We preppers spend considerable time and resources stocking up for potential future need. Some of it we cache in various places, both to keep it out from underfoot and raise the probability that it will be available when and where needed. All that money and effort is wasted if our caches get destroyed.
How do we keep cached material safe and available? One of our readers recently had a setback as his BOL was broken into and his caches raided. That brought up some good points I thought should be shared with a wider audience.
What are the threats to a cache?
To know how to protect a thing, you have to think about what threatens it most. There are two major threats to caches:
Theft. As happened to our reader, somebody could break in and take stuff.
Entropy. Fire, floods, tornadoes, Godzilla stomping your container flat, who knows? Life happens.
Then there’s “The cache is safe! Too bad it’s useless.” That happens if the stuff’s not where you need it. It also can happen if you lock something up really securely and lose the key.
Protecting a cache from entropy
Thinking about placement of the cache relative to likely threats will help. Pro tip: Don’t store stuff in a flood plain. It floods there; more often than the “100 yr flood” designation would suggest. If tornadoes are a likely thing, don’t have a cache where trees or buildings are likely to blow on top of it. Also don’t use flimsy buildings that are likely to be landing on other people’s stuff. Are you in a wildfire zone? How ’bout some reliably fireproof storage?
On a more mundane note, small-scale entropy kills a lot of material goods. Trust me, I get the frustration of every danged thing wanting an environment that is dark, constantly cool, and dry. And then there’s bugs and rodents to keep out. We use a lot of ammo cans (for little stuff like electronics) and five gallon buckets. Packing in a low-humidity environment, adding desiccant packages, and air-tight sealing does it for many things. Vacuum sealing or air exclusion by adding dry ice are options for more air-sensitive items.
These are cheap, and will slow entropy’s destruction.
Protection from thieves: Lockout
As for the thieves, a stout container with a good lock is always discouraging. It’s never, however, complete proof against theft. If a thing is anywhere where somebody’s likely to see it and try to make off with it, a good lockup is a great idea. A key point: Make sure *you* can get back into the cache when you need it.
For example, there are some things we need to keep locked up at The Place. So, we installed a shipping container. Given appropriate locks, they are a royal bear to break into. It basically takes a cutting torch, or way more locksmithing skilz than you’re likely to find in a northeast Missouri backroads thief. This has the upsides of being spacious, also quite pest-proof, and being well known as a stout lockup. Nobody’s tried it yet, so far as we can tell.
A bonus feature of having such a good locking container is that we could clear the cabin of everything valuable. We leave its windows uncovered so anyone can see the entire interior. Nothing there worth stealing. So far, it’s prevented break-ins even though the metal pre-fab cabin would be cake to break into and is in a fairly isolated spot.
This shipping container makes a nice lockable cache at The Place. It’s also pest-proof.
However, we also secreted extra keys at The Place. We don’t want to lose the usual key and be completely unable to access our own stuff.
A great lockup feature is ‘immobile’. For example, our gun safes are stoutly bolted to the building walls; and those bolts are only accessible from inside the safes. Our house set of important papers isn’t so well protected, since being able to take the firebox out with us in a quick evacuation is more important than the added security. You’ve gotta weigh risks.
Since what one person can lock up another can break through, lockouts are best combined with another great method: Inconspicuousness.
Protection from thieves: Being boring
In The Purloined Letter, a very important bit of mail was effectively hidden by being in the middle of a pile of really boring mail. Thieves do not have infinite time nor patience. They go first for what they can see or suspect. If something is in an uninteresting spot and out of sight, it’s far less likely to be disturbed. One of our readers had some good ideas along this line in the comments to this post; which is what inspired this piece. My favorite was parking an old car over an in-ground cache — but make sure *you* will be able to get back in.
For example, I mentioned we kept spare container keys at The Place. Not in any of the usual spots. Hey, I’ll even tell you: There’s a key container in a root cavity of a particular tree you can see from the cabin. One of the approximately 2,000 trees you can easily see and walk to from the cabin. Which tree? Good luck with that. Salty and I will remember it because of a shared life event; it’s otherwise unremarkable.
If you didn’t Know which one of these trees sheltered a cache of keys, you’d *never* find them.
Lots of the stuff we cache is pretty boring. I can’t imagine anyone who breaks into our house spending all the time to dig to the bottom of a large galvanized trash can that’s mostly full with bags of popcorn or spare clothes.
Diversification of caches, because no plan is perfect
You may notice I said “The house set” of our important papers. There’s also a full duplicate set (more for some items) located off the property. Hey, a tornado might decide to take the house. (Please don’t take that as an invite, Mamma Nature. I’m just admitting you’re capable of it.) Other than Salty, there is nothing I really need that’s irreplaceable. When possible, the replacements are situated where they’re likely to survive any crisis that takes the other set.
This is especially important if your anticipated need occurs far away from your primary storage site. Moving stuff in an emergency ranges from frustratingly difficult to impossible. Plan accordingly.
consider using mobile home tie downs on your shipping container. one good EF5 could send all your stuff into another state. they are cheap and easy to install yourself. good luck and thanks again for all the good information you bring to us
I’ve seen where people spray the inside of the shipping container with that expanding, closed cell foam insulation. Kind of expensive, but so is the stuff inside. It gives you another dark cool dry place.
I’m sure that would slow the rate of temp change…but a big, closed steel box sitting in the sun all summer? Can’t see how it would stay cool in that. I’ve thought about training grapevines over it, for both concealment and evaporative cooling and shade…
Spice I too was worried about a 48 foot easy bake oven effect on your supplies.
Yes, the Grape Vines on a sort of an stand off arbor would provide a lot of cooling effects along with some distance camouflage effect. That and the grapes would be a bonus.
Too bad you cannot earth berm it for more earth cooling effects. A white painted roof would also help reduce heat build up as would a neutral earth tone paint job on the sides. Dark blue is a pretty good solar collector color.
Nature has no straight lines and the human eye sees straight lines very well. Thus the rounding effect of a earth berm, some bushes, along with an stand off arbor would make it look less “Man Made” than a dark blue 48 foot milvan.
As far as your spare keys in a tree root you are zone 5b? No frozen icy snow out your way? Murphy’s Law you know.
At the moment, we don’t want to hide the container…the obviously locked (and very hard to break into) container is what makes our easy-to-break-into cabin much less attractive. Unless we’re idiots, all the valuable stuff will be in the container. But we’re considering painting it to reduce temps. Right now we just are careful about what goes in.
We’re trying to figure out how to afford a good cellar. We’d like a decent tornado shelter out there, as well as temp controlled food storage.
Good thought on the freezing in problem; but it was something I considered. It’d be a pain to get to in snow/ice, but not a Giant pain.
Spice depending on how large a root cellar-tornado shelter you need could I suggest you look into a large poured concrete septic tank? They can pour it for you with out baffles and by design pretty well waterproof. You will need to add proper ventilation for either a root cellar or a T-shelter as well as a welded steel access passage-door. Into the side of a hill or bermed it would serve you well unless your 6 foot tall. Sometimes they have one that will not pass Septic Tank use and will sell pretty cheap along with a good extra waterproofing coating. I know two neighbors that have done this over the last few years.
I have used a 45′ high cube on my property for about six years. I don’t think you can solve the temperature range problem. If the sun hits it just partially during the day it will easily reach a hundred degrees. At night it will be a cold soaked ambient temp. put a ventilator in it and don’t store anything that is temperature sensitive.
I have always wanted one of those containers, I have a nice hillside that can be cut into and slide that container right in that spot.
That would make a nice safe place.