Letter: Stomping Laundry Clean in TEOTWAWKI

HJL, My grandmother lived in a small village in Vermont at a time when there was only one washing machine in the village. The lady who owned it made her living taking in other people’s wash. My grandmother mostly did her own, in the big farmhouse kitchen sink. I remember the corrugated washing board and seeing her scrubbing clothes on it. During TEOTWAWKI we will be in a similar situation, but there is a much easier method of washing clothes, which I have adapted from traditional methods of pressing grapes to make wine. It involves a bathtub, soap, water heated …




Letter Re: Several Articles

Sir, First, thank you for all you do. I find this blog to be a wealth of information and inspiration. Second, regarding the piece about the Mosin/Nagent, thanks for a well-written article about Mosins. I recently purchased two of them for around $120 a piece. One was a piece of art manufactured just before WW2. The stock was a rich red and the brass pieces were screwed in. I cleaned it and gave it to my Dad as a “just because” present. The second Mosin was manufactured during WW2 and was much more rough. I ended up replacing the trigger …




Letter Re: Protecting Your Home, BOL, and Supplies from Pests

Hugh, Regarding Protecting Your Home, BOL, and Supplies from Pests, A cheap mousetrap can be made from a 5-gallon bucket, some sweet feed (molasses and grain), and a board. Take your 5-gallon bucket, add some sweet feed, and use the board as a ramp for the mice. The mice will climb up the board and jump into the bucket. Once in, they can’t get out. There can only be one mouse in the bucket, otherwise they kill and eat each other. The wonderful smell of the molasses will draw the mice in quickly. I’ve seen eight mice in the bucket …




Two Letters Re: Septic Tanks

Dear Editor, Recently there have been comments regarding septic tanks, how long they should last et cetera. As of today, if you want to spend money to pump them out every few years, more power to you. However, if there is a true TEOTWAWKI situation, you might want to take steps to add decades to the life of your septic tank. Actually, in such a case, you may want an outhouse that is way way away from your home and a septic tank right at your home. Here is why. In many countries, like Mexico for instance, it is common …




Letter Re: Septic Systems

Mr. Hugh, My house was built in 1978. I don’t know if you would consider it “modern”. It is built on a concrete slab with brick veneer and is air conditioned. I noticed in your comments about things going into the septic tank, especially water from the washing machine. This a source of major problems for septic systems. When my plumber stubbed out the sewer drain lines there were three. He offered me some good advice, which I followed. The larger 4-inch line I ran to my septic tank, which was the waste from my toilets, bath tub/shower, and lavatories. …




Letter Re: An Essential Prep, The Outhouse

There seems to be a general misunderstanding about what constitutes a septic system. I keep reading about the need to pump them out annually or some such. If you don’t mistreat a properly designed system by flushing materials that don’t belong there, it should work for decades with no maintenance. If it needs to be pumped out every year, you must have some kind of storage system, not a septic system, or maybe you’re using toilet paper that doesn’t break down. There is a difference, and the glamorous TV ads ignore the needs of country folks. Also our state agency …




Protecting Your Home, BOL, and Supplies from Pests, by JC

Pest control is an industry that touches almost every part of the average person’s life. From the food we eat to the items we buy, each step along the process chain is protected in some way by pest control services. So what will happen in an event or breakdown scenario? Will all those Pest Control Operators (PCO’s) unselfishly leave their families to report to work along with the truck drivers and grocery store clerks? The answer is “no”, of course not. That is why we prepare our supplies now. The coming dangers and breakdowns will effect so many aspects of …




Potential Bioterrorism Agent Found in Colorado, by Cynthia J. Koelker, MD

July 2014: One of the deadliest diseases on earth is right here in our own back yard, so to speak…with no vaccine, fatal without antibiotics, and on the CDC’s “Category A List” of potential bioterrorism agents. Don’t panic just yet. The disease also occurs naturally, as is the case in this month’s outbreak. However, overnight I’ve changed my outlook on the disease. What I’ve recently described to my students as highly unlikely is instead alive and well on the prairie. I’ve gone from believing I’d never encounter this infection to thinking it’s entirely possible. The next time I see a …




Letter Re: The Water Solution

I liked the article and the follow up comments noting the sanitary issue raised. My plan is to drill a hole in the bottom of the right side of the water closet tank and put a separate filler valve supplied by water from the catchment system via a separate pipe. I have an abrasive edged hole saw and am about to go test it out on some decommissioned 5-gallon flushers. It’ll be interesting to see if I can successfully drill porcelain. I think this solves the sanitary issues of hooking up a catchment supplied system in a useful way, saving …




Three Letters Re: Preparing Now For Good Sanitation After SHTF

Hello Hugh, I liked the article on Sanitation, although I have a different idea for my shower. I too will install my handpump. It has a hose bib connection for it (Bison pump), so I plan to run a hose into the house or to my out door shower that is sitting stored away for future use. It involves fours sheets of plywood cut to 6 feet 6 inches, two pallets of equal size, a box of good screws and even carrage bolts to assemble the shower room and a few extra 2X4’s for framing all precut for assembly. I …




Preparing Now For Good Sanitation After The SHTF, by S.T.

Good sanitation is paramount in a survival situation. So, protecting and extending your septic system and drain field in a long-term SHTF situation is very important in providing good sanitation. This is something that should be considered before SHTF happens. I do not have the money to purchase two fancy composting toilets or the money to install them, nor will my county approve it. I will be using a hand pump on my well to get water after SHTF, when there is no electricity. Therefore, I had to look to other ways that would provide good sanitation for my family, …




Letter: Hoarding

Hello Hugh. I have been following what is going on in Venezuela and the hoarding situation. Now of course their regime has made it illegal to hoard anything. So, I have been following what items that are in short supply. Not in any particular order they are: toilet paper, milk, powdered milk, coffee, corn flour, wheat flour, diesel, all soaps of any kind, and tires for cars and trucks. A black market is thriving, of course. The penalties for hoarding range from 6 to 14 years in prison. The very government that created this mess is now trying to lay …




Building a Backyard Water Treatment Plant, by J.S.M.

Clean drinking water is critical to your survival, because without potable water you will die within a few days. I don’t intend to hammer away on this point, because everyone who visits this blog generally knows how important it is to have access to clean water, and this subject has been covered many times from many different angles. Many of us have several hundred gallons of water stored away in containers, some more portable than others. Some plan to rely solely on a Berkey water filtration system to filter surface water collected from ponds or rain catchment barrels. While the …




Letter Re: When The Schumer Hits (Literally)

Dear Editor: In response to the article titled: When The Schumer Hits (Literally), by Prepper EMT: I am on board until we reach the recipe, which calls for lemon juice and lime juice. Unless you live in a citrus grove or in  a state where you can grow citrus and are lucky enough to get sick when the fruit is on the tree you are going to be in trouble here.   I suggest that [instead] each person stocks the ingredients to make a simple electrolyte solution that uses common and easily stored ingredients. There are several recipes to be …




Soap Making Before And After Interesting Times, by Laura and Jim Fry

Over the years there have been occasional posts on SurvivalBlog about making various “homemade” soaps using easily found commercial ingredients. These often include store-bought washing soda, Fells Naptha, Zote soap, baking soda and such. Simply grate them up in the right proportions, mix and there you go. There have also been posts going a step further that explain how to make soap from easily purchased oils, meat counter fat or suet, commercial lye and fragrances. It’s just not that hard if you make use of the ingredients and instructions easily found these days. But what do you do in TEOTWAWKI if the stores close, either from lack of product to sell or from looting? What if …