Security on your homestead for when SHTF

[Seeker1001]

Hey all,

If it comes down to having to bug in I plan on heading to my parents homestead where they have a few acres and the beginnings to prepping. A big concern of mine, beyond prepping items, is our security. We are right off the highway and the house is in plain view. What can we do to secure our property from intruders during a SHTF situation?

 

[Brent S]

No doubt that being off the beaten path is preferred, but we all have to deal with the situation we have. Maybe plant a privacy barrier along the property lines. Also have some defensive weapons and train everyone how to accurately and safely use them. Even though security is in my top five of the prepping priorities, water and food are still my primary concerns.

 

[Danil54grl]

I would check into trying to camouflage the home as much as possible with high shrubbery along the roadway. Look for thorny shrubs that grow good in your area. Also like Brent suggested, have everyone get proficient with weapons. Material General posted a good video about how to make Caltrops over in the Set Up & Use Defensive section. A good guard dog or two also comes to mind. Set up booby traps when the time comes. Lots of possibilities.

 

[Seeker1001]

I would check into trying to camouflage the home as much as possible with high shrubbery along the roadway. Look for thorny shrubs that grow good in your area. Also like Brent suggested, have everyone get proficient with weapons. Material General posted a good video about how to make Caltrops over in the Set Up & Use Defensive section. A good guard dog or two also comes to mind. Set up booby traps when the time comes. Lots of possibilities.

What type of booby traps would you set up and where? I'm curious to find out what my options are to set up now that can be armed in the future

 

[Danil54grl]

It would really depend on your set up, how things are positioned, how many people can help with security, landscape. Do you have trees? Is your place flat or do you have mountains? Are you fenced in? If so with what? Go check out the threads I listed above and also tactics. You might get some ideas that will work for your home.

 

[Brent S]

There may be a time when you could need defensive measures in place, but with anything leathal it would just be too dangerous and probably illegal right now. I think concrete planters are a great idea. One you can plant edibles in them, and as a defensive firing posistion they are great. They can also be used as a barrier to slow vehicles. One thing to consider is a normal house will barley even slow a bullet down. Having some kind of reinforced furniture to hide behind could be considered. If you have flat ground you could dig some furroughs to use for cover in a fight too. Just throwing out ideas here.

 

[jontte]

about booby traps,just look what type the Viet Cong made and used,nasty,effective,leathal...

 

[Seeker1001]

It would really depend on your set up, how things are positioned, how many people can help with security, landscape. Do you have trees? Is your place flat or do you have mountains? Are you fenced in? If so with what? Go check out the threads I listed above and also tactics. You might get some ideas that will work for your home.

We are working on getting a fence around the property, but it's quite the investment at $50,000 for the material we need. fairly flat area

 

[Seeker1001]

Thank you guys, some great ideas here

 

[pengyou]

You can consider some fast growing trees/shrubs as a natural fence to hide a barbed wire, electrified fence. Keep in mind that, while a fence is useful to protect you, it is also useful for those who are attacking.

 

[TexasFreedom]

It takes a lot of work to keep the trees/shrubs OUT of the barbed wire fence. It stretches the wires, makes it easier to climb over, it's bad news. And even worse for electric fence, it'll short it out every day. And rule-of-thumb is the labor is equal to the materials cost.

 

[Brent S]

You can consider some fast growing trees/shrubs as a natural fence to hide a barbed wire, electrified fence. Keep in mind that, while a fence is useful to protect you, it is also useful for those who are attacking.

Reminds me of a city built on a high bluff with huge walls that were impenetrable. the invaders just circled it, cutting off supplies and starved them out

 

[Maverick]

We are working on getting a fence around the property, but it's quite the investment at $50,000 for the material we need. fairly flat area

First put a 300' parameter around the house before putting it around the property but $50k for your property? how many acres?
For a 5 run barbed wire field fence it shouldn't cost no more than $750 per 1320' and that includes everything (except tools) that's a little over a 5 acre run $1500 for a 10 acre run, a square 10 acres would cost $6000

From defensive perspective, you want to fence off what you can defend (defensive parameter fence) Once you get your defensive fence built then work on the outer parameter fence starting at the most vulnerable points.

 

[TexasFreedom]

Mav,
I'm not sure you know the details. I've got a mile or two of fencing on my small place. And when you get to dry creeks, gates, cross fencing, etc, it goes right on up. A fellow I know was fencing in a couple hundred acres and it was going to be $200 or 300k. It was flat land and no rock but he was doing high-fence for exotics.

Another friend was quoted about $25k to repair/replace about half of his fencing around 200 acres. If I remember that was about a 1 mile of fencing. And that was plain 5-strand barb wire.

I remember putting up the first mile or so of fencing when I moved out here, with the help of a neighbor & our wives. Not easy, not cheap. Free labor, and wholesale materials. $50k

 

[Maverick]

Mav,
I'm not sure you know the details. I've got a mile or two of fencing on my small place. And when you get to dry creeks, gates, cross fencing, etc, it goes right on up. A fellow I know was fencing in a couple hundred acres and it was going to be $200 or 300k. It was flat land and no rock but he was doing high-fence for exotics.

Another friend was quoted about $25k to repair/replace about half of his fencing around 200 acres. If I remember that was about a 1 mile of fencing. And that was plain 5-strand barb wire.

I remember putting up the first mile or so of fencing when I moved out here, with the help of a neighbor & our wives. Not easy, not cheap. Free labor, and wholesale materials. $50k

That seems awfully expensive, we replaced a little less than 1400 feet wire and post and the cost was a little more than $800 with taxes just 4 years ago

 

[Maverick]

I need to clarify my statement(s) using the phone to posts leaves a lot to desire

Would it not be cheaper to put up a defensive parameter fence before going to the expense of installing a fence around the whole property?

 

[Arcticdude]

I've never really figured out the total cost of fencing before. But every year I replace between 200-400 old fence posts at a cost of about $6-$24 per post. Most are metal T-posts but a lot are pressure treated wood posts too, including railroad ties. I've got about a mile of fencing in a rocky area that I have to build cribs out of 4×4's and fill with rocks. Each crib takes most of a day to complete. This spring I'm going to try out a rock drill to set some posts in the solid rock areas. I'm also taking out about 5 miles of old barb wire, which I'll reuse in other areas. A few weeks ago I made a trade with a young man to help me with repairing and building new fence. I'm giving him an old barn in trade for his labor. He'll start dismantling it this spring when the snow is gone. If I had to hire someone to re-fence this property, even with the typical 3 strand barb wire, it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course my fence is designed only to keep my cows in and free-range cows out, not for security.

 

[Gazrok]

I'm with Mav on first fencing around the house. Create a defensive perimeter (but also gives an area for some mean looking dogs to go out in)....

For cheaper fencing, I often use cattle panels. These are about $21 for an 18 foot panel, and then 4 posts at about $6 each or so. The gates are the expensive part, at about $100 for a 10' gate. (enough to get a car or truck through). I pretty much have a mix of this and chain link around the ranch. Chain link is a pain to do yourself....cattle panel is much easier and cheaper.

You can also use these wooden posts to create vehicle barricades. While they could be removed with work, if put in an area that would be exposed to rifle range fire......

Barbed wire is good, and can be cheap. Now this is all assuming you save on the labor (i.e. do it yourself).

I don't know where all the electric fence stuff comes from. It may scare off people that don't know, but it's typically just a wire (not the whole fence, or it will ground out), and used to keep livestock from damaging the fence. It's not much against a thinking human, who just uses a stick to then twist the wire and break the circuit....

Another good note about a fence. It can work as a range marker for you, to use with your rifle scope. So you will know EXACTLY how far away a target is on the fence, and hit them with MUCH more accuracy than they will. (unless they have a laser distance finder).

 

[Gazrok]

Brings up another point. You should have range marker cards, at each position that may potentially be a shooting position. This way, you use your property landmarks to gauge the distance to target. These could be created after the SHTF of course, as they would look a bit odd hanging up before then...but in a drawer....

 

[Gazrok]

Other tips.

Motion sensitive lighting. (solar powered is best) charges in the day, on at night. (even off grid)

As mentioned before....DOGS

Once you have a fence, you could encourage vine growth along it. However, keep in mind it also prevents you from seeing past that point too.

Post SHTF, just practice having lights off at night, having sentries with SHORT shifts (to guard against boredom and complacency). Also, be stealthy with things like noise, smoke from cooking, etc. I don't know about you, but if it's SHTF, and I'm wandering the highway, and then see smoke, I'm thinking...."they got food?"