This guy is your enemy. (During the Collapse, that is.)
He doesn’t seem like it; in fact, he looks kind of wimpy. He’s not a jack-booted Homeland Security trooper breaking down your door to take your guns, so he can’t be a threat, right?
Wrong. Dead wrong. He’s a bigger threat to most of you than the government.
Of course the government will be a threat, especially in urban areas where they will congregate and hold onto power in their fiefdoms. Gangs will also be a threat (more on that in Part 2 of this series). My point is that the guy pictured above – the unprepared neighbor – is the one most likely to actually try to take your stuff and, if necessary, hurt you and your family.
Who is this guy and why is he a threat?
He’s the guy who lives next to you. Just an average guy. Maybe you even gently tried to bring up the topic of prepping with him. He looked at you like you were from Mars and said, a little sarcastcially, “Oh, like those people on Doomsday Preppers?” Being a good (feminized) male in the suburbs, he thought preppers were a bunch of right-wing crazies who just had some weird fetish about (icky, icky) guns. He had plenty of opportunities to prepare but spent his time and money on concerts, trendy clothes, and whatever else most of America thinks is more important than taking care of their families in a crisis.
Then the Collapse hits. Very soon his high-end grocery store is out of goat cheese and the police are no longer functioning. After the shock and total disbelief wears off, he is terrified. Not just scared, but lose-your-mind hysterical. He’s been awake for several days because of all the gunfire he’s hearing, the baby has been crying, and his wife has been screaming at him for hours to “do something!” (This, of course, is a story in itself because she was the one who told him he can’t have a gun like Todd and Chloe in the 299 Days book series.) Your unprepared neighbor is not thinking rationally. He’s desperate. Studies show that after about 72 hours without food, people – even “nice” ones – will do horrible things to feed themselves and their families. He needs to shut her up, get some food, and feel safe. He’ll do anything to make that happen. Anything.
He remembers that conversation he had with you about “having a little bit of food in case the power goes out during the next ice storm.” He remembers seeing you putting a gun into your car that day you went to the shooting range. It all becomes “clear” to him: You need to give him food and a gun. It’s only fair. Besides, he tries to reassure himself, you are a nice guy. You’ll help.
He walks over to your place. He’s nervous and scared of what he’ll do. He politely knocks on your door. You don’t know it’s him so you don’t answer – home invasions are happening everywhere and the last thing you want to do is let anyone in.
The knocking gets louder. Then even louder; by now, it’s pounding. Who ever it is banging on your door is angry.
Finally, you recognize his voice.
Should you let him in?
How you answer this is a personal choice and depends on the circumstances. However, my point is that you must recognize this guy for what he is: your enemy. That’s kind of harsh, but here’s why.
You can’t solve his problem.
You can’t feed him and his family for the next few months or even years or guard his place all night instead of guarding your own. You just can’t. That was HIS job and he failed miserably. He feels humiliated that he didn’t take care of his family – and his wife won’t stop yelling at him. You are the reason (in his mind) that his problem isn’t getting solved. So, instead of you being able to solve his problem, you ARE his problem.
What can you do? Two things.
First, recognize that a seemingly harmless guy like this will, indeed, be your enemy. Recognizing this is the first – and biggest – step in successfully navigating this problem.
Second, get the hell out of that neighborhood at the first sign of the Collapse.
‘Second, get the hell out of that neighborhood at the first sign of the Collapse.’ People should have done this years ago. If I can do it just about anyone can. I will never go back to chitcago. I live in a very rural area. Many neighbors as well as their kids are avid hunters. Their freezers are stocked. If you can’t get out of the city due to job or whatever get to the outskirts. It really is about common sense.
Second, get the hell out of that neighborhood at the first sign of the Collapse.
True if your not really prepared but if you are where exactly would you advise going for the long term? Away from your ability to grow food and supply heat and shelter? Away from where you should have in place both equipment and tactics to handle this obvious occurrence? Away from where you have already in place others that are growing their own food and are armed and now form a militia?
To where you have none of the above and will be in the place of those that you have prepared to defend against? If you decide to “bug out” you have to have all requirements for living where you are going to “bug into”. Why would you not have known that guy was approaching? Well before he gets to your door? Why would that guy not know he will put himself in harms way by going to your home unannounced and with the attitude that sharing is you giving and him taking? Why did he not suffer a large and repeated electrical shock approaching your home? IF some get in and they might why would you not tell them for instance exactly where in the basement your food and arms stores are and let them go down with your blessing to where heavy odorless and clear gases other than oxygen have been released? Or where you can electrically roast them on your preset “pads”? Or where they will go with food but not YOUR food? The food you have poisoned? There is no reason to leave a well functioning home if your astute and know human nature. Preparedness does not mean just physical but includes marking your territory as it were by making those around you know what to expect enough to know you are not worth going to. But surely worth affiliating with voluntarily? For instance having much more food than you will ever need even with a crop failure for a year available to buy affiliation? The hard thing is realizing the unprepared should be treated as injured or sick animals are in the wild. For the same reasons, they ARE sick and mentally injured. IF you have the time and temperament and the resources you can help “heal” them. Otherwise, well that is obvious too.
Pretty cut and dry if you are serious.
Excellent comment.
“He’ll do anything to make that happen. Anything”
including being a rug on your door step after he gets ventilated for trying to steal from you
and if he comes with a gun he stole or was “allowed” to own by his brow beating wife , it just gets him dead sooner and further away from your shelter
that is, IF you are the prepared patriot you should be
chances are if he is such a snowflake,, we wont ever make it to your door , so dont chicken out and leave your place because some crybaby needs a tune up
If that sissy was banging on my door and posed a threat, of course I’d quickly waste him.
If he wasn’t a threat, but merely desperate, I’m the sort who would be cautiously magnanimous, mostly for the sake of the child. I’d say, “Told you so, dumbass,” and give him a little food so his family could get by for a few days. Then I’d tell them to go hunt, trap, and/or forage for more, because even if I gave them everything I had, it would run out fairly quickly.
If the grid goes down, we’re ALL going to have to live off the land. Very few people have enough food stockpiled to last even a month, let alone a year or more. And people who try to make it as loners will probably die. We all have to sleep sometime. We all get sick. And good luck fighting off ten guys with rifles by yourself (though you can always take some down with you).
In So Cal, I’m SURROUNDED by douchebags like him; making babies, grooming their trendy beards, unable to cross a street on a green light without a WALK signal telling them to, sipping latte’s at Starbucks in the middle of the day, living their little Normalcy Bias lives.
I’ve watched them, and already consider them quite dangerous, and just how fierce these Snowflakes will become when – especially as they will create a Snowstorm when many hungry Snowflakes come together.
As a video said;
“What happens to the guy who was last month looking at new Mercedes brochures and is now wondering where his next meal is coming from?”
Have a few places picked out, some close, some an hour or 2 away.
chances are dupes like this will be dead within the first 2 weeks,, be patient
and hopefully you wont ever have to deal with him
I dont answer the door in a SHTF situation
but i could sneak out my secret rear exit and flank him as he stands on my front step , Ive done this with solicitors ..really freaks them out , they dont expect you to show up behind them
I DON’T KNOW GUYS…. I GUESS IT’S FINE TO BE READY FOR THE “SHITIOTS”, BUT IF YOU DID WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSE TO DO, YOUR NEIGHBORS WILL EITHER BE STANDING BY YOU OR THEY WILL STAND CLEAR OF YOUR CRAZY ASS………………….HAVE YOU TALKED TO YOUR NEIGHBORS LATELY?
BE A LEADER!!! GET OUT THERE AND TEACH THE BILL OF RIGHTS. I GIVE EVERYONE I SEE A COPY……TEACH HISTORY, ESPECIALLY OF LAW!CONVINCE THE UNARMED THE NEED TO BE ARMED.. PREPARE AND TRAIN AS MILITIA!!!!
THAT’S HOW TO TREAT A NEIGHBOR.
It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
A beautiful day in this beauty wood.
Would you be mine …?
Could you be mine…?
Won’t chu be my neighbor..?
Won’t you please…
Oh.. Won’t you please
Pleazzzz…
Won’t you be my neighbor…..?