Paranoid Prepper Is Back!

I’m Back!

Some of you have been around awhile and may have read a few of my posts when 3BY was new.  As the site developed, I hit a point of writer’s block, not to mention being kind of busy with life, and decided to give writing a rest. 

Well, I’m back!  I’ve got a few updates on old topics and perhaps a couple original ideas to share.  I hope that both of my loyal readers will enjoy my upcoming posts!

Back? Where have I been?

The first big event to relate is that I escaped from the People’s Republic of New Jersey (PRNJ)!  I managed to retire south.  PRNJ is not a bad place to live, or prep, but preppers from other areas always say “move” when the issue of PRNJ gun control comes up. 

However, work and family obligations kept me there until retirement age. (Yes, I am that old.)  😊  What finally got me to move was the taxes became untenable.  It is one thing to pay the highest state and local taxes in the country while working, but in retirement, what’s the offset?  It is not a good job!  Furthermore, several of my family/MAG had left the state ahead of me, so my family obligations in PRNJ were declining.

Those of you who live in normal places, i.e. not in the northeast or on the west coast, may not realize what has happened.  People are leaving NJ and other states at a high rate.  New York generally gets the press for having more people move out than any other state, but PRNJ is actually losing people at a higher per capita rate.  I ought to know since I am one of them.

South

I decided to relocate to South Carolina, as some of my wife’s family was there.  Moving at all presented some challenges, and some of those challenges were aggravated by being a prepper.  For instance, prepper storage needs translate into moving needs.  One thousand cubic feet of stored preps fills a PODS container.  In addition, my spouse did not want to part with anything.  Things that had been cluttering our house that I said “trash”, moved with us.

Clearly, using some of the stored toilet paper, cleaning supplies, food, etc. ahead of time would help with minimizing moving problems, so my loving non-prepper spouse and I had some discussions about what to dispose of.  That went fine until she suggested selling my guns.  Needless to say, my response was not something I wish to repeat on a family friendly web site.  😊

Jewelry Box

Another challenge was the 900 lb. “jewelry box”.  The cost of moving this thing was going to be close to the cost of buying one new, so I considered just leaving it with the old house and buying a new one in South Carolina. 

Then my cousin expressed an interest in having it to add to his “safe space”, pun intended.  😊  He claimed to have moved a few safes in the past in the back of a pick-up truck.  I told him if he wanted it, to come and get it.  I also told him I was not going to help him move it.  😊  He promptly fell down a flight of stairs, wrecking his shoulder in order to get out of the problem he had talked himself into.  ☹

The new owners of my previous home, now have a safe.

Selling the house

Selling a house is a bit different from the last time I did it.  The process gives the appearance of being very fast, thanks to the internet.  Then stuff starts popping up to screw up the deal.  One biggie for us was the home inspection.  The home inspector decided to fault all sorts of stuff that was actually okay.  We were living with it. 

The buyer’s lawyer then sent a letter asking for a bunch of stupid stuff to be fixed.  I really hit the ceiling when there turned out to be a bird’s nest above a window that I hadn’t even noticed, and they wanted it removed before closing.  My response was that I liked birds, but they were more than welcome to remove the nest once they owned the house.   😊

Then it turned out the buyer could not sell their house and the deal fell through.  Meanwhile the New Jersey’s real estate market continued to slow.  More people leaving than moving in is not good for the housing market.  Then the buyer sold his house and the deal was on again, but I insisted the deal was “as is”, i.e. the bird’s nest was his problem.

When closing came around, the closing got delayed, and delayed, . . . until I was ready to kill the deal, when all of sudden it closed.

Buying the new house

Buying a new house presented a different challenge in the form of my HGTV addicted wife.  I tried to set some criteria to narrow down the houses in the area we were looking at, e.g. so many square feet, so many bedrooms, etc. 

Her idea of a house search was to drive around endlessly, looking at houses as they went by going “do you like that one”?  Whether the house was actually for sale didn’t seem to matter.  I found that prospect mind numbing.  ☹

We finally managed to pick a house that both of us could compromise on.  The following day she started to talk about redoing the kitchen.  I don’t think I will bring her along on the next move.  I’ll leave her behind like the safe.  😊

Right now, she is replacing floors and kitchens and having a grand time.  The good news is we are in.

Summary           

As a prepper, moving is an even bigger headache than it is for a mentally stable person, but it can be done.  I need to revise my disaster plans and take a step back in some ways, but I can do a better job going forward, thanks to my past experience.  Suggestions along the way will be appreciated.  More to come.