At some point in your prepping life, you’re bound to come across the friend or family member that, once realizing you’re a prepper, says to you, “I’m coming to your place!” Another possibility is how to handle guests during a pandemic. The time to address these issues is now. Here are some things to consider on how to handle this situation.

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Handling Unwanted Guests

Notes for this section:

• Potential Scenarios:
  • People finds out that you’re a prepper and say, “If there’s a disaster, I’m coming to your house!”
  • Someone in your family can’t stop inviting people to to your home if there’s a disaster.
  • During a period of time where resources are short, someone knocks on your door asking for help.
    • What’s the crisis? Is it a short term event, or are you looking at a prolonged scenario with little chance of returning to normal soon.
    • What to do when strangers knock on your door looking for food or handouts?
    • In short, there are people that love to continually game the system, and this means gaming you out of your stuff.
    • Learn to say no. If you have a hard time saying no to the spammers that come to your door now, you might want to start practicing saying no.
    • Read this article: http://www.survivalblog.com/2012/01/the_overnighters_coming_to_a_n.html
  • At your invitation, family or friends come to stay with you during an emergency, but now they’ve turned into a bunch of freeloaders.
  • It’s a pandemic situation, you’ve been sealed in your house and no one is sick. on the 6th day, some of your family knock on the door, wanting to be let in.
  • Looters in your neighborhood or on your street.
• Some Rules for People that Show Up On your Doorstep During a Crisis
  • If you come to our house for assistance or refuge, you are not in charge and have no say in what happens. You will agree to follow my direction on all things. If you can’t live with that, don’t show up.
  • You will work. If things are bad enough that you need refuge in my home, there will be a lot of hard work needed in order to make sure we all survive. You will be expected to pull more than your fair share; without complaint. If you can’t live with that, don’t show up.
  • If you come to my home, bring as much food, clothes, bedding, tools, weapons, water, camping supplies and whatever else would be useful. If you show up with nothing, you’re going to be very uncomfortable.
• Other things to consider:
  • When they show up, have them sign an agreement that puts them on full notice of your ground rules, the chores or work they’ll be expected to do, how meals and food will work, how how they will stay, etc.
  • Portion your prep supplies into more than one area, so that no one can see them all. At least some of your supplies needs to be well hidden, in case of theft.
  • Increase home security.
  • Fake quarantine sign
  • Door intercom
  • Division of labor is a good thing – you’re going to need “volunteers.”
  • Be wary of making enemies.
    • While you need to be stern and kick people out when necessary, you need to be aware that do so brings the possibility of revenge.
    • One way to handle this is to have a good security force that can react to these types of situations.

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Last updated by Rob Hanus at January 29, 2013.