Let's face it, most won't bug out. So, how do you cache in a heavily urban setting. I don't like the thought of my home being an armory.
Here's a starter:
I always walk and on rainy days I wear a poncho. There are many small wooded parks and green areas around. It is easy to hide a lot of items under the poncho. I try to choose a day with a drizzle or a light rain, not a down-pour. I go into one of these areas, not another soul is out and about. I go off the beaten path, shift an old fallen log or a large stone and place a waterproof packet under it. Then you scatter some old leaves and brush to cover the disturbance. The falling moisture helps hide things quickly.
Keep a dairy of all the areas.
I doubt if someone would find them with a metal detector.
I've been thinking lately about using areas that are already secured. In an urban area bus and train stations already have lockers for rent, usually for less than a few bucks.
Of course I wouldn't use a public locker for anything I couldn't afford to lose like expensive equipment and certainly not a weapon of any sort.
But a few days of food and water could be stored away. I would also make sure to find out how often the lockers are cleaned out by the renting agency and rotate which lockers you use every week or so, so that it doesn't look like it's been abandoned and gets cleaned out.
I've been thinking lately about using areas that are already secured. In an urban area bus and train stations already have lockers for rent, usually for less than a few bucks.
This is a great idea, however I know they get cleaned out rather frequently.
If you have a university or a collage nearby that doesn't require you to rent a locker, you can easily throw stuff in one of those between the months of September - April.
A couple years back I lived in a place where I had to raise some of my sidewalk. A lot of sand in our soil. When I lifted the slabs (they were 4X4 feet) I had an idea to cache under one.
1) Dug a trench about 10 inches wide, sloping down between 20-30 degrees.
2) Slide in a 6 inch X 46 inch PVC container into an 8 inch by 46 inch open ended cylinder (plastic pipe, old ceramic tile, etc.)
3) Placed this into the trench. The high end of the cylinder was about 2 inches back from the edge of the sidewalk with the top of it level with the ground the slab would set on. The slope left the pipe fully under the slab
4) Covered the sloping portion with sand.
5) Replaced the slab. The grass on ether side was not disturbed.
6) Later when I removed it I took two shovel-fulls of soil out along side of the sidewalk and slid out the container, which was like new with mint condition contents.
The neighbors didn't pay any attention to what I was doing. It took me a couple of days to raise all the slabs about a 40 foot length. I was very careful when I took the cache out to hide, had other pieces of PVC and tile lying around in the yard while I worked.
If anyone came along with a metal detector I don't think they would have broken up my sidewalk for all the neighbors to see.
I have a few more experiments I tried and and a few ideas I have not which I will share later.
Hope this gets you thinking on how to cache in the city.
That's a great idea! Keeping on the pipe theme, you could use a posthole digger to quickly and efficiently dig holes almost anywhere and drop in PVC caches. Although, it would be necessary to make sure that no construction projects happened to uncover your stash.
If you are not burying it at least 1 or even better 2 to 3 feet deep the next time the Parks and Recreation dept. landscapes the area your waterproof packet will be discovered and you will have lost your prep.
My Idea is to pull up some fence posts, on my property and dig the hole deeper than I need for a new post, casche whatever I want to bury in PVC pipe with contents sealed in mylar with or without O2 absorbers depending on content then replace the post. The position is marked by the post and if you use a metal post a buried casche, with metal contents, would be nearly impossible to find.
I'm thinking of caching in the yards of the friends who want me to do/help with their gardening. I don't have a garden of my own and I miss it and everybody and their brother of my husbands' friends are like "****, you wanna take care of a front yard so it looks nice, come do it at my house."
Wow this is an interesting thread. I live in a Rural area and can cache as much as I need. I was just wondering what types of things are you caching ? are you talking about a few days worth of food? weapons? ammunition? Or is that a discussion for another forum. I'm new here and haven't been around but there seems to be a wealth of information.
It's so frustrating... I have enough stuff to make 4 or 5 caches of everything I would need for an emergency Bug-out, but for the life of me, I can't think of secure places to put them. I live in a suburban area that is constantly being re-developed. No place is secure.
I'm curious about the contents of the caches as well, just food, water and medicine? I'm thinking about caching some of those things, but I'm also going to throw a few tools in there like a crowbar, hammer, few screwdrivers, maybe a lockpick kit, some batteries, etc.
This is an interesting thread, giving me something to think about. I live in the city but we have a small creek near our apartment- I'm wondering if the higher parts of the banks would be a decent place to store a few caches. It could probably flood in rainy weather and the water is used for sewage overflow sometimes, how could I be sure it wouldn't float away or become contaminated? Advice appreciated.
I look to just put some items outside of the home. Looters, over-zealous officers, whatever may take what is obvious away. I would like to have back-up.
Some of my caches are small, a pistol, a few boxes of ammo, or some food or medical supplies. Others may be quite large. It all depends on the security of the area.
Danganga, I would never put anything in a river bank. I went into a city after a major flood. The water took out roads and highways. It sheared buildings in half and did major changes to waterways.
Since Republican Bunny mentioned gardening, here are a few thoughts I have had.
1) You could bury a nice size box under your compost pile if you have one.
2) Again, place something in a larger hole and plant a creeping cypress bush or similar item over it. They are really a mess to dig down through.
3) Place three or four yucca plant in a triangle or small square. But first, drop a cache down in the center. Again this is not an easy patch of veretation to work in.
4) If you have flower beds that are heavily mulched. It is really easy to move the mulch aside hide bury a few small items and cover it over again. It never looks disturbed. I use 6-10 inches of wood chips, depending on the plants.
Remember, this is urban caching. This is my yard or a neighbors yard. I haven't seen many of the neighbors recently going through the yards with a metal detector. Nor have any strangers been digging in my yard recently.:
Not everyone has yard space. So you need to use the inside.
Consider this: Pull the front panel off the front of a small upright piano and look at the space. You can store a small arsenal in it and still play the thing.
If you can make a stud wall and make a horizontal cavity along the pat of some electrical wiring (perhaps with a header if needed) you could hide a longarm behind that wall and the signature of the wiring would co-inside with the metal signature of the rifle. A metal detector would pick it up and the operator would assume it is just the wiring (sharing the same space).
This would pass most searches (unless they were going to bust out the sheetrock in every wall).
Lone Star, that just reminded me of another way to cache in your yard.
You do have to be very cautious with this one. But the electrical signal is great masking.
CAUTION! CAUTION! CAUTION! If you have buried power cables for your house, especially if there is a garden or flower beds above it, carefully dig down about one foot and place your cache above the line. Most lines are two feet deep and two feet in from the property line.
I dug my own trench and know exactly where the line is. The power company did one of my neighbors and what a death trap. At the most they went down one foot and diaged from the pole at the corner of the lot to the corner of the house which was located 7 feet from the property line..
Would it be possible to shield from a metal detector by using lead?
There's a problem with caching metal objects near electrical wires, at least outside. Postfan, no one is going to be fanning across your yard with a metal detector. That would take way too long and be ridiculous when 99% of people are going to have nothing interesting buried back there. What you'd need to be worried about would be metal detecting radar on an aircraft, especially something like a UAV that could operate without much human intervention, and would probably be able to get a complete image of the area.
It all depends on the resolution, but more than likely it's going to be able to see the electrical line, and then underneath or above the line, a huge unexplained blob (a pistol or rifle). This is imaging - not beeps, but pictures. The thing is going to tack an alert on that and have someone or something go check it out in more detail.
I'm not saying that Terminators are going to be digging up your yard...but an aggressor certainly isn't going to send brazillions of foot soldiers out to search everyone's yard with a metal detector. If you have anything to worry about, it would be automated airborne drones, or *maybe* satellites in the distant future.
There are many SHTF scenarios one that I consider a possibility is arms consfication. I am not aware of any metal detector that can work with precision at altitude in fact the only one I know of is not detailed and requires a Lockheed Electra to make it airborne it is called a Magnetic Anomoly Dector (MAD) and is used to find the magnetic signature of submarines.
A drone could take photographs (which are used to find archeological sights). One archeologist claims he has found the location of the First Temple in the holy land and through intrepetation of photographs can identify the places where the tent stakes were driven in near the Temple Site (by the 12 tribes of Israel that camped there). I would be more worried about this but not by much these drones will be looking for activity not buried cashes. It might catch you digging it up but I doubt it will find your hideyhole.
When things get to the point that weapon confiscation begins, I believe:
It's likely that there will be at least one radar backscatter van available for communities of any significant size. So, forget all the clever hiding places in the home or even disassembling and hiding in the walls - any metal will absolutely glare on the monitor regardless of whether you put it in the walls, in the attic. It's possible the system won't pick up items in the basement or crawl space. With this system, there's no need to go from house to house to search as they'll find the target rich homes just by driving by.
Ditto, for storage sheds and rental storage units.
Personally, I think that the public parks and such will be searched even before individual homes as they are the locations that everyone is talking about hiding their stuff.
IMHO, get it the hell out of town and more than a 50' off a roadway.
If you start looking into LE methods of searching for contraband (drugs), you'll see many of the methods that are commonly used by most Fed/Gov agencies.
In outdoor areas, such as the mountains where I used to spend my time, the old mines and such had left more rusting scrap iron laying around that give false signatures and are nigh on ideal areas to disappear things in.
The entire areas are contaminated by the rust (iron oxide) and it takes a very sophisticated rig to distinguish between junk and something real in those areas.
Better yet, no one would look there anyways.
In urban settings, if it's got a cap, it's coming off.
That wall shouldn't have that "big" a bundle of wires running through it, so it becomes immediately suspicious. Plus some of the modern VOM's can read electricity (or the lack of it) even without having to be connected to the system.
Bad wall patches/repairs are a dead giveaway that something is back there.
Do some internet searches for LE methods of searching for stuff and you'll be well ahead.
Local LEO's will be using a metal detector on the walls there are lots of gee whiz gizoms out there but are thay going to spend that kind of money? I suggested you would have to be good a drywall to do this and if the electrical line runs horizontal and the gun is in close proximity your standard handheld metal detector will register it the same as any other metal in the wall. They can't possibly have a list of my collection as many pieces were purchased privately with no record of sale at all.
If they come for guns I'll throw them a bone be cooperative and give them a pos 22 I have been saving just in case. I'll let them look and can guaranty they won't find anything unless they disassemble my house and fence line.
I don't plan on being suspicious to them at all.
BTW I spent 16 years of Law Enforcement and have conducted numerous searches over the 10 years I worked dor the Dallas County Sheriff. I know all the usual hiding places. My suggestions are derrived from knowing SOP for searches.
All my had guns are registered. I am licensed to carry. Most of my stuff is cached.
If they drove by my garage I think their system would overload. Old pipe, tons of old rusty tools, buckets of nail and screws, old anvils, parts of railroad ties, old vises, you get the picture. Happy hunting.
To get back on track, What about that chimney flu that has no purpose since you put in that high eff furnace. Is there a cleanout at the bottom to put something in, or a way to suspend a container from the top and cap it? You get the idea. Think creative.
It looks as if it doesn't really penetrate more than about 1/4 inch steel. As you said, the rims appear black and nothing is visible behind them.
I guess there's probably about two ways of going about evading something like this - reshaping the material in question or putting it into a container. A 1911 on-edge (ie, on a rafter) might look like nothing suspicious.
Alternately, since it picks up low-atomic number elements, you could probably hide your stuff in a big box of coal, ashes or maybe a giant salad. The carbon would block the item's signature. Things underground should be safe though. The dirt alone should be enough to block it.
Do you have a front poarch. If you didn't weird-out on the X-ray vans and such there are several ways to cache items.
1) Remove some of the latice, scoot under and bury some boxes.
2) If you want quick access place some items between the joists.
3) If you have an older property with steps that have sandstone or concrete treads, gently loosen one and lift it. Then clear out any old scrap the builder possibly left in it. Put your containers in. Replace the tread after you put a small amount of construction glue at the four corners to hold it secure.
An obvious place is your crawl space if you aren't on a slab or have a basement. Be sure again to hide it in the joists or bury it. It is too easy for someone to just look inside.
What about living in a high rise apartment in NYC or such places?
1) With many kitchen cabinets there is usually 3-4 inches underneath the lowest shelf. Use a very sharp razor knife to cut along all four side of the bottom shelf edges (allow for the toe space at the front when cutting, hold back that distance when cutting the front)**. Nail a small ledge at the point where the shelf would rest on it at its original level. Place contact paper or some sort of liner to cover if the cut is too obvious.** Place your items in it. Replace the shelf. Use a few wire brads to tack it down if necessary. Replace your pots and pans.
2) There is a usually a panel to give you access to the pipes for the tub, if you have a tub. open it up and see if there is space there. Often, especially if it is old cast iron you would have room for several long guns. The cast also defeats any metal detectors.
3) If you have long narrow closets a false wall at one end only 3.5 inches deep can hide a lot.
4) Some couches and chairs have space where the springs are. Remove the cloth from the bottom, place and secure your items in it and staple some poster board over the bottom.
5) You can always put a small hand gun with a few extra clips in a very, very water tight pouch and stash it in the toilet tank.*
Are these places ideal, not necessarily, but we are talking local improvision. It is better than nothing.
Place a long gun suspended from a strong metal or wooden hanger and cover it with a long heavey winter coat and hang it in your closet at one end. This would be the least desirable but still better than an open weapon.
You work with what you have; not with what you would like to have.
Basically, anyone who's really good with a metal detector, probe and other equipment can poke around green urban spaces and uncover all sorts of things. Metal detecting is an enormous amount of fun, with possible survival value -- for the person who knows how to work a metal detector. And a potential loss to the person who buried his goods in a detectable location.
Ceiling panels - if you have acoustic or any other kind of tile ceilings, you can simply lift one of the tiles and put the item on the tile next to it. Not too much weight, but a small handgun, a magazine, a knife, etc.
Other items may be hidden above light fixtures if the light can easily be removed. Also, there's always the attic, which is usually dark. The attic could be cluttered up with lots of empty boxes to give the impression that it's not worth searching through.
Under the carpet - usually comes in 12-ft strips, so often there's that piece sort of on its own along the wall. Find an inconspicuous corner - maybe under a table and lift it up. Remove the padding and then it depends on what kind of floor you have. If there's a crawlspace then you may be able to cut a square, put a box in and basically drop in a hidden safe. Concrete may require some cutting - but it would only need to be a few inches deep and not too big to hide something valuable.
Inside your desktop computer - Sometimes there's some pretty big empty spaces inside desktops. Some items could possibly be stashed inside. Ditto goes for speaker boxes, washing machines and dryers.
Freezer - Who would go to the time and trouble of digging through 5 years of frozen peas? No one. You can probably hide a lot of stuff that's not temp-sensitive in a freezer and no one will think to look, as long as it's covered up.
Open your kitchen or bathroom cabinets underneath your sink. Put your hand on the other side of the sink where it meets the wall. Most people don't even think about that space.
Food containers - Remember Kill Bill? A cereal box or similar is an excellent hiding spot. Just make sure everyone knows which box of Fruit Loops is for emergencies only.
Not everything I would cache would pop a metal detector anyway. But I wouldn't trust the freezer thing. I heard its so common a stash location that burglars check there as a matter of course.
Three thoughts of the day include:
1) Wainscoting (those wood half-panels on the lower half of the wall that make places look like classic ol' boy libraries)
Wainscoting can be bought in premade panels of wood or molded stuff, and stained or painted to match your decor, though they tend to be either traditional or country and not sleek modern. Get it at Home Depot. What you put behind it is your business. It means you don't have to take the wall apart, though.
2) Burglars do flip books open and throw them all on the floor looking for those cheesy hollow books.
I have, however, never heard of a burglar taking one of those massive elaborate scrapbooks women glue/sew full of buttons and photos and 3-D appliques and stuff apart looking for items glued to the pages with other items glued on top of them.
Bad news though is then you're the sort of person who scrapbooks. :
3) Unused or decorative fireplaces can not only have the sides/back cut out and the space used, you change out/add nice-looking thick mantels and surrounds and claim additional wall space.
Have a boring drywall box house? You can put an attractive decorative gel-alcohol fireplace in a room for a few hundred dollars, no venting or chimney required. And if you are careful and sensible in designing your surround, you can have it be a functional fireplace. A lit fireplace does not shriek "hideyhole!" some not very expensive fireplaces
For more suggestions, I'd need to know what we're hiding.
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