Cabin in the boonies

10698 Views 27 Replies 24 Participants Last post by rflood, Sep 1, 2010

Tool

Discussion Starter · Oct 10, 2008

My wife and I are in the process of building a cabin in the boonies. We have a regular house in town where we stay with our kids. We plan on stocking up this cabin over time in case of emergency and then after the kids are grown, we will move out there and develop our homestead there.

So that leads me to my question, how can I keep my cabin and belongings safe when I am not there to watch it and there are no near by neighbors to keep an out for me and report suspicious activity?

1 - 20 of 28 Posts

Bearman405

· #2 · Oct 11, 2008

Is it on private or public land?.....................when I builded my trapper/prospecting cabin it was on public land (Crown Land here). I picked a spot out of the way and build it in such away that it was hidden from view.

No guantrees that a good bush man won't find it.

Lowdown3

· #3 · Oct 28, 2008

Best bet would be to bury supplies and/or put in hidden areas of the cabin.

For a bulk of supplies consider a 20 or 40 sealand container.

Or find a local storage rental center near the location to rent. Put some of your bulk supplies there. When the time comes your much closer to make a couple trips to retrieve your goods.

At least the bulk of it is out of the cities and away from potential trouble. That's the important part.

Lowdown3

TechAdmin

· #4 · Oct 28, 2008

Bearman405 said:
Is it on private or public land?.....................when I builded my trapper/prospecting cabin it was on public land (Crown Land here). I picked a spot out of the way and build it in such away that it was hidden from view.

No guantrees that a good bush man won't find it.

You built a cabin on public land? That's legal in BC? How long can you legally stay in it? Here in Texas I think it's illegal to build anything on public land, let alone live there.

NaeKid

· #5 · Oct 29, 2008

Crown land is "open" to all. I have half-a-dozen cabins that I X-country ski into. Summer supplies the cabins with whatever is needed including firewood, papers, toiletries and such. Winter-time is spent exercising - ski into each cabin and check on it.

Most of the cabins are "shared" with friends - we work together on the up-keep and stocking of the shelves. Because of the nature of the cabins, unless you are a skier and can follow the tracks, they are safe year-around.

The only rule that I know of - you cannot lock the cabins, you cannot insure the cabins - in essence, they become "public" property.

Fiddich

· #6 · Nov 11, 2008

I have a cabin in the woods that is used constantly. No idea who but when it was built, there was a sign posted on it that you are welcome to use it but please help out if you have something useful that is not expensive, leave it here for others to use.

This will NOT be a place I go in times of trouble as there are any number of people who know about the place and consider it Theirs. Easy to prove who built it as there are photos of the construction.

As was said before, kepp your stuff OUT of the cabin. Hidden REALLY well.

BigDaddyO

· #7 · Nov 11, 2008

Good luck trying to secure the place. a friend of the family had a cabin on 20 acres. I believe it was a 1200 sf house that he had built about 20 years ago. he used to spend 1 - 2 weekends a month out there. earlier this year someone broke into the house and stole EVERYTHING. i'm talking wires, pipes, Windows, Doors, Carpet, appliances, EVERYTHING... the price of scrap and salvage materials have gone up and thieves will take anything even if it's nailed down now a days.

chesterburrito

· #8 · Nov 11, 2008

Have a large population of dogs around the house that you have someone feed...

alig33

· #9 · Feb 22, 2009

You could consider burrying large safes around the area and marking them with GPS

Expeditioner

· #10 · Feb 23, 2009

alig33 said:
You could consider burrying large safes around the area and marking them with GPS

The smaller gun safes work pretty good too!

alig33

· #11 · Feb 23, 2009

well you couldnt fit much in them

Expeditioner

· #12 · Mar 2, 2009

alig33 said:
well you couldnt fit much in them

True though the idea is to not put all of your eggs in one basket and they are easier to conceal.

dukman

· #13 · Mar 3, 2009

alig33 said:
You could consider burrying large safes around the area and marking them with GPS

Safes?? Why go thru the expense of getting safes? Also they are harder to seal up tight. If they end up finding your safe, they would take it too. Might as well save the money and use 5g buckets. At least they couldn't use a metal detector to find them. In fact, metal caches near a cabin is a bad idea. Some "treasure hunters" go all around older cabins they find or hear about with a metal detector.

If you want to make a nice fire pit, bury your caches about a foot under the bricks lining the pit. If anyone for some dumb reason wanted to take the bricks, they wouldn't think of digging deeper.

If you have the time, lets say over a summer, you can build an underground bomb shelter style cache. Use the techniques of a dug out emergency shelter, with better building techniques such as more protection from rain soaking into the ground. Maybe even cement walls and floor, not too deep, all you need is about 4' walls. You don't need a fire pit and vent. Cover the top with heavy duty wood, with vapor barrier above. Add a well concealed door, plant bushes around it, maybe even a full on evergreen garden with beauty bark. You could even cover the door with a foot of soil as long as you remember where it is... In the event that you actually have to USE your retreat in SHTF, this would still be a very useful place as a cellar.

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endurance

· #14 · Mar 3, 2009

One idea is a shipping container. They can be well secured and even better if you can bury it (depending on you water table). Gang boxes (worksite tool boxes) are also valuable for storing a sizable quantity of material. If you want to work around metal detectors, you need to buy a 50 pound box of carpet tacks or ungalvanized washers. Every time you go to your cabin, walk 50' in any direction and start throwing handfuls of them. Anyone with a metal detector will quickly lose interest after the 400th false find.

TimB

· #15 · Mar 4, 2009

I wouldn't consider leaving anything of value inside a remote cabin. I wouldn't even lock it. My dads neighbor was in a hunting club some years back. The members got together and built a cabin, furnished it, and stocked it with everything they would need for a weekend or week-long hunting trip. Everything was fine for the first couple of years until someone found the cabin. At first they would break in and steal food and ammunition. When the members stopped leaving food and ammo there, they stole the blankets, pillows, pots, pans, dishes, even the flatware.

After that, they didn't leave anything or even bother locking the doors, thinking if they left it open at least they wouldn't have to replace a window or door hinges. Wrong. It must have upset whoever was cleaning them out- they burned the cabin to the ground.

Sad to say but even if you had a shipping container securely locked up, someone would go to the trouble of carrying a torch out there and cut the lock off.

As was suggested, I would cache my BO goods in several different spots and just carry what I needed for the weekend or week with me each time I went.

Tim

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mona

· #16 · Mar 4, 2009

Get yourself a large water storage tank and bury it. Use it to store your goods that you would use. You could buy one large or several small ones. Nothing is full proof, you can only do what you can.

Expeditioner

· #17 · Mar 5, 2009

There are a lot of ideas out there and some are more viable than others, depending on individual circumstances, where you are located, and the type of security issue you are facing.

Worried about "run of the mill" criminals, a safe might be the way to go. Worried about organized militia searching for your cache then polymer based containers might be a viable option.

The_Blob

· #18 · Mar 6, 2009

one way to make sure nobody casually digs up your cache is to mix up the clay/soil with water to have a semi-solid clay covering everything, then have a small bonfire/campire on it to harden it... you will definitely need to bring excavating tools to get your stuff though...

Skeeter

· #19 · Nov 8, 2009

Pretty sure most every one knows this,BUT, You can buy (insert diameter)" pvc pipe. Glue threaded ends on it. Put dessicant in it and store whatever you need to for great lengths of time. Totally buried= invisible. Partially buried vertically= access to the septic system.

sailaway

· #20 · Nov 9, 2009

Skeeter said:
Pretty sure most every one knows this,BUT, You can buy (insert diameter)" pvc pipe. Glue threaded ends on it. Put dessicant in it and store whatever you need to for great lengths of time. Totally buried= invisible. Partially buried vertically= access to the septic system.

This is exactly what I have done with some stuff. I also like the idea of storing the bulk of stuff in a rental locker near by. I would definately keep the cabin near empty unless you knew for sure it was secure.

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