Small apartment city prepping (renting)
Posted by Complex_Platypus4386@reddit | preppers | View on Reddit | 36 comments
Looking for ideas of stuff i can do to prepare that account for limited space and that arent permanent updates to the apartment. I live alone and have a deep pantry (could always have more but space), enough to feed 2 people for at least 5 days, more if the freezer stays in tact. I grow/dry my own herbs and make my own kombucha. I have a good first aid kit and know how to use it. i have my documents and records in order. what am i missing? is there more i can do within these restrictions or am i SOL
premar16@reddit
I am in a small apartment. I have a 3 month pantry, household stuff, and a mini pharmacy ( I am disabled) , i have start of the stuff for power outages as well
GigabitISDN@reddit
A lot of Ikea stuff has nooks and crannies that are good for storing supplies. This is what we have in our rooms and there's easily enough space for 24 #10 cans (possibly 28) hidden behind the pull-out drawers, plus room for stuff in the headboard. This doesn't take up any more space, but helps you repurpose what you already have.
How are you on power outages? Even a few extra power banks plus a fold-out USB solar panel can go a long way. Do you have regular flashlights? Spare batteries? A radio? You don't need anything fancy here. I have a Kaito KA600 that I got for $35 off eBay and it is outstanding. How about a battery-powered or rechargeable fan?
Lots of over-the-counter medications are good long past their expiration date. Aspirin is one notable exception, but most others are just as good 10+ years past the "best by" date. So go ahead and bulk up on that ibuprofen and acetaminophen. Don't forget stomach meds like pink bismuth. Prescriptions can be a wildcard; ask your doctor or pharmacist.
Do you have pets? Do you have supplies for them?
Do you have the means to store and filter water? Water weighs a lot so if you're on an upper floor in a wood frame building, don't go overboard. Look for a gravity-fed NSF-certified ANSI 52 or higher filtration system. You don't need any fancy tactical prepper filters here; a simple PUR (with the ANSI 52 filter) or Zerowater pitcher will do the trick. I also have Waterbobs that I can fill up quickly in an emergency.
HornFanBBB@reddit
I happen to have this bed frame. It is so much storage.
Working_Ad_5635@reddit
I saw a post saying aspirin had a good shelf life and to avoid ibuprofen
-Dixieflatline@reddit
I have a similar scenario. I keep a 30 day stock of canned/dried foods with at least a 2 year shelf life, as well as alt means to cook it (iso propane burner). The main issue for me is water. I don't have nearly enough space to feasibly store 30 days of bottled water. So I bought a 30 gallon water bladder and hose to sink attachment. It ships in a 1'x1' box. Nice and compact storage. If things started to look "hunker down indoors" bad, I'd start filling that up while the water is running. Probably fill up my tub separately too for utility water.
My next step is a 200w portably solar array and battery for backup power.
BarronMind@reddit
r/TinyPrepping
r/CitySurvivalists
neMacaoec@reddit
Get a water filter.
Jammer521@reddit
Short term your just going to need the basics, water, power, food, you may also need a alternate source of heat and cooling, something like a Mr. Buddy if you live in a cold climate, and some rechargeable fans for summer heat
unalive-robot@reddit
Regardless of what happens , you'll probably have to go to work in the morning. There is a war on in Ukraine right now. People are still just going to work and doing their shopping.
ToughPillToSwallow@reddit
I don’t see that being the case if the US is invaded by China, or there’s a long term power outage, or an actual pandemic kills a third of the population.
funnysasquatch@reddit
A single person in an aparment can prep to be on their own for at least 2 weeks easily.
But you're making this too complicated. Forget all of the crap about SHFT or Doomsday. That's what preppers like to talk about because prepping for Tuesday is rather boring. It's essential and much more likely, but boring.
Your fridge and freezer are for day to day living. You will use what you can from if you lose power for an extended period of time.
The ideal is 14 days of food and water per person.
Specifically that works out to 1 pound of food, 1/2 gallon of plain water, 1/2 gallon of other potable liquids (aka beer, juice, soft drinks, broth).
Given that you are in an apartment - you should have on hand:
1 - A backpacking stove with 3 cans of isobutane. Backpackers use these to cook food and make coffee for a week. You can stuff this in a sock drawer. As long as you have a window you can open a little bit, you'll get enough ventilation.
2 - At least a mini powerbank for charging your phone
3 - A headlamp.
If you have a patio with sun - get at least a 300 watt folding solar panel and a power station like a Jackerey. If you get one of these, augment your backpacking stove with an electric tea kettle. You can use it inside without worry about ventilation. It will be faster. Or if you have the space -a portable electric induction stove for the same reason but you can cook more things on an induction stove.
If you bought a 50 pound bag of rice and 5 pounds of bean with a gallon of cheap vegetable oil. you won't have to worry about food. This is survival. Not gourmet dining. Exchange rice for flour if you would rather make your flat bread instead.
jrichar@reddit
You do not have enough food. A small apartment should have enough pantry, cabinet, and fridge space for 3 months. Also, store 1-gallon water jugs. Keep $1k of cash in $20's sealed in an envelope. If you want to deal with intermittent power outages, I would recommend a 1-2kwh battery bank with AC outlets paired with a quality extension cord.
XRlagniappe@reddit
Here is a website you may want to check out: https://apartmentprepper.com/
ResolutionMaterial81@reddit
Get a WaterBOB for your bathtub.
Sewvivalist@reddit
A solar power source, battery and portable radio. Learn how to use them to be comfortable when needed.
Also, a portable water purifier and a butane cooking burner.
PredisposedToMadness@reddit
Lots of good suggestions already, the one thing I'll add is finding local community. A particularly good option is to get involved with mutual aid or a volunteer group. Could be a food pantry or free store, homeless outreach, maybe a community garden or repair cafe, etc. It's not the first thing you think of when thinking about preps, but being involved in communities like this can make certain types of emergencies easier because you're already plugged into a network of people in your immediate vicinity who care about helping each other, who are willing to do the work involved in building that kind of community infrastructure, and who likely have some useful skills you could learn from. Those are people you want to be around in tough times.
Background-Pin-1307@reddit
There are relatively inexpensive folding/lightweight solar panels that would work to power at least a phone or fan or light in emergencies. But I’d start with a decent supply of food and a bladder to store water in your tub
barascr@reddit
My 2 cents, make an exit plan to head out in case you need it.
You can make reinforcements for you doors and windows. Keep a good impact driver and some 3"-4" screws, some cut 2x4 to fit doors and windows.
Try to get at least a decent solar panel, charge controller and a deep cycle battery, to power cellphones or a radio, maybe even Internet.
Have water to last 2 weeks, purification tables and filters. Buy a portable stove such as Coleman or backpacker's stoves and enough fuel to last you a while. If staying in keep canned goods instead of dehydrated or freezed fried.
Have a bag ready with your basics needs or a B.O.B. but have a clear picture of where you're going. Also ALWAYS keep your documents ready to go but in safe place YOU can easily get access to.
Kaliking247@reddit
If you're staying in I'd suggest looking into solar generators, water capture/filtration. You should also look into reinforcement for doors and windows. Not permanent reinforcement obviously but the screw tabs for windows and door stops.
Cherimoose@reddit
Kombucha & herbs aren't necessary for survival. Focus on being able to handle a 2-3 week outage of water, food, cash, and light. Once you have that, start saving up for a bigger home, and an emergency fund to handle a few months of no income.
katkatkat2@reddit
Walk your neighborhood and look for resources/ people that you could share with. Get a food thermometer or several. The manual ones with the dial are not expensive. Have a good manual can opener. A spray bottle for liquid dish soap and water mix to clean dishes. Plan for 2 weeks. Make sure all the food you buy is something you like do you eat it and replace it regularly especially if it is on sale. We do it this way, plan 48 hours to empty the refrigerator and upstairs small freezer of highly perishable items. This may be by ,making baked goods or something that will keep better cooked than raw. Add 72 hours to empty the mini chest freezer. we have several heavy blankets to cover it and the refrigerator and store blocks of cooler ice and flour in the chest freezer. If we cannot get ice we monitor both closer,. The plan to empty the perishable food includes feeding the neighbors and anyone who needed food. They know this. Transfer anything still frozen or cold into a smaller cooler and hope for the best. Continue to use a thermometer to check for food safety. If we can get ice we can go several weeks with our canned goods , pantry and mini freezer.
We keep a large garbage can of charcoal for cooking. The neighbors have a fire pit and fire wood. I have a good collection of camping cookware, Dutch ovens and trail /outdoor cooking for groups. We do a neighborhood cookout / potluck a few times a summer.
Punk-moth@reddit
Milk crates are good for storage and free if you take them from behind stores
Virtual-Act-9037@reddit
I'm in Florida, sown here a cooler is a must item for a prep, you can put it in the bottom of a closet and use it to store long term prep items you won't need on a daily basis so that everything is in one place if you have notice of an upcoming event that could knock out the power, like a hurricane or superstorm. Even if a store has coolers for sale, they generally sell out very quickly.
Ice is something that is often given away after a disaster down here, but that doesn't help much without a cooler to put it in.
misss-parker@reddit
I live in an apartment too and urban prepping for us has meant investing more in staying nimble and resourceful by taking a look at what my complex and surroundings already have to offer and knowledge hoarding rather than physical hoarding despite my instinct to do the later.
For the storage challenge, I use a lot of verticle space myself. If I plan on adding a shelving unit, I plan for it to go to the ceiling. We also have an optional storage add on available at our complex that I use for non-food items - tools, ropes, charcoal (our complex has grills) and things like that.
The other thing I do is find ways to increase the density of preps. For us, it looked like switching from disposable to reusable wherever we can - rags vs paper towel, washable HVAC filter vs hoarding disposables, etc. Hydroponic grow towers are another option that uses vertical space effeciently. Or using simple solutions, like concentrated/dry soaps and cleaners or even DIY recipes with basic multiuse ingredients, which leads me to one of my corner stones: data hoarding.
I like to keep a local digital copy of useful information like recipes, how to guides, maps, foraging guides, safety information for drug/chemical interactions, entertainment, etc. It helps me feel more confident about still being able to be resourceful even if I can't be as physically fortified as I would like.
For power, ive been buying UPS battery backups where I can. Sometimes I thrift them and just connect a new/larger battery to them. They are great for short term disturbances like keeping the the TV/internet/lamp/phone charger going in a power outage. It isn't ideal, but it's nice cuz it saves on reboot time for internet and all the things that connect to it - good for those storms that flicker the power every 20 minutes, and I can still get weather alerts on TV without breaking out the hand crank radio.
Which speaking of, TV check out your local antenna connection options. Many TVs will scan for local channels with a built in lower range antenna. Mine won't pickup anything since our walls are concrete, but I got an antenna to stick on my patio/window if the internet goes out.
I live in a hot environment, so I've also put temporary tint on my windows to reduce effects of power outage. There's also some non permanant insulation options that are more aporopriate for colder climates. It's good for a power bill too.
In an ethically gray area, I just planted a couple blackberry bushes in a quite corner on the complex grounds. Dont tell anyone though, our secret. In an ethically green area, I try to be a good neighbor, I share my oatmeal cookies when i have to rotate out resources, or extra herbs and spices when they start getting crazy.
throwawayt44c@reddit
You can fit 6 months of food on a storage rack. Lowes has some with doors on it so you don't have to look at it.
joelnicity@reddit
Is it possible to have food for two people for two weeks?
FlashyImprovement5@reddit
Skills. What are yours?
Go camping
Can you cook with your power off?
Can you sanitize water?
Do you have a water heater in the apartment and can you access that stored water in an emergency?
Do you have a way to go to the bathroom if there is no water?
Do you know CPR? First aid?
Do you have a fire extinguisher? Fire blanket?
Can you protect yourself?
SunLillyFairy@reddit
There's a lot you can do in an apartment. Some of the best preps are fitness, knowledge and skills. You can certainly get some good reference books. You can also plan and equip for a power outage and/or water contamination or plumbing break. Items like solar phone charger, battery operated lanterns, warm blankets/sleeping bags, a way to safely cook indoors (like an alcohol stove), an emergency potty plan, water sanitizer/filters. Home defense is also an important prep.
thundersnow211@reddit
do you have a deck? grow in containers, stuff like potatoes
misss-parker@reddit
To piggy back on this one, I have a small apartment patio and am starting to add hydroponics for some higher density grows. I started out with just a little window container, like you mentioned, and opted for hearty spices that I commonly use fresh, like basil and rosemary, since it had the highest ROI available at the time. Shits expensive at the store and grows fast at home. It was nice to kind of iron out some common challenges on a small scale like that while still having a high likely hood of success to some degree even if I made mistakes.
k8ecat@reddit
Five days is not enough of a pantry. Per Emergency Services, aim for at least two weeks. You can purchase bed risers pretty cheaply and it will give you a lot of extra space under your bed for storage. It also depends on where you live and what your emergency is most likely to be: earthquake, flood, fire, unrest. For every location you will want: good first aid kit, headlamp/batteries, wind up radio, fire extinguisher (and fire ladder if above first floor), food, water, cash in small bills, water bob for tub - minimum
taipan821@reddit
Other things to consider
boogs34@reddit
Aquatainer water storage under the bed. Getting a taller bed frame (18 inch from KDFrames) is clutch because it also enables 27 gallon plastic containers to maximize under bed storage.
Freeze dried food may be best but more expensive food storage option for apartment dwellers like ourselves. It apartments storing in the high shelf area of a closet helps.
Beyond that other equipment (tools, sources of heat and light, etc), water filtration, planning ways to access water, and mapping out locations are crucial to proper urban prepping.
Prep for floods, fires and blackouts. In blackouts your ability to cook food and plumbing may go out.
fridayimatwork@reddit
Get a mix of things with a longer shelf life that you can eat regularly, cooked and uncooked. For us it’s just having some extra rice, oils, pasta, sauce popcorn etc as well as canned veg, tomato’s, oatmeal peanut butter jam can tuna nuts dried fruit and snacks we can eat even if the power is off and propane for camp stove goes out. Refill jugs of water or have a stash of unopened ones. Keep sodas and other drinks on hand. We might get bored but we won’t go hungry. It’s just keeping 5 peanut butter jars on hand vs 1, then eating the oldest first.
knightkat6665@reddit
Start with a list of scenarios from most likely (kitchen fire, minor injury, etc) to least likely (riot, war, alien invasion). Make a plan for the ones you are going to worry about. Make a gear and skill list for each. Acquire gear and skills. Test your plan, refine your gear and skills, rinse repeat repeat.
Skills and ingenuity/creativity take up no space.
I suggest a fire extinguisher and pry bar to start, maybe some rope or rope ladder if you’re only a few floors up.
TangeloEmergency9161@reddit
i have these stackable drawers from walmart that don’t take up much space in my entry way/living room that i fill with lighters and fire starters and canned goods.