7 Things To Do To Defend Your Property During Disaster
Here are the top seven things you will need to do to defend your property during disaster:
1 – Keep Your Preps A Secret
The single most important thing you can do to defend your home during a disaster is actually not an actual modification to your home but rather a course of action: to keep all of your preps and your survival stockpile a complete and utter secret.
Once word gets out that you have a stockpile of food, water, ammunition, medicines, or other supplies in your home, people won’t forget about it.
When disaster strikes and people become desperate, they will come knocking on your door asking for a share of your supplies. And if you refuse, they will turn violent…and they will turn violent quickly.
The only people who should have any knowledge of your survival preps are those you absolutely trust, such as your immediate family and your closest friends and relatives.
Keep your survival stockpile hidden so that nobody will spot it when they visit your home.
If no one knows that you have items of value in your home, then the chances of you being attacked during disaster drop significantly.
2 – Replace Your Door Frames To Steel
Even if you have the most heavy duty lock on the planet, it’s only as strong as your door frame is. This is why you must replace the wooden frame that is most likely installed on your door ways in your home.
Any person will be able to break down those door frames with a hard enough hit from a sledgehammer, axe, or even a rifle stock.
Instead, go with a metal door frame instead, which are extremely difficult to take down.
Metal door frames are routinely available for around $200 or less, and every door in your home leading outside should be installed with one.
3 – Replace Your Actual Doors To Steel
Let’s say that you have a metal door frame but a wooden door. A determined intruder will still be able to physically break through the door with a hatchet, axe, or by shooting through it with a firearm.
This is why you need to have all steel doors that lead outside as well. Steel doors can be easily purchased for around $300 to $500.
4 – Replace Your Windows With Acrylic Glass
After your doors, the most obvious entry points into your home are your windows, so these will need to be fortified next.
The glass windows that you have installed on your home right now are very easy to break. Whether it be a rifle stock, a hammer, a rock, or a bare fist, they are very easy to punch through.
This is why your windows all need to replaced with a stronger material that won’t break so easily.
At the same time, the last thing you want to do is drastically change the look of your home in the process of replacing your windows. This is why installing steel bars, which are an excellent defensive fortification but also make your home look like a prison (not to mention they attract unwanted attention), is not an option for most people.
The best solution is to invest in acrylic glass, which is sold under the brand names Acrylite, Plexiglas, Perspex, and Lucite.
Plexiglas is a durable and transparent thermoplastic that is shatter resistant.
Plexiglas is not indestructible, but it will take much longer and more force for an intruder to break through.
By the time you hear an intruder smashing through a normal glass window, you may be too late to respond before they have entered your home.
But with Plexiglas, you will be able to respond with a firearm before the intruder has broken through into your home, and the chances of you surviving and successfully resisting the invasion go up dramatically at that point.
5 – Have Sliding Glass Doors? Install A Charley Bar
Do you have any sliding glass doors in your home? If so, you may think that these will be harder to fortify, but the truth is just the opposite is true.
Again, as with your windows, install acrylic glass on your sliding glass doors.
But an additional fortification measure that you can make is to install a Charley bar on your sliding glass doors.
A Charley bar will essentially slow a home invader down if they are trying to be sneaky in opening your sliding glass doors while you’re not looking.
A Charley bar will attach to the door and provide reinforcement to the middle of it instead of the bottom. You can also put a pole or broom handle at the bottom of the glass door to further provide reinforcement.
6 – Have An Alternate Building
It may also be a good idea to have an alternate building on your property as well, such as a shed or an external garage.
The reason why is because it gives you much extra room to store supplies and equipment, in addition to giving you an extra building from which to mount a defense. This may seem like a disadvantage because it splits your forces, but in reality, it means that you can have an advantage because the attacking force will need to split their forces as well.
If you don’t have a shed or external garage on your property yet, at least give consideration to building one. Doing so will not be as expensive as you may have feared, and the benefits of having an extra building on your property will be great.
7 – Leave Nothing Valuable In Your Garage or Shed
Many preppers and ordinary people alike will leave highly valuable items in their sheds or garage.
Obviously you have to leave your car in your garage, but many people will leave other valuable items in there as well, such as tools, ammunition, first aid supplies, or food and water.
This is a big mistake to make in regards to home defense, because your garage is easily the most vulnerable room in your own home. It’s the easiest part of your home for an invader to break into.
If attackers are unable to break through your doors and windows because you followed the above tips that we have already covered, their next target will be your garage…
… and once the intruders have broken into your garage, there will be nothing to stop them from taking everything in it that they want to.
Yes, there are measures you can take to stop or inhibit an intruder from getting into your garage as well. Installing an alert system, for example, can help to scare them.
But overall, I would strongly caution you against putting valuable items in your garage.
You do have to leave your car in your garage obviously, but don’t leave your car keys in it. Also do not leave food, water, ammunition, or other valuable survival supplies in it either.