, at least escape the encounter with your life by getting yourself and your family into the safe room.
It doesn’t have to be elaborate like in the movies or built to withstand a nuclear blast; it can simply be a small, undetectable space with a few days’ worth of supplies.
Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper wrote an excellent guide on how to build a safe room in your house or apartment, which you can read here.
9. Get a Decoy Safe
This is a clever idea that I heard and implemented several years ago.
In my bedroom closet is a small, cheap safe filled with fake jewelry, a small amount of cash, and some important-looking documents. It’s very easy to spot, and that’s intentional. My hope is that if an intruder is searching my place for valuables, they’ll spot the safe, think they hit the jackpot, then take it and leave.
My real safe is much heavier and much more difficult to find.
10. Enlist Canine Help
Man’s best friend is also one of your home’s best defenses. With superb hearing and scent detection, defensive dogs such as German Shepherds, Rottweilers, and several other breeds will alert you if someone is trying to break in. And odds are, once the would-be burglar hears the large, barking dog inside, he’ll move on to a different house.
Again, you have to strike a balance in your security needs: an untrained, large dog can be a detriment to your survival in some scenarios. Make sure you train your dog to stay silent on command and to always listen to your cues.
11. Get a Gun
And finally, in case an intruder manages to get past all of your defenses, your final defense is a good firearm such as a Mossberg Shotgun or even an AR-15. There are some alternatives to guns worth considering, but honestly, if you really want to survive a home invasion, you need to get a good gun and learn how to use it. A baseball bat isn’t going to stop a violent intruder, much less a gang of intruders.
Check out this list of guns for home defense.
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I never thought of them setting my house on fire. Good one
Before SHTF; do not blatantly advertise that you own expensive stuff.
1) Garages were designed to store a parked car( ESPECIALLY A NEW OR “FLASHY” ONE).
2) Cut up AMAZON boxes. Place them in black trash bags before you set them out for your weekly trash pick up.
3) unless you’re using it; keep your gas grill parked inside your garage.
4) Try not to wear clothes that are blatantly EXPENSIVE looking. The same goes for jewelry. a watch was designed to tell tou the time of day. Who gives a !@##$$% whether it cost you $25 or $1000 to buy it?
5) if you own firearms; do not tell anyone that you own them. Do not blatantly advertise that you own them( A BROWNING sticker on your car’s window. Or a visible gun rack in a truck.
I HATE sliding glass doors. They’re the worst. You can secure them all you want, but the glass itself is an irredeemable weak point. The only exception is with impact glass, which will buy time, but is still vulnerable to a determined crook.
I have cheap solar path lights in a few outside areas. Since a few neighbors also have them they don’t stand out. My new chicken/ duck house and pens will have solar motion sensor lights set for 4 legged intruders. They can be turned off if needs be. Inside the rabbit house is another solar motion sensor light. Solar panel outside. Wire through the wall and all I do is wave my arm and light appears. 🙂
On my home I have path lights stuck in plants near windows. My husband at 80 has little night vision and has dimensia. Those give enough light to get around with comfortably and save the power in the batteries for our off grid power needs.
I have several motion sensors along the driveway and other fence areas. They are small and easy to conceil. Each make a a ring sound on its receiver. Since the receivers are in different places I know which sensor is ringing. Cost was around $10 at Harbor Freight. I have rechargeable batteries and a solar charger. That keeps the motion sectors working as well as many small bright LED flashlights. A solar phone charger keeps phones, a lantern and a very bright flashlight all charged. It could even keep my laptop powered up for occasional use as they all use a USB connection. I’m thinking a trickle charger for my old golf cart or vehicles might be a good investment as well.
We live partly off grid at present. The well and friends mobile home are on commercial power. Our little mobile home is off grid. I’m wanting to go solar for the well here by this home but currently we’re using water from the well with a pump.
I agree with Miss Kitty, although I like your article. We have made security upgrades that isn’t a neon sign saying hey, we have stuff to steal. We added a metal strip the length of the door with 6″ screws that go into the stud that our dead bolt goes into so it is MUCH harder to be kicked in. We upgraded our drawer safe with one that bolts into the concrete floor in the basement. Motion lights all around the house and other stuff like that.
Hope your lights are like mine and can be turned of if necessary for security.
If you’ve got your place all decked out with flood lights and fenced like Alcatraz you might as well get a neon sign saying ” I’m rich, come rob me.” As a man pointed out on another blog sometimes it’s better not to draw attention with obvious security. He witnessed a brutal attack in his neighborhood where a homeowner did just that, but was stupid enough to barbecue some lamb in his backyard thinking his stuff made him safe. The author and his sister barely escaped. Their host did not. It’s better to appear just as needy as your neighbors and to strengthen from within in secret. And be armed and ready.
My solar motion sensor lights have timers and on and off switches. I’ve seen some out of my price range with remote controls. That is what I’d like to have.
My fences are strands of barbed wire in some stretches and old chain link for others. A lot of old wood posts about the same as the neighbors. But along a dirt side road I’ve been planting cactus inside the fence. Another stretch is but barbed wire and the land is clear where my neighbor brushhogs it for visability between the two properties. Along the side that borders a community irrigation ditch it is just simple barbed wire but with no trespassing signs, a few traps that I’m removing because my friends living here are now raising young grandchildren and I don’t want them hurt. Ill figure out something else for the two or three obvious place that entry can be made. The front that is along a paved road is again barbed wire. Someone filled part of the wire fence with old sticks. It actually makes it almost impossible to crawl under or over it and gives a measure of privacy without hindering my. View. The last part of the fence along the paved road between the corner and the gate is being planted in cactus and wildflowers. Fruit trees, a grape arbor and a natural looking thicket of wild plums shield the home somewhat along the driveway without looking too fancy. The end toward the road is still pretty easy to see but plantings will help yet leave visability for me.
I have what are intended to be driveway motion sensors in 5 different places. All ring the same warning in the home but I have them placed in the home so I can tell which is which. A different area corresponds to a different area on the fenceline. The on on the driveway gate area is turned off till about dark.
I have rechargeable batteries and spares. A solar battery charges keeps them ready as needed. It also keeps flashlights going and the solar phone chargers with USB ports keeps phones, a lantern, flashlight and a laptop going.
Other than getting things installed for the planned 12v well set up were doing ok mostly off grid now. Thinking about what else I’m able to do for security while still not looking too different than the neighbors.
The dowel rod in the track of the sliding glass door is not really helpful. It might even make things easier for the burgler. The dowel should go in the space above the door to prevent the door from being lifted out of the track and set to the side. Also some steel pins can be mounted at the top and bottom of the door in the track to prevent the door from moving. An extra hole drilled a couple inches over allows the door to be pinned open about 3 inches for fresh air without anyone being able to get through it. They sell the locking pins at the hardware stores. If your sliding glass doors or windows are not secured in this way please do it now. Anyone can lift a door out of the track.
Have to agree about a sliding door. Intruder to my home lifted it out of the track. Lucky for me I’d heard them talking under my bedroom window and had 3 weapons loaded and waiting when the first one started in. I stupidly shot over his head with the 22 , racked the 12 ga and invited them “come on in boys”. They ran like crazy. I later felt like a 22 between the eyes of a target moving quiet and slow would have been better. Many not, but it would have felt satisfying in the moment.
By the way he didn’t get away unhurt. I hadn’t cleaned up from some remodeling I was doing on that end of the place and in about 1 second I heard a blood curdling screen. Followed by the impassioned plea, ” pull this ——- board off my foot.” After daylight I walked out there and found a 1′ scrap of 2×4 with three bloody 16 penny nails sticking up from it.
No one bothered to return my calls to the sheriffs office. That was before we had 911 out here.
After a true SHTF situation I’d be just as alone and on my own unless I called or signaled a neighbor I needed help.
Makes me think about what it’s and how too.
NOT saying scum don’t deserve the worst coming to them however, with things the way they are today, everything you did was right on track to arrest and convictions.
You should consider yourself luck this time.
Start off with lot’s guns and ammo. While you’re hiding in your “safe place” they might set your house on fire. I have 3 yapping little dogs and it won’t be long before they find my safe place. I’d just rather take a few of them with me.