[Homemakers] A Prep Challenge-Hygiene

[Gingergirl]

Kearney (sp) makes his point in preparing a fallout shelter, that provisions need to be made for sewage disposal, garbage disposal, and personal hygiene.

So is everyone ready?

TSHTF seven days ago. Still no power and no city water.

1. Are you still keeping those toilets flushed?

2. You have already missed one garbage pick-up and the next one is coming up fast. What do you do with all of it?

3. The kids have run out of clean socks/underwear. They are going to start getting sores and fungus if they don't have clean, dry socks/underwear. You had just sorted them for a full load when TSHTF. A week later and you got to get them washed. Do you have water and a means of wash & dry? Are you heating the water to kill some of the nasties?

4. Kearny writes that warm moist areas of the body must be washed daily to prevent rashes and infections. What is your plan? And the water came from where? Did you heat it?


Share your experiences, plans, ideas.

Good Luck.

 

[north runner]

The first thing I've got to do tomorrow is disinfect the insde of my 500 gal aluminum water tank. It had rocks and and sediment in it and may have had river water though there was no algae I could see. After pressure washing the inside it was pretty clean but I want to be sure so I'm going to fill it and add a gal. of bleach for ever 100 gal. of water letting it sit overnight. Total I'll have about 800 gal. of sealed shelter water available.

 

[Albuburbia]

I could not believe how fast our water was getting used! Seven days into our own personal disaster flick, I'm shaking my last five gallon jug and it's too light for my own preferences. It looks like it's time to bring out the gennie. I wish the folks who run out little water coop would dig up a gennie for the community well, but nobody has yet. I won't get water into my household pipes, but I hope I can haul it from up the road.

Two years ago, I bought a little gennie at Home Depot. It's never been started - brand spankin' new. Dennis told me that once I start it, it's got to be run every so often, so I never fired it up - not even to test it. Fingers crossed on that! It's got 2 110 outlets, but I've pigtailed a cord so that I can put 2 plugs into the outlets, then the cords join together so that I'm ready to hook the neighbor's 220 well pump to it. DS and SIL are helping me load it into the 4-Runner, then it gets strapped into place. It's only about an eighth of a mile up the road, but I'd rather not be seen rolling just the gennie up to her house. In the Runner, it's hidden. Grab some electrical tape, just in case I need to change something, and we're outta here.

There's plenty of room for the empty jugs in the Runner. Neighbor is thrilled to see me coming, because she's hurting for supplies. Poor thing never got more than the few jugs she had for camping. She always buys food in bulk, but that was just for cost effectiveness, not prepping. She's a little low on a few things, especially water.

Rolling into her driveway, I pull the Runner up to the pump house. My lucky stars being aligned just right, the gennie fires up and the pump hooks up to it with only the most minor of modifications. And they laughed when I told them 2 years ago what I would be doing if and when TSHTF! Ha!

I've offered up a couple of my smaller jugs to her. Now that I know my gennie works on her pump, I can afford to let them go for now. She really needs them and I really need her water!

Water is now filling her bladder tank, and it's flowing in her faucets and toilets, as well as into my jugs outside. Yeah, well guess who needs a shower now! Yes, the broad with the gennie wants to get clean! I don't care if the water is cold - it's water and it's flowing and it's summer! Pressure is a little low, but it's a damn bit better than none at all!

I'm clean! I smell good again! It's been a long time, or so it seems. Can I please use the sink to rinse out some light laundry? Cool. Be right back. Need anything? Sure, I've got a few things I can bring back - need rice?

While the gennie is still running, I send the boys back to the house to flush the toilets. They're not bad. I've been using bags and a bucket with a toilet seat, just to cut back on water usage. I still have a couple hundred bags left. I've also instructed them to fill the washing machine and bring back the empty jugs for another refill. I'll fire up the gennie when I get it home and throw in some jeans and shirts. If I have them leave one of the dark-colored jugs in the sunshine, I can wash with warmer water. Once the machine goes through the first chug, and I'll be standing right there to watch it, I'll pull the clothes out, put them into a bucket, and put more clothes in to reuse the same wash water. If I can get away with a third load, I will. Then I spin the loads one at a time. I have the drain hose going into the tub so I can save the water for flushing toilets.

The machine gets a filling of rinse water, and that is also saved when it spins out. Nothing to do now but hang them to dry. It's cool having the gennie, because while it's running the washer, the kids are vacuuming. It should help morale to have a clean environment, but everybody is looking at me as if I've done something wrong. I know what it is. I'm the only one who doesn't smell bad now! They know I copped a shower somewhere! I better make something really good for dinner or they'll attack me in my sleep!

 

[Gingergirl]

north runner

800 gallons is pretty good. I estimated that with careful rationing of water for cooking, sponge baths, very limited toilet flushing (we would not be exactly order free,) and one small hand washing of clothes, we would go through 75-100gallons per day.


Alburbia

Moving water around is a lot of work even if you have containers.

Better save that gas for the Runner.

 

[sally]

Pre Y2K, some members of the Northern Virginia Y2K Communitiy Action Group researched waste disposal and water treatment for families. I put their papers on my website (with permission).

You may find them helpful.

http://www.emergencykitchen.com/html/waste_disposal.html
http://www.emergencykitchen.com/html/water_paper.html

Sally

 

[booger]

TSHTF seven days ago. Still no power and no city water.

1. Are you still keeping those toilets flushed?

No. We're using the same thing we currently use: a bucket toilet and humanure compost bin.

2. You have already missed one garbage pick-up and the next one is coming up fast. What do you do with all of it?

Same thing we do now. Either burn it or haul to the dump (if we can spare the gas and need to go that direction anyway.

3. The kids have run out of clean socks/underwear. They are going to start getting sores and fungus if they don't have clean, dry socks/underwear. You had just sorted them for a full load when TSHTF. A week later and you got to get them washed. Do you have water and a means of wash & dry? Are you heating the water to kill some of the nasties?

Yes, we have water stored here, as well as a pond on our property, a creek in the neighboring pasture (with permission to access), and a big lake not far away. We wash and dry the same as we do now, by hand. Wash in a bucket with a washboard and dry on the clothesline. We heat water on our stove (propane) but, if we ran out of propane, we could easily heat it over the firepit or woodburning grill.

4. Kearny writes that warm moist areas of the body must be washed daily to prevent rashes and infections. What is your plan? And the water came from where? Did you heat it?

Again, same as we do currently. We have stored water plus access to more in the immediate area. We take our "showers" out of buckets with cups. We average about 3 gallons for bathing our entire family of 6 but could cut that down. In the summer, we use it straight out of the barrel (black) because it's plenty warm but, in the winter, we do heat some of it.

This was fun! I missed the earlier challenges but I think I'll go do those right now.

 

[Freeholdfarm]

(I'm assuming that this scenario doesn't necessarily have to include being confined to a fallout shelter?)

Toilet -- sawdust bucket toilet, emptied into a compost pile. Have bales of shavings (sold at feed stores as animal bedding, and not all that expensive, since one will last for several weeks) or peat (again, feed store or garden supply store and will last for weeks) stored to cover material deposited in bucket and compost pile. Save graywater to rinse the bucket before bringing it back inside, and if you can manage a few spare buckets, leave them out to dry in the sun for a few days after each use. If you expect to be confined for a couple of weeks, have two (or more, if you have the space) buckets per person so you don't have to go outside so often to empty them.

Laundry -- wash tubs and scrub board, hand-crank wringers, and clothes lines. We aren't relying on stored water, as the river is fairly close, and we'll shortly (Lord willing) have a hand pump on our well. In a pinch, you can hand wash underwear and socks in the water left after a spit bath, and hang it up to dry. Have clothesline and clothespins as part of your preps.

Garbage -- we don't have garbage pick-up (well, we could get it, but it's a lot more expensive than taking our own stuff to the transfer station), so we have considerable storage space for trash and recyclables. All food waste goes either to the chicken or the compost pile. Trash that had food in it, such as tin cans, get rinsed and put in recycle bins. Paper trash can be burned for heat and cooking, so that is saved as well. A lot of our food is home canned, and the jars are saved for re-use. So all that gets thrown away is the flat part of the lid. Paper goods such as napkins, paper towels, sanitary napkins, and so on would be quickly replaced by cloth, and end up in the laundry category. Eventually we'd come to a place where I'd have to get some stuff to the transfer station four miles away. I could walk and haul it in the garden cart if nothing else. Of course, in a long-term SHTF situation, the transfer station would fill up, and the whole community would have to find some other solution, such as garbage pits in the back yard, but in that case, we probably wouldn't be generating so much trash as we do now anyway.

Personal hygiene -- even in a worst case scenario, you can keep fairly clean with a small basin of water and a wet washcloth. Go easy on the soap as it will be difficult to rinse it all off, and soap on the skin can cause problems. Just clean water will take care of most dirt. Hair might need to be cut short, in order to conserve on washing water. But it is important both for health and morale to stay as clean as possible.

Kathleen

 

[Albuburbia]

north runner

800 gallons is pretty good. I estimated that with careful rationing of water for cooking, sponge baths, very limited toilet flushing (we would not be exactly order free,) and one small hand washing of clothes, we would go through 75-100gallons per day.


Alburbia

Moving water around is a lot of work even if you have containers.

Better save that gas for the Runner.

When it all goes down, the Runner and my sedan will be little more than motorized wheelbarrows for hauling water and firewood fetching. When the gas gauge hits 3/4, I consider it empty and time to hit the gas pumps, like I did this morning. In addition, I keep two 5-gallon gas jugs full at all times. Those were just refreshed a couple of weeks ago. Then I have a separate jug for my chainsaw, weed whacker, and whacker-mower.

I really should buy a siphon hose, one with a squeeze bulb on it for milking the Pontiac (and truly-abandoned vehicles). It (the Pont.) probably won't move at all in Disasterworld. It's just another gas jug at that point.

 

[Libertarian]

"It's got 2 110 outlets, but I've pigtailed a cord so that I can put 2 plugs into the outlets, then the cords join together so that I'm ready to hook the neighbor's 220 well pump to it." Aluburbia

This may not work as most gennies, unless they are built for a 220 VAC ouput, generate only a single phase. You could get around this with a 100-220 transformer if the well pump doesn't require two phase for start-up.

 

[Albuburbia]

Okay, Lib, I'll look into that. Thanks.

Not too worried, though. Our little neighborhood is scattered with lots of tradesmen of all kinds, and many of them have lots of cool equipment. I'd be pretty amazed if somebody didn't come up with a gennie for one of the wells somewhere. OUr little coop has 4 wells, each limited to 10 households, with most of them handling fewer than that. We have many homes with private wells, too. Worst case scenario I see, and yes, I'm a dreamer, is a water day being designated and everybody shows up with their jugs at a whatever time at one of the wells.

 

[Deena in GA]

Okay, we have a septic system and water stored for flushing, but only in have-to situations. For #1, especially for the boys, they can go in the woods. Still enough stored water for sponge bathing. Garbage we'll either burn or put on the compost pile. There will be much less garbage though than usual if we can't go anywhere.

Washing will be done in the neat little hand crank washer I bought pre-y2k. It works really well and uses relatively little water. Have a big yellow mop bucket with ringer that can be used to rinse and wring. Then we'll hang out the clothes like we normally do.

(I am thinking, though, that we need to go ahead and either get a hand pump for our well, or rig up a bucket system.)

 

[Gingergirl]

You all are doing pretty well. Happy, healthy families.

Deena, is the washer like the one sold by Lehman's that pressurizes the water and will do a few shirts at one time? Not very expensive, doesn't take up much space, but is it durable?

 

[Deena in GA]

Yes, it is that washer. I bought it from Lehman's in '98 or '99 and have used it a few times over the years. One of my kids did something to it at one point and made a small crack in it but it was repairable and works fine now. I am very impressed with how well it cleans and how easy it is to use. The only problem I have with it is trying to hold it down at the beginning while turning the crank. After getting it going, it turns very smoothly.

 

[Flagwaver]

This is a great thread I'll come back to during the day when I've more time to read.

But I can say this. Our power was out for 5 days once. No water except what I had in jugs. It is very hard to stay feeling clean just sponge bathing, but that's what we did. The house was so dark and depressing even with oil lamps. Everything "felt dirty" even if it was not bad.

I put a water jug near each sink with a big bowl, rag and towel. For washing the face, arms, whatever. But it was very cold in the house and the water was icy feeling. I'd pour water into a clean bowl and use that to wash with. It got dirty and had to be poured out of course.

We had no heat except for the fireplace. Fireplaces are a joke.

If we had had any doubts of the power not coming back on eventually, we would not have even used the toilets. But we felt sure power would return, so we poured bleach into toilets after each use. After seven days, that sure would not have worked anymore. It barely worked as it was. I can't remember now. But my husband may have poured water from jugs into toilets and then flushed. I can't remember.

If we could not use toilets, we would use a camp toilet with bag inside. That would be placed into a metal trashcan outside. I wish we had a compost toilet like the humanure book says. That would make better sense.

I guess if all trash collection ceased, we'd go out in the middle of the night and bury our waste. Over time we would make our own little mountain of tin cans. I'd use flat parts of boxes to cover weeds in garden.

Now all this is assuming other people are not roaming about outside. Dream on. If disease got started you sure don't want to be meeting anyone outdoors.

We have no way of heating our house now. And no way of heating water if the propane bottles run out. Maybe burn wood outside. It seems to me that having a cookstove is a must, but there is always the problem of getting enough wood.

All this stuff has to be thought out ahead of time. And planned for. And then it seems those who are managing the mess well will be noticed by those who aren't - what then?

I think we can plan and do our best, but we will need God more than ever to do what we can't. Miracles will have to happen. Like keeping bad people away.

 

[Gingergirl]

Flagwaver

Your personal experience is a good reality check. Planning is very important, but experience is priceless.

I don't think I give any consideration to how quickly I might become depressed if I was cold and dirty, in a gloomy house.

How were your spirits?

 

[Gingergirl]

Thanks Deena, I'll have to look into that little washer.