Will I Be Called A Looter, A Forager, A Scavenger Or Just A Common Thief?

As I said yesterday, I will not be charitable when the SHTF. To give or not to give is just one of the moral questions we will all face after any form of societal collapse. There will be more, many more. Some of them we won’t even have thought of, they will hit us like a ton of bricks when we realize the position we are in and that decisions, serious and difficult decisions, have to be made.

It stands to reason that the more of these moral decisions we can think of and consider before an event the better. There is no right or wrong answers to most moral dilemmas, we will each vary in the decisions we make and why we make them.

For example, what’s your definition of looting? Is it different to your definition of foraging, or scavenging? Does, in your mind, rifling through the home of someone you know for a fact has bugged out or died constitute common theft?

Now I’m not talking about a weekend power outage when someone has gone away to their cabin for a few days. I am talking about a total collapse. Your worst nightmare. The end of the world as we know it.

Are the resources that someone else has left behind fair game?

As uncomfortable as you might be with the idea of searching through another person’s  home for things that may be of use to you, would you do it if you had the chance?

Obviously some situations would make it impossible. Gangs roaming the streets, the military imposing a curfew, but if the situation was favorable would you do it?

Permanently unattended homes will be a treasure trove to those left behind. All but the most organized of those that bug out will leave behind a vast amount of ‘stuff’ that others can use. Many will flee with what they can carry on their backs and in their vehicles. Many of these people will not realize that bugging out without a plan is NOT the way to do it but at that point it’s highly unlikely they will have a chance to return.

So, would you raid their home?

If there was a chance of doing so without a great deal of risk I would.

At a time when even the basics will be irreplaceable, anything that can be added to your preps is worth having. Pots, pans, tools, bedding, towels, curtain fabric and a host of other things will be sitting there, and will continue sitting there until someone takes them and uses them or they rot and rust away.

Those of us that prep know there is a finite amount of money and space for prepping. We simply CANNOT have enough stuff to last us and our families for the rest of our hopefully long lives. Things will break, our spares will wear out or break. What then?

Nobody, however knowledgable, can repair everything that we will need for the future. Abandoned properties in a total SHTF situation will be a lifeline to those that know what they are looking for and to those who know what they can re-purpose into useful items.

As unsavory as it might be to step over the body of old Mrs. Jones in order to get to the tools her late husband used, it’s something you may have to consider doing to prolong and improve life for you and your family.

I can see no merit in letting a perfectly useable kit sit there rusting away.

I have spoken to some people who feel it would be acceptable in a total breakdown to take medication from a pharmacy, and I agree with them. The same people think it would be okay to walk into a store and take what’s there. They are not comfortable with it, but all that food sitting there and no staff interested or available to stop them makes it a legitimate target in a collapse scenario.

Yet these same people could not envisage raiding a home after the owners have vacated it. I can in some part understand this, it’s more personal, a home represents the lives of the people that once lived there, their dreams and aspirations. It’s this that holds many back.

I suggest that in a total collapse situation, abandoned homes are nothing more than a resource, and possibly a far safer option than the stores which will be the first stop for those stupid enough to be snatching 60 inch televisions and designer sneakers. Law enforcement is also more likely to be in the vicinity of shops than they are residential homes.

So we are back to where we started. If I remove items that will be useful to me and my family from an abandoned home am I a looter, a forager, a scavenger or just a common thief?

I’ll let you decide.

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