Every prepper knows that having the right equipment and gear on hand will make a huge difference in your chances of survival no matter what sort of situation you’re facing.

But what many preppers don’t know, or fail to give the proper importance to, is keeping a low profile when it comes to your material preps.

Consider that in the aftermath of a regional natural disaster, societal collapse, or any other event that may shake your community to its core, there will be plenty of desperate people who would do anything to get what they need for their loved ones…

Similarly, opportunistic criminals will know that police and first responders are stretched to their limit—if they’re operating at all—and so they can go about their evil work unimpeded.

Both of these factions can spell big trouble for you if your hard-earned preps are just sitting around on your property where anyone can see them. Advertising in this way might see you targeted for thievery, home invasion, or worse.

You can’t let that happen, so you’ve got to hide or otherwise conceal the following things on your property starting today. And after you read this, why not put it into practice and start hiding some of your stuff today?

Off-Road Vehicles

If you’ve got a capable off-road vehicle, be that your daily driver in the form of an SUV or pickup truck, or something more specialized like an ATV, side-by-side, dirt bike, or anything else, get that thing in a garage or hide it as best you can.

Depending on your financial means, what sorts of buildings you have on your property, and how much room is in them, this will be a breeze or a virtual impossibility. Nonetheless, there’s always something you can do…

In times of trouble, pull the vehicle behind the house so that it’s not visible from the road. You can also consider hiding it in a wood line under a camo tarp or some other method.

All sorts of vehicles are high-priority targets for thieves during times of trouble, especially if you have an older model vehicle with a simple ignition that is easy to hotwire or force.

RV

Keeping a large RV on your property, whether you have it for enjoyment or as part of your own bug-out plan, paints a big bullseye on you when the rule of law is shaky, or when desperate people are running out of options.

Although not as popular with car thieves as trucks and off-roaders, RVs are still regularly targeted.

More importantly, RVs are a symbol of affluence, luxury, and plenty—three things you definitely don’t want to be associated with when people are starving and can’t get what they need.

The big problem with RVs is that they’re practically impossible to hide unless they are among the smallest. Keeping an RV in a structure means you need a disproportionately large RV garage, which is itself a tip-off. You’ll have to get creative with this one.

Generator

Every good prepper has a generator on standby for times when the power is out.

Whether you’ve got a portable generator or a whole house unit, you can bet your bottom dollar that it will grow legs and walk away when things start to fall apart in your town or county. It never fails! Just ask anybody who lives in hurricane-prone areas and they will tell you.

Securing your generator with chains or a cage is only one piece of the puzzle. The other piece is keeping it out of sight so you don’t wind up as a red thumbtack on somebody’s looting map.

Of course, the other major issue is noise. There’s only so much you can do to muffle the sound of a running generator to avoid drawing attention.

If at all possible, situate your generator behind your house or in a rear-facing garage to keep it completely out of sight.

Solar Panels

At first glance, solar panels might not seem like something that would attract heat from criminals or throngs of desperate people, but don’t think of them in terms of material value: solar panels mean electricity, and when everyone else might be going without, solar panels represent possibilities!

Accordingly, it’s best to hide these if possible. This is largely dependent on the size and arrangement of your property and the type of panels you are using.

If you have roof-mounted panels, you might be able to situate them only on the back side of your roof to better conceal them from folks on the road. Standalone panels could be hidden behind tall grass, hedges, or other barriers.

Don’t forget about the things that your solar panels run, too: if every house on the block is dark except yours, you aren’t hiding anything.

Fuel Containers

This is a big one. Fuels of all kinds are some of the first things to dry up in the aftermath of disasters. Folks will be scouring the land for fuel to operate their vehicles, generators, heaters, and more.

Naturally, if you’ve got fuel containers left lying around in your driveway, by your garage or shed, or anywhere else, desperate or unscrupulous people will try and swipe them at the first opportunity.

Even if they are empty and obviously so, they will reason that you probably have more fuel somewhere else. Maybe in the shed, maybe in the garage, or maybe somewhere else.

One of the worst things you can do is leave large fuel containers like jerry cans or drums in a visible location.

Keep these things out of sight at all times whenever possible, but store them safely: you don’t want to risk a devastating accidental fire just to hide these.

Security Equipment

It sounds paradoxical, and I suppose it is, but you’re a lot better off hiding the individual components of your security apparatus during a long-term survival scenario or societal collapse.

Security cameras, obvious motion lighting, perimeter sensors, and the like indicate to all passersby that the property so protected probably contains stuff worth protecting.

In fact, what kinds of people are disproportionately likely to have security systems on their homes? That’s right, preppers! And even non-preppers know that preppers are basically walking, talking loot boxes!

Today’s a great day to start moving your security posture towards discretion. Invest in low-profile or completely hidden security cameras, and use security lighting that’s commensurate with other homes in your neighborhood.

Also, take down any home monitoring stickers, placards, and things like that.

Garden

How in the world are you supposed to hide a garden, and why would you? Well, as to why you should hide a garden, it’s because a garden is a source of food. When food runs low, or runs out completely, people will start stripping the countryside bare of anything edible.

As to how you can hide your garden, this takes some work. If you haven’t put a garden in yet, you might consider planting and tending it using permaculture principles.

This will blend it more into the surrounding landscape, especially if you have woods on your property. That can go a long way towards keeping it out of sight.

If you’ve got raised beds instead of a traditional in-ground garden, you might be able to tuck them up close behind your house, shield them with hedges, or strategically place a gazebo or other structure to help block sightlines to them.

Gardening Tools

Whether you have an obviously visible garden or not, gardening tools are usually an indicator of a well-supplied shed, garage, or other outbuilding.

Crafty, capable people have and use gardening tools, and if you leave them out, you’ll be giving folks who might steal from you social intelligence that can be used against you.

Keeping your tools put up safe and secure is good policy to prevent them from degrading, and it also makes your property look more inconspicuous generally.

Firewood

Is firewood really a security risk when it comes to theft? Yes, it is—at least in the context of post-SHTF life. All of the resources that people will need to survive—like fuel for heating—will be coveted in times like this.

That wood means heat, light, the ability to cook, and the ability to boil water. Don’t think someone won’t rob you of every last stick!

Hiding your stack of firewood is an especially tricky proposition for preppers because the firewood stack is invariably a home for snakes, mice, and other critters that you don’t want around your home.

Nonetheless, you can use natural repellents to prevent that. I urge you to place or move your firewood behind an outbuilding or tuck it up right against the backside of your house to help conceal it.

If you have room in a garage or other building, you might even put it inside.

Off-Grid Cookers

“Off-grid cookers” is my invented, catch-all category for any mobile cooking appliance like a propane or charcoal grill, solar oven, rocket stove, and the like.

Just like with firewood above, these represent priceless capability when power is out all over town or even regionally, and fuel is scarce.

Grills and solar ovens are easy to hide. Roll them into your shed or garage once they are cool and you’re good to go. Rocket stoves, depending on the type, might be too large to move easily or even immobile.

Once again, you’ll have to get creative. Put something in the way to block sightlines or even consider dismantling it. If you have a barn, move it there until you need it and be sure to keep it locked at all times.

Water Storage Tanks

Fresh, potable water is another premium commodity when society is going belly-up, and everything from rain barrels to above-ground farm tankage could attract the wrong kind of attention from folks who are desperately thirsty.

The problem with water tanks is that they are phenomenally heavy when even partially filled, and except for the smallest barrels and other containers, are truly immobile for all practical purposes.

Larger ones simply cannot be moved, but you can invest in below-ground tanks which will eliminate the problem entirely except for their filling and pumping fixtures. Both of those are easy to hide by comparison.

Power and Hand Tools

Hand tools and power tools are often valuable to thieves, and not just those in the trades…

In the wake of a major catastrophe, physical damage and destruction will have taken place almost everywhere, and so people will be looking for anything that can help them get the job done and get back to some semblance of normalcy. Or maybe to get themselves a steady income.

Chances are good you’ll be using these tools yourself around your home and homestead to make repairs, build defenses, or something similar.

Use them, but don’t leave them lying around for opportunistic thieves to grab and run off with. Lock them up in your garage, inside your home, or inside the strongbox of a truck or other vehicle.

Tarps

Tarps aren’t necessarily obvious indicators for criminal attention, but it’s what tarps might be covering that could be. Do you have a tarp thrown over your vehicle? Is it covering your ATV or your woodpile? Something else—something valuable, perhaps?

Whenever a tarp is stretched out over something, people will naturally wonder what is under it, and it’s often easy to tell from the shape.

Using a camouflage tarp might help hide or disguise certain things when viewed from a far distance, but it can hurt just as much as it helps when would-be robbers recognize that you are in fact trying to conceal something.

Portable Shelters

This is another seemingly strange inclusion at first glance. What harm does a tent cause on your property?

It might indicate to passersby that you have been displaced from your home for whatever reason, or that you have other people staying on the property. Real predators know that people staying in tents are highly vulnerable to attack.

Whatever the reason, they just attract attention, and it’s always the wrong kind. If your home is damaged, you are better off pitching your tent inside the home for extra shelter as long as it is safe to occupy.

Hunting Equipment

Deer hoists, bows, crossbows, archery targets, shooting benches, and so forth are dead giveaways that crooks can find—or are very likely to find—these items inside your home or elsewhere on your property.

The notion that guns are inside isn’t the deterrent that you think it is: keep in mind that most criminals are far more acquainted with using violence, and more proficient at it, than your average good guy or good gal civilian defender.

Guns, bows, and the like are always, though, highly valuable goods that are easy to carry off and easy to fence. Don’t advertise their presence.

Radio Antennas

For you ham radio users, this can be one of the most difficult things to hide depending on your setup. If you’ve got a huge, fixed radio mast with a big antenna on top, people will be able to spot that from a long way away.

But you don’t have to go without your connection to the airwaves with the right approach.

Consider running an antenna up in trees or camouflaging the mast itself in a tree line and painting it a nondescript color.

You might also consider a portable or semi-portable rig that will allow you to raise and lower the antenna to a suitable height as needed, and then you can pull it into the garage or stash it somewhere else when it’s not.

Bicycles

Bicycles are great vehicles for preppers, as I have written about several times in various articles. Quick, quiet, easy to use and maintain, and easy to maneuver over or around obstacles, there is a lot to like about bikes.

But all these advantages make them very easy to steal, too…

Bikes get stolen left and right even in safe areas during good times; they vanish into thin air routinely in cities big and small, nevermind in the aftermath of a disaster, so keep them put away and secure when you’re not using them.

Bunker/Storm Shelter Entrances

This is a biggie and something that must be considered as part of your pre-installation planning. Any obvious door that might tip someone off to the presence of a storm shelter or, worse, a genuine underground bunker is going to put you at the very top of the list for a smash-and-grab takeover.

You can’t let that happen, and should do everything possible to hide the entrance to these “crown jewel” preps.

Now, if they’re already installed or you didn’t have any choice as to the location of the entrance, you can still hide it.

Artificial rocks, carefully planted shrubs or hedges, camo netting, or even a panel of plywood with convincing fake grass can be used depending on the style and orientation of the door.

The one thing you must be careful of is blocking access to your subterranean shelter when lives are on the line and seconds count. Ensure that it is always quickly accessible.

Building Materials

This should be another obvious one. If you’re leaving any stacks of building materials around, be it lumber, plywood, shingles, concrete, or anything else, it is going to raise your profile with thieves.

Even the most innocuous things like cinder blocks will become valuable in the aftermath of a major disaster, particularly one that causes tremendous property damage.

Supplies of these items will dry up in affected regions and surrounding ones, and if you’ve got them on hand, someone else might decide they want and need them more than you do…

Political and Social Stickers, Signs, Etc.

Lastly, you don’t want to be cute, funny, sarcastic, or designate yourself as “other” during times of crisis and extreme stress. Some people might be looking to place blame or just lash out violently, and it’s very difficult to predict this stuff.

Take down your political signs, social movement stickers, and any other indicators for hot-button societal issues. You can thank me later, assuming we both survive…

The post 20 Things to Hide on Your Property ASAP appeared first on Survival Sullivan.

By: Tom Marlowe
Title: 20 Things to Hide on Your Property ASAP
Sourced From: www.survivalsullivan.com/hiding-homestead-items/
Published Date: Sun, 06 Oct 2024 13:59:08 +0000

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