Scavanging (grain, houses, converted, water)

[jamies]

(Oh darn, before the internet police catch me, I'm sorry didn't catch the spelling error.)

Our survival seminar group had an interesting seminar tonight on "Scavenging." Mainly on unusual or alternative places to scavenge supplies in SHTF, WORL situations. Not obvious places like markets or drug stores. But regional distribution centers and places the average person might not go or be able to get to.

Things we came up with:
Vet supply and pet stores for antibiotics. Veterinary hospitals for other medicines.

Having some kind of pump that could access the bulk storage tanks at gas stations. Regular drill motor or hand pumps don't have the suction to lift the fuel 15 plus feet.

Water sources. Everyone knows about hot water heaters, but what about FIRE trucks. Most have several hundred gallons on board.

Emergency supplies, maybe guns and ammo - police cars. (Assuming they have been abandoned by the cops, say from an emp, and they didn't take the stuff themselves.)

Hardware stores - fire extinguishers. (Fire trucks may not be working.)

Fabrication shops - welder generators and metal materials for bulletproofing or whatever.


OK, your turn, let's see what you can come up with.

[NJ Brazen_3133]

Scavenging is only for short term survival. For long term survival, is important to gather as many people as you can, and start farms, assembly lines, forges, labs, resources extraction and kickstart civilization again.

But also police stations, and fire houses will have a lot of useful stuff too. Home Depot of course

[Rabrrita]

Unless you are in a migratory mode, what can be scavenged is limited to what is within your roaming radius. Most of what you list is common knowledge with anyone who read Preppers for Dummies, so expect lots of empty shelves by those who were closer, faster and better organized. You can also expect fierce competition for the goods from everyone.

And, lets not forget that whatever you mange to acquire will need to be transported back to the safety of your base. Have you ever tried carrying just 30 gallons of water while trying not to attract attention to what you are doing? No piece of cake. How do you get that 2 foot by 3 foot 3/4 steel plate back to where you need it? How many trips will you be making to get what you want and while out scavenging, who's protecting the home base?

The best option is to have. But if you need to scavenge, learn to use the discards as resources.

[Happy in Wyoming]

There are numerous people who earn a living by scavenging. There are people in NYC who look for furniture that's been thrown out that they can resell as well as junkers who look through rural dumps for scrap metal. Certain related activities, e.g., bottle digging, can yield real treasures. Popular plinking areas often yield various qualities of lead and other metals. Old mine sites are excellent for many items.

Different areas yield very different results. There are few if any open dumps in Wyoming, but there are plenty of salable mineral specimens. There are people who take large trucks to Detroit to retrieve used bricks.

Search youtube with the terms scavenging, junking, and scrapping. You'll find more specialized channels as you look. Doing it now comes under the heading of survival, self-sufficiency, and preparedness. Doing it after disaster arrives is desperation.

P.S. DM any moderator or report your post to have a moderator edit it.

[6.7traveler]

Happy in wyoming got me thinking.... While not scavenging in the doomsday sense, lots of transfer stations and dumps in Alaska have a "savage area" where people can drop off stuff no longer want but can be useful others. People, especially seasonal workers and military often have to up and leave Alaska in a hurry and don't have time to wait around on craigslist and host garage sales for every little thing. You can find some seriously nice things there. Examples of items I've come across and/or picked up at the salvage area by just randomly dropping my trash off at the transfer site at the right time.

-Perfect condition Carhartt arctic insulated overalls in my size and plenty of other high quality expensive winter gear
-3 perfectly good push lawn mowers that I sold on craigslist for $50 a piece in 2 days
-A small flat screen tv that I still use
-solid oak kitchen table with two nice matching chairs
-100 shotgun shells of birdshot
-full set of sockets and wrenches in a decent took box
-a nice large home safety lock box with key
-a pair of justin work boots in my size in the box and appeared to have never been worn
-many boxes of perfectly good and nice clothes to go through
-countless good working fans and small electric heaters and other small appliances
-perfectly good kids bicycles
-windows, lumber, siding and all sorts of building supplies

[gemstone1]

"Our survival seminar group"....otherwise known as the how to survive the Sunday Brunch at the Riverside Casino, now that the snowbirds are back group ?

Regards
Gemstone1

[Nor'Eastah]

Good grief.

I have so much "stuff" here already, the wife is nagging me to get rid of some of it. My pole barn is so full, I can barely get the truck inside. I definitely don't need anything more.

Scavenging sounds like "shop till you drop" for the cash-challenged.

[Eastcoasting]

Guns in empty houses.

People tuck them away and either forget them or leave them on purpose.

I have found three over the years in three different residences.

1. In a closet, top shelf, all the way to the back where you could only feel around not get a direct sight line.

2. Attic underneath some obviously disturbed insulation.

3. Basement, tucked up in the ceiling on top of some cardboard laid across two pipes.

Once I buy a place I get a little nuts exploring.

[CtrlEsc]

I grew up "in the woods" but I'm mostly citified now, so I'm more of an armchair survivalist at present. (Grain-of-salt Advisory)

Caveat: Don't take other peoples stuff unless it's a TRUE break down of civilization emergency. The law frowns on scavenging other people's stuff.

Where to get stuff:
After hitting all the soup kitchens, churches, and food pantries, I would start busting open storage locker facilities. That is an endless bounty of crap-other-people-didn't-want.

Factories and office buildings usually have a kitchen/cafeteria with vending machines. Last place most people go is back to work in a SHTF scenario, so they may contain a lot of goodies.

Look for scout or church camp facilities. They will be well stocked with food and supplies. These could even be converted into a base of operations with housing for a small group of survivors.

Around here, there are a lot of truck and RV storage parking lots. Wander through those to see what's-what. Look for conex storage depots, food/mercantile distribution hubs, manufacturing facilities, and public buildings.

Don't pass over the bookstores and libraries. After a full belly, knowledge is the greatest prize.

I had been thinking along this line recently:
The comment about being able carry your haul is very important. I would look for storage lockers and homes with basement storage to hide several small caches in a SHTF scenario. If your neighbor bugs out or kicks off, you now have another spot to hide stuff. If you notice that the county truck depot is no longer in operation, look for lockers or storage bins there. An empty semi-truck tanker sitting unattended + fire ladder = cache storage. You want to spread stuff out in small caches across a wide area. I think in a true SHTF scenario, I would have at least a 10 mile territory (a day's walk) to hide stuff and not be overly worried about losing a small cache here or there. If you have the means to travel, I would set up cache corridors about three days walk apart depending on how long this scavenging SHTF scenario was to last. I might even leave a dummy cache with a map to the next dummy cache to trick people into moving out of my area.

The "George Jefferson" of scavenging:
Keep an eye on the home sales websites. Look for homes that are "staged" or completely empty (foreclosures) along your bug out route. An empty and available home might make the difference in your survival as you trek to your bug-out heaven-on-earth. Just keep a short list of addresses and update it from month to month. This could also be helpful in a SHTF scenario where the local hooligans start burning down homes in your neighborhood.

[jamies]

Originally Posted by gemstone1

"Our survival seminar group"....otherwise known as the how to survive the Sunday Brunch at the Riverside Casino, now that the snowbirds are back group ?

Regards
Gemstone1

LOL - Next weeks seminar is on how to survive when the 89 year old snowbird in the next lane has a heart attack and tries to take you out while driving. Seriously, had two drop dead driving just last week! Still, beats getting eaten by a bear.

PS: My spouse will not allow me to go to buffetts until I lose 50 lbs. Life sucks.