Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
My husband and I were talking about looting while watching the occutards sitting around the country. One of the things we discussed was - if SHTF, would you loot abandoned areas? If so, what would you take?
I am sure that ammo and guns would be gone, and medicines and medical supplies. But, I would go to stores and look for seeds, and farming tools. I also would go to fabric stores and collect patterns and bolts of cloth.
Other than that, I can't think of anything that would be useful.
I have no idea what occutards are? I will google it, but am not sure I will come up with the same meaning you intend.
I don't see me looting anything from anywhere, but I guess that depends on the meaning of looting.
If I am sure something is totally abandoned like old saw blades I find in the woods, old copper water heaters all shot to bits, old assorted other logging camp items, like wood stoves sitting in a hump of moss buried almost, and or oil lamp parts just barley showing at the surface, then if I want, or have need I will take them, but no none has missed these items in 50 years or more.
Alot of that I don't take, but note in a pad, so I can remember where a item is.
I know where there is a cord 4 feet by 4 feet almost by 8 feet of Hemlock Bark cut and peeled for a tannery, to make bark tan cow hide. This pile is better than 80 years old. I could still use it to tan moose, bear, or deer hides, and or build a pretty good shelter from these sheets of big bark.
The almost refers to the pile is no longer a full 4 feet high, due to weathing off a few of the upper layers in the pile. No one is alive and missing that.
Mostly what I would take, would depend on the job of the instant.
If I was after a knife I would go for a old saw blade, and if I was after metal points for arrows i would go after a copper water heater.
There is no cordage (string rope) left around in the woods as any has rotted to dirt long ago, but if i found any I would take it . If I found a bee's nest with wax I would get that too. And I grab wasp nests from anyplace I want now. I can tell you no one ever says no to me when I request taking a wasp nest from under the eves on any structures yet.
That stuff is fire resistant if not fire proof, and I can use it as wadding in my smooth bore black powder guns. With a little work I can reform it into paper mach' or writting paper.
I'ld feel strange going into stores. I would be on edge just thinking it's still stealing.
If I could get past my own head and somehow understand it was not stealing then I would be after bolts of cloth and all the rest of the things you mentioned, and a lot more.
I mentioned in another thread that my trucking company does foreclosure trash-outs, and that many of the homes still have good items inside. We are bonded, and nothing is to be removed from the premises except what goes into the truck for disposal. To my knowledge, none of my crew have touched anything. I certainly have not. Aptor is right -- that's stealing.
Of course, these places are not stores. We don't steal from stores, either. "Looting" is something that we consider a habit of government-dependent, urban populations while they are rioting. In truth, most of those folks would not "loot", either. They may be poor, but they are not criminals.
I'm with Mac on this one. I'm not a thief. Looting is thieving.
Now... if I'm out in the middle of the desert and I see an old car fender or whatever that no one really "owns" and has been there for 100 years, I don't really consider that stealing if one takes it home. The owner has been dead for 80 years and obviously nobody is interested in the item. That said, I haven't really done much of that over the years.
I think real looting is more about trashing than taking. I've always been very, very intrigued by ghost towns. I used to research them and seek them out, not to take stuff, but because for some reason I have an intense interest in ghost towns and the way people used to live and the things they built. I did a lot of photographing, but I never really took anything from these old towns. Unfortunately, real looters have all but obliterated these places over the last twenty years or so. They not only took what they thought might be of value, but the destroyed the old homes and buildings that once were such a part of so many lives. That kind of saddens me. It's like destroying a real and interesting piece of history. Far more intriguing than reading about it in a book. But, alas, most all of it is gone now.
I think the original premise of the post was in a SHTF situation, would you take things that were left behind by the dead or evacuees... well, I can't really tell you the answer to that until I cross that bridge. I think that would be a completely different world that for the most part none of us have lived within. What I do know is that I don't and won't steal from others. But if I'm walking through the rubble of civilization and there is no one left to "steal from," who knows.
I guess a better term would be salvaging. When I refer to looting - I am envisioning a situation where the area is empty of people. A Walking Dead type of situation. If an area has been abandoned - why not? I would rather use the stuff than have it rot. But, there were a lot of things we thought of that simply would not be worth the effort to transport - carpeting? Wedding gowns? Tux?
I was raised in a society where everything was used. It was passed around, repurposed. To not use something up, to leave it to rot, was considered an insult to God since we were merely stewards of the things we had. When my father died I found a can of teeth from the animals he killed for us to eat. He couldn't figure out a use for them, but couldn't bear to throw them away.
Mac_Muz - an occutard is a person who is protesting in a place like Wall Steet and doesn't have a clue why! My husband and I were listening to the Wall Street occupiers who were demanding world peace, redistribution of weath, etc but didn't have a clue what they were talking about.
It all depends upon location and scenario. If the situation is critical, heck yeah I'd break into someplace that had food, weapons or tools. But looting, like the kind they did in the Watts riots - TVs and such? No, that's despicable.
Kind of reminds me of "urban exploration" - it's a whole subculture that loves to explore abandoned factories, hospitals etc. The true explorers have a code that they leave the place just as they found it - the wanna-be's tag the walls and trash the place.
During the American Revolution it was standard practice for both Tories and Rebels to loot the farms and businesses of their enemies and sympathizers. What they couldn't take they did their best to destroy. Even in a short term disaster the standards of who is the enemy appear almost immediately. Consider the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. To harm the enemy and enrich oneself is both moral and desirable.
Capturing enemy arms and other supplies was standard practice in World War II, particularly on the Eastern Front. Both Soviet forces as well as the Wehrmacht and their allied forces practiced this. The Red Army was said to be as familiar and effective with the Panzerfaust as the Wehrmacht.
In the Trojan War Achilles stripped off Hector's armor after he defeated and killed him.
At the end of World War II MacArthur opened the Japanese armories to the troops, saying that he wished every American soldier to have a souveneir.
During the War of Northern Aggression, "Sherman's March to the Sea" left a wake of burned homes and burned crops, ravaged everything from cotton and corn to chickens and pigs. "Scorched earth" is nothing new in wartime.
And if it gets as bad as some of us think, it might resemble a war, and cities resemble war zones. What isn't stolen outright will probably be melted slag; living or even trying to scrounge in that environment might not be conducive to long life or survivalism.
But more rurally, an abandoned piece of property might be worth your while to scrounge, to find everything from forgotten half-full gas cans to metal or wood or even a clean source of water. If it is abandoned, I might do more than think about it. The only thing that would cause hesitation on my part would be in a pandemic situation; I don't want to scrounge something from anywhere that might be contagious, where I bring home something that can't be scrubbed off with Ajax! Mostly, though I am trying to ensure that my property can provide everything I need, so that I don't have to leave it and look elsewhere. Remember, once you leave your living place - or even your vehicle - it too could be considered "abandoned" - and you might have nothing left to come back to.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Looting
