Prep war stories
After someone let themselves in to our small six-car apartment garage at 3 am yesterday morning, I spent later that morning going through my tools to see what was taken. A drill in its case w/o the charger, hehe, a staple gun and something else in a black case, I forget what it was. They also took a small prybar, which leads me to believe they plan on coming back to try to pry open the doors to the storage lockers, which are built pretty flimsy.
I've got much of my food preps in three of these lockers/closets, so I reinforced the two end closets (mine) with a big sheet of 3/4 inch plywood and the other with 2x4s and large 4" nails and wood screws. I had to empty one of storage closets out and rearrange. I noticed I had some canned corned beef from 2000, so I brought a can up to my apartment, still have to open it.
Needless to say, 5 hours later I was exhausted just to find out that I'm fighting all the elements just to keep my preps in decent condition. I found a small hole in a bag of beans and some beans strewn about. I guess the mouse didn't care much for raw beans, but he left me a little drop of mouse pee on the bag. I disinfected the bag and everything else in that storage closet with alcohol, wiped everything down and stored it someplace more secure.
We have a lot of water seeping through the retaining wall foundation (built into a hill) and the hill is saturated. So this seepage is running under all the storage closets and out under one of the garage doors. So some canned items I had on the bottom of the closet were starting to show some rust.
A shelving unit I have against another portion of the retaining wall foundation has water seeping under it as well, so the wood sitting directly on the concrete is soaked and upon opening the doors to the shelving unit, I noticed some fungus growing under a couple of #10 cans I had on the bottom shelf, nice circular patterns. I disinfected this area as well and slightly raised the shelving unit to allow the seepage to flow under it.
Oh and I keep finding dead pill bugs in my plastic storage totes. I was a bit exasperated, thinking that I'm living in a swamp with thieves running amok here on a hill in San Francisco overlooking the bay (kind of like NOLA after Kat). I did make some progress today, but I also realized that there's more to prepping than just setting stuff aside for, ahem, a rainy day. It all has to be safeguarded as best as possible depending on the circumstances of your surroundings.
I have to guard against neighbors who unlatch their garage door to get it to open and leave it unlatched, instead of calling the landlord to fix it, thereby allowing anyone on the street access to the garage. I have to safeguard against all sorts of pests and against water damage during the winter months. I imagine I'd have similar issues even if I owned my own home, so I don't think that's a practical solution at the moment.
That's the extent of my prep work this week. Next week will be better as I plan on getting a water resistant, locking storage cabinet where I can store all my tools and some preps. I took the night off from work tonight partially because I'm wiped out and partially cause this burglery that occurred almost 24 hours ago still has me a bit concerned.