Preparedness for when

jk0

greeninkpen wrote: »

at what point does a useful stash turn into a hoard ?

Guess it depends if you are the hoarder or someone else. I know no-one would put up with my hoarding, but in my view it's a useful stash.

GreyQueen

Not really, jk0.

The sheds which they did break into, the ones where the owners were around yesterday to speak to, reported nothing taken. I think the burglars are going at it at random hoping to luck onto big-ticket items like petrol strimmers or rotovators.

Almost nobody has these and, of those that do, they don't actually leave them in lottie sheds. Sometimes people rent them, or hire the services of one of the old boys for a couple of tens to rotovate their plot. They were ignoring hand-tools like spades and forks.

I have my shed carefully-oriented so that the door is most visible to the houses on the other side of the street, plus I have my hand-tools mounted on tool hangers and on clips on a couple of lengths of 2 x 1 mounted horizontally across the shed wall. There is a hefty chain and padlock threaded through the handles of those tools like spades and forks which have a Y shaped handle.

The shed window is barred from the inside and covered with net curtain and the sill (a shelf I have under the window) is deliberately piled high with low-value carp like flowerpots.

Trouble is with sheds is that if they come with bolt-croppers (which they clearly had for the sheds they de-padlocked) as well as pry bars, they can get into just about anything. They failed at my shed and at P's shed which has a similar indoors lock; like a boxy old fashioned door lock. There were a couple of sheds which could clearly be seen into and it looks like they peered into them and discounted them as not worth the effort.

My take on this is that they were opportunists who weren't prepared to do anything too effortful (like mine and P's locks) for the possibility of no reward. I'm hoping that they will have got the message that we haven't got valuables and won't try it again. In case they don't, I did bring one of my few new tools, a handsome pair of grass shears, home with me. Prolly won't use them on a the allotment's grass paths for a month or two and they were just a bit too handy and portable, IYKWIM.

I did ask the police officer if she thought that this might be related to increased hardship in the economy, and she thought not. She exp that these thieves seem to work across the allotment sites in the city in succession and that it's just our turn now. We did have a bad go-round about three years ago, with about 4 lots of mass-break-ins in close succession, but it has been quiet for a while.

Mum and Dad had the hindermost of their 3 garden sheds broken into overnight a few years ago. The officer who came out pointed out that with sheds, you'r damned if you do, damned if you don't. As in, if you do them up with lots of heavy duty hasps and padlocks, thieves want in because they're sure such protection must be harbouring valuables. And if you have a tiddly lock, they can't resist as it's just too easy.

What they found in that particular shed, and left unmolested, was a lot of timber, mostly re-purposed, a chained-up ladder which went through into the middle shed which is back-to-back with the other shed (which has lots of bikes chained to it) and a 50 year old push mower with heavy roller. They could have taken Mum's Workmate but they left that alone, too.

The police officer said yesterday that the usual target of home shed burglaries is the bicycle, and we haven't any of those on the allotment.

ETA taurusgb oh my goodness, what a fright. And thank goodness you were savvy enough to get to one side. Horrible to think of the scalding that could have inflicted, although the mess is bad enough.

I'm thinking that it's a chemical reaction between something used to cure the gammon (nitrate?) and the flour in the pasta. Flour is potentially-explosive in dust form. I think you just got unlucky. Perhaps the simmering of the broth reduced the water to the point where the nitrate was concentrated, then the addition of the pasta perhaps introduced enough to create a reaction. Do you still have the gammon's packaging and does it mention what chemicals were used in its curing?

This is an educated guess, btw, not gospel. I'd be glad to hear if anyone has a better explanation.

jk0

In that case GQ, have you considered taking down the net curtain, so anyone looking in only sees your carp? edit: (Put any good tools on the window wall so they are out of sight.)

They give this advice regarding cars. If you are leaving it in a dodgy area, they advise to leave the glove box open and empty, so that no-one bothers breaking in.

System

Absolutely jk0. It's a useful stash. After all, if it comes to it, I could fashion myself some jam jar lid chainmail. Though given that my stash of chocolate and biscuits has been cleverly hidden inside me, I may find I run a bit short over some wobbly bits.....

GreyQueen

jk0 wrote: »

In that case GQ, have you considered taking down the net curtain, so anyone looking in only sees your carp?

They give this advice regarding cars. If you are leaving it in a dodgy area, they advise to leave the glove box open and empty, so that no-one bothers breaking in.

On a previous go round, they did look in the shed's window. The net obscures but doesn't completely hide.

This visit, they didn't bother looking first. I deliberately have bare raked soil under the window and behind the shed, so anyone poking around there will betray their presence. The villian(s) did step off the edge of my slabs by my fence and step over it to get onto the next-door plot as they made their way down the site. Left a couple of bootprints in the loose fluffy bare soil but they'd been rained on so were all blurry.

Ultimately, and even the Police will tell you this, if someone really wants to get into somewhere, be it home, business premises or shed, they will. There's limits to how much trouble I'm prepared to go to. With the plank off, the shed's contents would have been visible and they'd've seen hand tools and a wheelbarrow, flowerpots and tattie sacks and a misc of seedtrays, trugs and buckets. I have to hope that they got that far and decided that it wasn't worth going any further, as I am sure that the lock would have succumbed to the pry-bar they obviously had, had they tried it.

ragz_2

Third dead banker in a week... apparent suicide, again. This is getting odd.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28796-third-prominent-banker-found-dead-in-six-days http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-31/third-banker-former-fed-member-found-dead-inside-week

I have no idea what this means but I am sure it can't be good.

On a prepping note, hubby wants a Parang (big knife/machete type thing, Bear Grylls type) for bushcrafting, it's about £50 though(you can get £100+ ones too). Am torn as to whether we should get it, he reckons it's good for chopping down small trees as well as cooking! Has anyone got one?

GreyQueen

ragz wrote: »

Third dead banker in a week... apparent suicide, again. This is getting odd.
http://www.housingwire.com/articles/28796-third-prominent-banker-found-dead-in-six-days http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-01-31/third-banker-former-fed-member-found-dead-inside-week

I have no idea what this means but I am sure it can't be good.

On a prepping note, hubby wants a Parang (big knife/machete type thing, Bear Grylls type) for bushcrafting, it's about £50 though(you can get £100+ ones too). Am torn as to whether we should get it, he reckons it's good for chopping down small trees as well as cooking! Has anyone got one?

I'm sure I've read or seen Ray Mears on the subject of parangs. I think they are more suited to the tropics, where they come from, than temperate woodlands such as our own. But if it'll make hubby happier than a folding saw or an axe, I'm all for personal happiness.

craigywv

oh what a lovely day ,I know its a freak weather day as we havw rain/sleet forcast for tomorrow. got a wash out on line . bad news about your shed GQ ,my kindred spirit when I was growing up was a pensioner and he had an allotment for many years, I was always there with him and remember it was a common problem the sheds getting broken into usually to sit and drink in somewhere for the teenagers to do what they do out of sight. more often they wrecked them taking nothing but causing a mess.bummer though. dinner today will be ys braising steak in sc and veg. have a lovely day all. also seen yesterday in savers for 3.99 16 Duracell pencil batteries thought this was fab as land of poond are 2 for a quid ...got 3 packs.

mardatha

Just floating around the internet and found this on fb
https://www.facebook.com/TinyHouseBlog

Karmacat

I'm glad nothing worse happened with the burglars, GQ - but very nasty, all the same makes you think about the bankers too ... and that third one sounds, off, just *off*. There are coincidences in this world, of course, but it isn't only these sad events that say something is going on that we don't know about yet....