March 31, 2020

How To Defend Your Home Against Looters When The SHTF

By Mike Kuykendall

It's not just the people who watch "Doomsday Preppers" who are concerned that the time is coming when we will have civil unrest in our country. More and more people see the handwriting on the wall with our unmanageable national debt and entitlement society and want to be prepared for anything that may come. The term "SHTF" (Sewage Hits The Fan) has become a much more popular term in this country for good reason.

Since our home is our castle, it is natural to want to feel safe in it. Unlike in most other countries, where every home has a wall around it and is more secure from burglars, our homes in the United States are not very secure. When the police are either overwhelmed or outgunned during a time of civil unrest, having an alarm system will be little consolation.

Let's look at 3 ways you can make your home more "hardened" as a potential target for rioters or looters or burglars who lose all worry that the police are coming to help you.

1) Make It Look Uninviting

The best way to defend against the "zombie hordes" attacking your home is to encourage them to move on and never even get up close. This is done with some easy steps that provide a great deterrent, without having a moat stocked with alligators around the house.

Having a decorative wrought iron storm door is a great way to make the bad guys choose another house, because it is clearly tougher to break down. You can also plant rose bushes under every one of your windows to make burglars decide that crawling through thorns is not the best way to enter your house.

2) Make It Stronger

In addition to making your house look like a "hard target" you also want to make it much stronger. In the majority of home invasions, the burglar comes right through the front door. If your wrought iron storm door has a lock that is pickable, then you have a problem.

On the other hand, if you can't afford a new storm door, you can make your front door almost impenetrable when you are home by purchasing and installing a "Door Club" for under $50.

If you want to secure your windows, you can obtain a film to have all of your windows coated that makes them shatterproof. Depending upon how much you are willing to spend, the film could make your windows so hard to break that a man with a baseball bat would practically wear himself out before the film-coated window gave out.

3) Don't Advertise For Burglars

The worst thing you can do is have NRA bumper stickers on your car and stickers on your front door advertising how readily you will shoot a home invader. While that may be a comfort to you, telling the world that you aren't afraid, all it really does is tell the bad guys where the guns are.

If the bad guys know that you have guns, it may well deter them from coming when you are home. However, it can also encourage them to stake out your house and pay a visit when you're not home.

Have a 5 ton gun safe that they bad guys could never open? No problem. All they have to do is let themselves into your house and wait for you or a loved one to come home and surprise them. The most rugged gun safe in the world can be opened very easily if they put a knife or gun to your wife's throat and ask YOU to open it for them.

The key to staying safe in your home when the SHTF is a multi-faceted approach. Keep your mouth shut and don't advertise to become a victim, make your house less of an easy target, and harden your doors and windows.