Retreat Requirements: List them here

I would say that a rural farming community that is slightly on the decline is the best way to go. Being in Ks there are alot of those to choose from. Most of these communities have stabilized to some point. They aren't growing and haven't for a long time, those that are left want to be there and are quite happy being there. Furthermore the people that are there are usually happy to see someone move into their community that is decent and seems to be level headed.
Anything over 60 or so miles to my way of thinking is ideal. You can get to the city if needed and you're far enough away to avoid the welfare and drug dealers. Best of all around here 60 miles would only take about a 1/4 tank of gas so most everyone would be way down the road when it hits "E". One last thing. Small towns understand the need for having extra so they don't get too suspicious of a person having a 500 gallon tank of gas or 1000 gallon propane tank at their place.

Take care Be safe Poacher.

 

This is going to vary greatly depending on what kind of car we're talking about, but that's something on the order of 300 miles for most people I'd have to guess.

Major metropolitan cities aren't going to be the only trouble; the smaller cities where the population is far more aware of their rural neighbors will also be a major hazzard. Living in tobacco country, I'm very well aware of my proximity to some of these smaller cities.

Being away from the highways that connect these small cities to each other or to other small towns is going to help tremendously. When Peter Pillager starts running low on gas, he's not going to turn off the highway and drive another four or five miles; he's going to look for opportunity much closer than that.

 

We should also learn lessons from Katrina. Many of us would have predicted that the looters would start looking outwards. By and large they did not; they continued to tear their city to pieces victimize one another for weeks on end without adding to the troubles of the country folk that were also in a pickle but never seen or heard from in the mainstream media.

Lots of these city turkeys don't even have cars. In a major city like New York or Baltimore, it's more expensive to have a car and pay for parking everywhere you go (and insurance... and taxes...) than it is to just take public transportation. Without a car, where will you go?

To say nothing of the psychology of the situation. A city rat is used to having everything nearby, knowing where every convenience store and gas station is, and knowing that just about everything can be easily reached on foot. The idea of having to go 15 miles or more from a house to the nearest store is a horror of horrors. The roaming dogs, the Bubbas in the woods with their deer rifles, all of these things and more are fears that the average city rat is ill equipped to deal with. Mind you, I'm referring to the uneducated thugs that couldn't even be bothered to try and live well during the good times.

I suppose what I'm saying is that you probably won't need to be as far away as you think. Even living 15 miles from medium sized southern city, a mile or so off the main country highway, I rarely if ever saw anyone going down the road that "didn't belong". This was of course a blessing and a curse, as I did live through my own real life SHTF in that house, and that was before I had any sense of priority about preparing for a SHTF event of any kind, so I did learn some tough lessons. One of those lessons was that I was far enough from anything that nobody cared to clear trees from the road or try to get the utilities back up for something close to three weeks time.

Which brings me to one other point. The home I'm building now is on 36 acres, sufficiently far from the highway and from any city to be of interest to anyone. It has a "private road" (driveway with an official street name) that services my home and two others that are both owned by kin. Should anything befall us that would make us fearful of looters, trees will be felled and that driveway will be blocked within the hour. Not much after that a sign will go up along the lines of "tresspassers will be shot, survivors will be shot again". I will look like a very good driveway to pass up for easier pickings.

 

Mite should take a look; mortgage on .5 wouldn't be too steep for a few dedicated individuals.

 

I extend the logic into the following realm...a thirty year fixed rate mortgage held by a corporation. The corp. could own 1934 items to defend the carrot patch from rascally rabbits. Should the ecconomic picture break the frame, then the fort is held with some protections. If the purpose was to operate a game preserve or something similar, then write-offs are built into the canvas. I am operating under the best hiding place is right under the nose premise. in a SHTF, possession will dictate the terms, rather than deeds. Just some ideas to chew around on.

 

my main requirment is affordability . I dont have cash to buy outright, nor credit or downpayment for morgage, besides down here in south florida land is untouchably expensive, i plan to move but thats a differant story. I've been looking on ebay at some of these $100 dollar down seller financing land auctions, theres a couple hundered of them ranging from 5 to 160+ acres. very affordable terms there mostly in south dakota wyoming texas arizona and such,a couple hundred miles from anything except some really small towns nothing workwise for me. They would not qualify as a quick retreat but more of a newspapers say the shtf and time to run for the hills kinda preemptive property. There all at least a days drive away from me (right now that is) and a differant climate, as for a emergency gotta run senerio I have some bugout locations in some public lands and state forests, but it would be nice to have 160 acres of my own. what do y'all think?

 

Depending on how it was set up it wouldnt even have to be retirees to live on the places. If it is set up such that it would be kept running in a manner that if SHTF and the members of that group all showed up then the crops to feed them all would be in the ground and the critters to feed them would be in the pasture then untill they showed up there would be excess that could be sold. Basicly it would simply be a working farm and the stock could be breed and the off spring sold keeping back what would be needed to get through to the butchering age of the next set of off spring, crops could be sold once enouph was set aside to carry the group through to the next harvest and so on.

If you have one family living there as care takers and say 9 more families that would have it for their retreat then in normal times there would need to be enouph meat and crops produced to feed 10 families but only 1 family eating so the rest could be sold just keeping the 'seed' stock. So a person or family able/willing to run the farm would IMO be the ideal and might even be able to be worked out with a someone who wanted in on it but couldnt do the cash but rather could contribute the running of the place untill it may become needed as well as developing the experiance to be able to teach the other members what needed to be done and how when/if they showed up in a SHTF situation.

 

The above post is intended for entertainment purposes only and in no way reflect the opinions of the flesh and blood person writing the text. All writings under the screen name "melbo" are merely a characterization of the personna created.

 

Melbo and I talked about this concept briefly the first time he came up to my house.

My question is: How do you find folks that are willing to go in on this....I already have the property and live on it.....I'd like to find 4-5 families that would like to plan on coming here IF a SHTF situation occured. My property is in a decent location and would support that number of folks.

I'm thinking I would build some rental cabins for the time being that might produce some income and pay for themselves, but would serve as housing if the families came in a time down the road. I'm thinking each cabin would have a full basement for pre-positioning food, ammo, etc for each family, and that basement would be locked off and not accessible to cabin renters....or maybe a central storage facility built mostly underground....or both.

Possibly form a corporation, with the Corp holding title to the land and buildings, and the participants as stockholders/voting directors. Have a prearranged buyout plan so if anyone decided at some point down the road they wanted out, the others could buy out their share and seek a replacement family to take that one's place.

Couple weekends a year, we have an 'en masse' get together to meet, train, etc......sort of a mini-vacation with purpose. That would also give us some time to see how compatible the group is prior to being thrown together in a 'have to' situation.

I've given this a LOT of thought, but I always come back to "How do you find the folks ?"

Ya'll got any ideas ?

 

That sure is a beautiful place. About five hours away too. Looks like a great place for a weekend getaway, a little hunting, four wheeler riding, etc.

 

Great resurrection, Clyde. Useful discussion in these times. I really like the idea of a live on caretaker actively working the property. I wish I had the capitol to actually put that kind of plan in motion.

I'm looking at a 160.9 acre plot with year round running stream located in rolling hills. Pasture land as far as the eye can see. 25ish miles from the regions only city and not on any of the main routes. 8 plots avail @160.9 acres each for $88k/ea. ~$515/acre. Two north plots have the stream running through and are furthest from the access. Might prover hard to get to as you access them via easement through the southern plots. As soon as the lottery winnings come rolling in this would be a non-issue. Personal helicopter? Maybe as low as $675/mnth for 15 years. Sure wish I had the cash!

Well, anyway, it's been a goal of mine to own an out of the way slice of heaven for quite a few years.

Byte

 

I often wonder about property.
Given the right piece of property, are there enough people who would pay a small monthly stipend to have their preps stored in a garage/container/catchall on a property that they would have access to in a shtf scenario.
That way, there is income being generated, people who have a "lease" arrangement would be part of the team, have access to their preps, be able to camp and test their preps and still have a payment that they could afford.

It might cause such property owners to have the benefits of property ownership without all the headaches of multiple tenants.

Given that timing is always an issue with busy lives and such, you could take what time is available to work with your preps and be able to network within the team for bulk buys etc.

Seems that you would maintain all the anonimity of each individual and yet be able to hand pick a group that would be complimentary for skill sets.

The only rub is the initial property ownership and the pre shtf legal lease/access issues, but if you had a hand picked team, that would be less likely to surface in a negative way

 

A rural community can and usually become a problem. We had a couple of people from the city last year who just bought the 80 acres next to us. The first thing they were going to do was build a house at least 5,000 ft and then "modernize" the surrounding areas. She was allergeric to everything, so I promptly lit a cigarette , all the time makeing sure the smoke from it drifted her way. Lol. Then , upon finding out she was deathly affraid of snakes, asked her what the realator had told her. She said that he assured her there were none, never got windy or too cold, and not to worry about allergies. All that while she is standing in the middle of a large stand of Juniper Berry Trees and Scrub Spruce . So then, I managed to let her know that I had killed 5 large mojave rattlesnakes so far that summer alone. She promptly got her large unkept a.. in her John Deere 4 person "people mover" He , although seemed nice, was telling me that my "junk" which is all stored down my hill on the lower area of my property would have to be hauled away, as from a certain area he could see it. These kinds of people always come around, and you would do your best to convince them that you will make a lousy neighbor, and sometimes get drunk and go shoot and howl at the moon. The first things they will want to do is to make there place and yours just like the city they think they want to get away from. Sidewalks and all. Maybe even street lights . LOL By the way, I don't drink ever but convinced him that I was a drunk and crazy. I guess what I am trying to say, is that if you move into a rural community, they may already be there, but if not, they soon will be. Next thing you know, you will find yourself forced to join in on the "new" gated community , complete with rules and an enforcement division. Paying fees to pay for the new sidewalks and street lights, and told your stereo was too loud or you can't park any cars in your drive way or have any of the grandkids come and visit etc etc. Watch your self with those. Remote means no close neighbors. NONE