Anyone getting stocked up on food etc just in case?

HAMISH_MCTAVISH

dopester wrote: »

So from responses here.. it seems properly sealed metal containers are about the only way to store food without risk of mice intrusion.. . I'm giving up on having an emergency food stash (except for a few tins kept in the kitchen) if it means worrying about attracting mice or even rats.

That is more or less correct.

Metal tins are the best way to go, although it is possible to store rice/beans/flour in large heavy plastic containers on mouse proofed shelving racks. Plastic sheeting is useless, cardboard packaging attracts the things. Freeze dried food can be stored safely in metal trunks or cabinets, old metal file cabinets work well and are cheap to buy 2nd hand. You can store a 6 month supply of MRE's in a single full size upright file cabinet, and it's lockable.

(To mouse proof shelving racks: Attach the sticky surface type mouse traps to the legs of the shelving racks, works a treat)

And although I haven't read the whole thread, in case nobody mentioned it, alcohol is a very useful item to have around in large quantities for use as a preservative, disinfectant, painkiller, and trading item.

But the one thing I would properly stock up on if TSHTF would be salt. Invaluable for preserving meat and fish, and highly tradeable as a result. You'd need huge quantities though if you wanted to survive for years. Think tonnes not kilos.

And no, I don't have any sympathy with the Asherons of the world.

But we did spend many years living overseas, sometimes in areas subject to strife and disorder, and often a very long way from civilisation. Tended to keep a month or two's food supply as a result, and still keep a few weeks canned food on rotation in the kitchen out of habit, and because the weather up here can suck badly enough to make going shopping annoying for a week or two at a time.

Spartacus_Mills

Have none of you read, or seen, Noah's Castle.

His stash did not do him much good.

MrEnglish

Im looking into rain water storgage. The main thing is keeping it away from sunlight. You can get a huge container to bury and have all your drainpipes run into it through some good filters.
Then have a hand pump up to the loft another tank and a gravity feed to the taps and rest of the house.

You would have to boil or at least filter before drinking, but its worth doing that with mains water these days especially in London.



Also I was reading in MoneyWeek the other day about the changes coming in with sola panels.
Moneyweek said the government will allow the first grand a year tax free of what you sell back to the grid.

Be great to have enough sola panels to provide for your own house and a grand a year tax free back to the grid.

dopester

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Have none of you read, or seen, Noah's Castle.

His stash did not do him much good.

I've just read a quick review into the main theme of it.

Snip:

England is descending into economic disaster. The rate of inflation is changing hourly. Prices are skyrocketing, there are riots and people are literally starving to death. But for Norman Mortimer and his family things are not so terrible. For Norman is a man with foresight. When he predicted what was about to happen to the nation, he started planning. He buys a house well hidden from the street and other houses. Then he starts to gather stores to see the family through the current troubles.

Unfortunately, soon the government makes hoarding illegal. The family begins to be under stress, and as they see friends suffering and without, they struggle with what their father has done and is doing.

http://www.bookreviewsandmore.ca/2010/02/noah-castle-john-rowe-townsend.html

fc123

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Have none of you read, or seen, Noah's Castle.

His stash did not do him much good.

I am going to deff read that..thanks for the suggestion.

One of the funniest books (also sad and poignant) I have ever read was 'Going under'' about a middle aged man who buried himself underground to protest at losing his job.

I have a copy of 'Join me' on the shelf by Danny Wallace which looks funny and still haven't got around to reading it...he puts an ad in the paper saying 'Join Me'.

So many books so little time *sigh*.

The one thing I was thinking was how to cook things. OK earlier in the thread it was whether the problem was financial collapse or nuclear war etc....so it would probably be sensible to have raw foods like oats and seeds, tinned fruits and vegetables?

Also, wholefoods as English officers got ill from only eating white rice but the privates were fine as they ate brown rice....this is during some war a long time ago and I have tried to google but can't find it.

fc123

Just a thought...getting rid of mice is quite hard as they can live on very little....have you worked out how to get them to move out of the loft space or are you going to have to put down traps?

lostinrates

fc123 wrote: »

Just a thought...getting rid of mice is quite hard as they can live on very little....have you worked out how to get them to move out of the loft space or are you going to have to put down traps?

I hear nearly new offers a fantastic ''have russels will travel'' service!

fc123

lostinrates wrote: »

I hear nearly new offers a fantastic ''have russels will travel'' service!

OMG We had squirrels in our loft once and it was a total nightmare.
They had gnawed throughthe soffits and just made nests in all the insulating fleece. We couldn't afford to replace the soffit so OH tried to chase them all out and block up the hole. He didn't get all of them and so, those that were left behind just gnawed a new hole from the inside.

We got a firm in to put down poison and they ignored it.

In the end we got guy in to replace all the soffit but the deal was he had to get rid of the squirrels....which he did. He and OH peeled up some lagging and there were about 6 cute baby squirrels just sitting there looking up at them. The soffit man took over as OH went all gaga and he isn't very good at killing thngs...not even woodlice....he let's them walk onto a bit of paper and put's them outside.

We tried to put the cat up through the hatch to scare them off but the cat was more scared and refused to go into the loft space.
I think it was a whole year we used to lie in bed and hear them running around and around for hours.

I did hear they that they may try to come back so we put steel behind the soffit just in case. We then rememberd when we bought the house that there had been droppings in the loft and couldn't work out what they were and we knew there were no rats in the house. I forgot about it.

They have never managed to get in again.

Spirit_2

Food stashes?
Pippettes in quanity?
Coolant checking requiring pippettes?


I'm rooting for the mice. There is nothing odd about having a few mice about.

Mr.Brown_4

Spirit wrote: »

I'm rooting for the mice. There is nothing odd about having a few mice about.

Indeed. Our relationship with mice goes back further than the dog. I am reminded of Chaucer's excellent novella, "Of Mice and Men" in which he describes the symbiotic and soul enhancing embrace of nature that comes from having a few small guests around.

Cast out your demons Dopester and use those pipettes for feeding the babies.