I often joke than when I die, the garage sale will truly be epic. Might also be historical too since some stuff has been in storage for over 2o years. Since I have some time on my hands these days, I’m cleaning up a few things and laying eyes on things I have not seen in a very, very long time.
Freeze drieds from pre-Y2k, old flashlights, rain ponchos, MRE entrees, etc. There’s quite a bit of stuff. And, surprisingly, some did not hold up as well as I would have expected. Case in point – sometime in the wee hours of the new millennia CostCo had a close out on Baygen windup flashlights. They were, as I recall, $20. I think I bought about six or eight. I pulled one out of the box and kept it handy in the bunker for when the power goes out and I need something to find my other gear with. Out of curiosity, I pulled the others out of their boxes and tried them out. None of them worked. Not a one. Perhaps almost 20 years of inactivity deteriorated the internal capacitors or something. But…not a single one worked. Instead, they’ve been taking up space for the last two decades. Obviously, this was before I had adopted the protocol of ‘function test everything before you put it away for the Deep Sleep’. Lesson learned. Interestingly, the one that I took out of the box and use from time to time still works. So, wither that was the one winner in the bunch or the inactivity of the others proved to be detrimental. Regardless, the lesson is the same: test before rest.
Everything else seems to have held up fine. Ammo still works, flashlights work when you put new batteries in them, etc, etc. But its interesting to see how the technology has changed….krypton bulbs replaced by LED, electronics being smaller and more full-featured, that sort of thing.
Its some of that older, more dated stuff that should probably be upgraded. My older MagLites, for example, should be swapped out for LED. Older MRE entrees swapped out for newer. ALICE gear upgraded to MOLLE, etc.
Also, according to the last inspection dates I noted on the boxes, it’s past time to inspect the #10 cans in storage for damage. I’m 99.9% confident everything is fine, but why take chances? Plus, during the course of things I may find other issues that I hadn’t thought about.
So…off to the basement to deep-deg through layers of time like some sort of prepper archaeologist. It’s like a cross between Indiana Jones and Burt Gummer.
Preach it brother.
Leaking batteries, brittle plastic, gummy plastic, rust damage, mold, water intrusion, dry rot… they never sleep.
Stuff I put aside for ‘a moment’ and never properly ‘winterized’ has degraded. Food got ruined. Heat and time got some, insects got others.
I have 5 gallon buckets that I stacked, that have collapsed the lid of the lower bucket. Kinda sheared it off from the rim as the plastic deteriorated and the top bucket pushed down thru the lower one.
I had a problem with rats. Rat urine is very corrosive. Cans should have paper or plastic over them to prevent rust damage if they should get “wet” even if the rats don’t open the cans for dinner…
UV light caused some plastics to get brittle too.
In my poor storage conditions, moisture will condense on cans, and collect in the cardboard they’re sitting on, and cause rust. I now let them sit on plastic.
It’s always something…
nick
No paper especially corrugated cardboard(roach motels),remove label, write info with sharpie and dip can in varnish to seal out moisture and air. May help with rat problem but getting rid of rats is the solution
Have you tried any of the years-old freeze dried food?
I used to think it was bullet proof, but … only one or two summers in my hot (Florida) garage really took the good taste out of some Mountain House “breakfast skillet” I had. It was edible, but that’s as far as I’d go.
Since that, I think it was the potato hash in that entree that lost its goodness, perhaps it oxidizes? That particular entree is the only freeze dried I have that had potatoes in it, but I’ll be sure to not let it sit for so long next time.
The freeze dried spaghetti seems more “timeless” or at least I haven’t noticed any taste difference over a couple of years with it.
I had a similar experience with MREs, they don’t do well being stored in heat. I know everyone else knows that but I had to learn it that way…
I have a can of Mountain House Blueberry Cheesecake here that I cracked open and have been meaning to test. We’ll see if I get around to it.
Good advise! My example is I have a Sig 556 with folding stock in my safe and when I pulled it out after ten years the rubber pad on the stock looked like a rat had chewed on it. But it had simply chipped away with time. Lucky I did have a replacement part. I do check my flashlights and most other gear often.
I enjoy reading your page.
Capacitors are notorious for leaking or degrading over time, long periods of time without use tend to speed up the decay. I have seen old electronics survive decades of regular use give up the ghost after only a year or two of storage, this is actually the most common problem with equipment failure we had in the army signal core. Equipment that worked just fine through 3 years of regular training and a year of deployment would fail after a deployment because the unit was “reseting” and the equipment would sit 6months to a couple years before it was used again.
I had several types of Rocky boots that I had sealed up in a drum.
When I pulled them out ten years later, they were falling apart.
Over the leather is a thin plastic(?) layer for keeping them water proof. It rotted away.
Heavy steel toe work boots had the soles crumbling into a sticky plastic mess.
Rubber snow boots just crumbled like dirt.
I had been using Rocky’s for 15 years before that and never had a problem.
Then 2K worth of garbage.
What’s the proper way to prep for shoeware? Should I just always have an extra pair of boots? Has anyone here successfully stored boots 5-10 years?
Actual issued mil-spec should hold up, it’s one of the things they test and spec for.
I’m going with leather and vibram rubber. I’ve had several, some very high quality, pairs of shoes with softer soles turn to the black crumbly goo. There is something used in them as a softener that just fails with time. I’ve never had a vibram sole fail, nor have I seen any vintage footwear in the thrifts or in estate sales with failing vibram. I have seen the others.
Completely leather shoes are always repairable and re-sole-able. Lots of youtube channels showing re-sole on leather shoes.
Of course leather uppers have their own issues, but there is also a lot of historical data for them.
n
Interestingly enough, last week TDW-Mark II and I had a hankering for some spaghetti. No problemo! I defrosted some burger, laid out some noodles and spices, and retrieved several cans of tomato paste, with outdates of 2016.
Yep, 4 years past “best by” date.
Can number one was opened to reveal the sound of OUTGASSING, rather than vacuum being filled. Not a benevolent prognostic indicator.
Next couple of cans were olfactorally offensive.
Net couple of cans were not even opened, due to disgusting black ooze around the seams. Not good.
Bottom line: all cans outdating prior to 2019 were discarded, and another dozen cans of tomato paste were added to the shopping list, to be purchased in six can cohorts, at 90 day intervals.
To paraphrase That Noted Prepper Philospher, Bullwinkle T, Moose, “Guess I gotta get a new inspection regimen!”
Therefore (a)
High-acid foods, especially tomato products, are notorious for having issues after a few years. If you’re goingt o do the high-acid stuff you’ve gotta do it either in specially lined cans or, best, glass jars.
Same goes for pineapple
As I said, high-acid stuff.
You speak the truth. My particular problem is that I purchased as if i still had two HUNGRY teens living with us, and. well, we eat like two old married folks in our 50’s.
The shelf dwell time, in my case, well, well exceeded the shelf life of the tomato paste!
Buttermilk powder… I keep quite a bit in stock to make biscuits, pancakes, cornbread etc… Finished a container, went down to recover another – solid rock… Tried another… same. In all 10 cans bad. I’m going to have to vacuum seal them next time and see if it does any good because they apparently wick moisture despite being foil lined waxed tubs.
I know… Small potatoes compared to the major losses some of you have found but DANG IT! I NEED my biscuits in the morning!!! Better to have found out now than during a (biscuitless) apocalypse!
Regards.
Here’s hoping you have some very lucky, lucky progeny to inherit it all.
I have no kids that I know of. I suppose it’s possible there might be one or five out there somewhere, I used to get around a bit, but Im sure I would have heard about it by now.
I sure hope you have a will in place so that your LMI friends can inherit the hard-earned product of your life’s work. The real tragedy would be for your guns to wind up with the government and everything else in the trash.
I need to find a kid I like and leave them a buncha stuff. The only way the.gov gets my guns is as evidence.
A Frodo to your Bilbo?
A Dick Grayson to your Bruce Wayne?
Yeah, but with a bit less homoerotic subtext.
Dad! Dad! Is that you! Pick me, Pick me! I think I could be your long lost son. Lol……..I promise to give all your guns a good home,…….well at least the Rugers.
Sir I am a 38 year old happily married father of 2. I would like to be adopted by you and I promise to pass on everything to my kids and or use whatever I inherit.
we’ve been testing some of our older stuff lately to see if its still viable, mostly food. army tray pack survived quite well. others not so much. broke my heart to toss the remainder out but no sense hanging onto it. have a mountain of spam thats getting old. probably still edible but most other canned food that old has had a decidedly “off” flavor. i try not to think about all that money wasted.
Its not wasted. If you spend money on fire insurance and your house never burns down was that money ‘wasted’? No, you paid to avoid taking a risk. Same thing.
The cans of food I worry about the most are the pull tab variety. I think the seals may be more prone to failing rather than a can. Big box store canned chicken has now been converted mostly to that.
My experience has been the seals hold up okay BUT they are prone to popping open if you hit them just right. FOr example, if you dumped three or four cans into a pouch in your pack theres a good chance one can would push right on the other in just the right spot to push open that pre-cut part.
Those cans will nest, so stack them and wrap some duct tape to hold them in the cylinder shape. All except the top one have those weak seals fully protected. The duct tape will do a decent job protecting the top one.
I’m willing to be adopted.
Doc
thanks, i needed that.
In 2008 and 2009 I filled 15 2-liter soda bottles with water. I washed them clean, filled with tap water, added 1 drop of bleach, screwed the cap on very tight and stored them in my indoor pantry. I found and opened them 2 days ago, and the water is clear, clean, and tasteless aside from a hint of plastic. I drank the water with no ill effect. I was surprised but pleased. I’m eating tuna and canned food that had a 2015 “best by” date and its fine. Dry and cool storage here helps.
Using soda bottles for long-term storage of drinking water is not advised. There are different types of plastics. Some are designed to be reused and some are not. Even if you can’t see or taste it, chemicals from the plastic may likely have leached into the water. It may not be deadly in small quantities, and even slightly toxic water is better than no water in an emergency, but if you have a choice I strongly recommend that you treat that water as non-potable.
There are plenty of options available for safe long-term water storage containers.
Soda bottles are food-grade polyethylene. They are not going to leach anything into water.
This post raises an interesting point: Exactly how will the estate of a “heavy prepper” be handled?
Whether we live alone or have family members, will whomever serves as executor (or trustee, in the case of estate trusts) be able to reasonably, and competently, settle the estate? The stuff we have, in both type and quantity, isn’t what “normal” households have.
What will the “usual executor” do with 200 cases of Mountain House, ten 5-gallon buckets of rice, a dozen Surefire and Streamlight lights, or ammunition measured in tons rather than the more typical “few dozen boxes?” Will they know how to liquidate 200 Pmags, 3 Big Berkeys or 2 dozen Sceptre cans efficiently and for a reasonable price? (Not to mention the safe with 8 AR-15s, six Rem 870s, ten G19s, a dozen 357 revolvers and two sets of Gen 3 NVG…) Or, will all that stuff go for $2 each at an estate sale or wind up in the landfill? And would the Harriet Housewives and Retired Ralphs who haunt garage and estate sales have any desire to pay even a semi-reasonable price for what we’ve accumulated? Would they even know what the stuff is? (And wait until they open the inoperable refrigerator in the garage and find all those 8 lb jugs of powder….).
One can leave detailed instructions for executor or trustee, but I suspect it needs to go well beyond that; lacking an executor or trustee who is knowledgeable about prepping and has the time to make the contacts and negotiate, and arrange for shipping – all of which costs money that someone has to pay – we’re on our own for planning how to deal with everything.
Which works, except that if one puts in one’s estate instructions “Joe Smith at *email address* has the necessary connections to sell your freeze dried food to local preppers” and “Jane Doe at *phone number* has connections for selling comm equipment” and so forth, but Joe, and maybe Jane, have moved, changed addresses, retired, etc. in the meantime.
Anyone got any good ideas?
I buy and resell for my living. I attend a LOT of estate sales, online auctions, and yard and garage sales.
I have come across a couple of estate sales that were specifically listed as “prepper” estates. The problem is not generally that the stuff is under priced, but rather over priced. I went to one sale where the guy had bought (among other things) a pallet of FD food, all at once. One of those “4 people for a year” things. LOTS of buckets. Even at the end of the second day (discounts usually get progressively larger until all the stuff sells) the prices were too high. The seller looks up the price online, and then usually discounts it from there. Unfortunately, this particular guy had bought a massively overpriced ‘off brand’ pallet. It might have been fine, but it wasn’t Mountain House. It all eventually sold, but in the end, there were just buckets of “wheat flour” for $50, things like that. Not even #10 cans. I don’t think I bought anything at that sale.
Guns sell well, and the estate sellers know it. There used to be a line at the door before opening if there were guns listed, and every gun would sell to the first guy thru the door. Prices went up, and there might be an old shotgun or bolt action left for a day or so, but unless the prices were WAY high, or the guns really not good for much (foreign .32 pistols with no magazine), they sell for used retail or above (because sometimes it’s a no paperwork private sale.)
Ammo might sell at a slight discount but it doesn’t go cheap.
When I do find a sale listed as a ‘prepper’ sale, that usually means some camping stuff, some FD, some guns and ammo, maybe some water containers, and general ‘hurricane coming’ style preps.
Trust me that there are a lot of us out there looking, and estate sale sellers are savvy to what has value. Everyone has ebay on the phone to check prices too.
That said, occasionally you get lucky, but it isn’t because the seller doesn’t know what they have, it’s because they want or need it to be gone more than they need top dollar. I’ve picked up a couple of cases of MREs, a couple of cases of the civilian version, a couple of cases of MH #10 cans that were WAY out of date, some water storage, etc. I’ll buy ood MH for $5/can. It goes on the “I hope it never gets that bad” shelf.
A quick search for ‘prepper’ on the best estate sale site–
https://www.estatesales.net/marketplace/items/144610
has only the one listing nationwide at the moment. LOTS of listings for prepper stuff though in the normal listings. Anyone who hunts/fishes/camps probably has useful stuff….
I’ve bought the vast majority of my non-food preps at estate sales, either in person, or online auctions. Saved a ton of money, got good stuff, and saved something from the trash heap. I also like to think that the former owner would rather someone get the stuff who appreciates it.
n
added- nothing wrong with making sure someone you trust knows how to help your survivors value and dispose of stuff, especially specialty stuff like guns, radios, gunsmithing, home machine shop, machinist tools and boxes, etc. Your heirs are more likely to undervalue or just throw out your stuff than an estate company.
One other add, if you have a lot of food, especially frozen game, make arrangements with someone ahead of time. That is something most estates can’t or won’t sell.
Depending on the company, they will try to find it a good home. I got 35 pounds of professionally dressed elk from one of my favorite estate companies. The estate had 3 or 5 freezers FULL of processed game (butchered, labelled, vac sealed and frozen) but they couldn’t sell it. They gave it to people they thought would want it rather than throwing it out. I ate some of the roast just last week. And it was delicious.
n
The good CZ advice of store what you eat and eat what you store still applies and can keep us viable. The same philosophy regarding inspection/rotation can be used on all the other stuff too.
Pulled out an old camo case for my compound bow a while back. The neoprene-like interior cushion lining had deteriorated into a black crumbly sticky mess. Total trash. I wouldn’t have known without putting eyes on the inside, looked good from the outside.
In a SHTF situation this type of issue could create a bit of a crisis if it was critical gear like a rifle sling or pack that needs to work in a mission critical scenario. Now I’m curious about all the 5 gal. buckets on the bottom of the back rows. Looks like I got some work to do.
I was kinda forced to do the same inspection of everything.
All I could do was chuckle with each load to the dump.
I actually started going through everything when I found my BOL and moved it all there. On the bright side, I have more room?
Hearing comments about old MRE’s and such reminded me of a guy on utube.
Steve mre something. He taste tests old, and I do mean old, emergency rations. From lifeboat tins to modern MRE’s from different countries. K rats, C rats, etc. Some of his episodes are really entertaining. (Can also be a time suck).
I’m still chowing down on deep frozen 2016 chicken I got a good deal on.
Some years ago a friend wanted to get rid of her #10 cans of food storage (they were starting to rust) – a lot of beans, peas, tvp – stuff like that. She gave it to me for my chickens – they loved it. I did have to cook the beans & peas, but I pamper my chickens anyway.
If you want to get rid of stuff that isn’t really bad but not tasty to humans, find someone with chickens or pigs to take it off your hands.
I’d hold on to the older flashlights with bulbs.
LEDs may not work after an EMP.
The utility of newer lights with LEDs is undeniable, but I’ve kept my older Maglights in reserve and use them from time to time.
The led bulbs are surrounded by a metal enclosure, don’t have any long wires attached to them, and should be fine. It’s stuff with a lot of wire (to have the charge induced on it), or long wires connected to it that are most at risk of EMP damage.
Keep some around as backup, they are cheap (you already own them) and small, but EMP effects on flashlight bulbs should be WAY down your list of stuff to worry about. It’s certainly not enough of a risk to outweigh the advantages of LEDs for flashlights- much increased brightness, better longevity and sturdiness, and better battery life.
Know that the non-LED maglights have their own issues too. The rubber buttons come off, and the reflector silvering seems to be failing on a whole generation of flashlights. It may be the offgassing from the new chemistry alkaline batteries, but something is definitely eating the reflectors. It’s not just maglight having the issue either. The LED lights don’t have the same issue as they are more of a direct radiating source than counting on reflecting every lumen to get enough output.
nick
(there’s a place for everything, and we are blessed with abundant choices.)
You can buy LED bulbs for the maglites. Drop in replacement for the older models.
THis is correct, and due to the geometry of the reflector being different than that of the non-LED versions, the efficacy is greatly reduced. You’re better off buying an LED MagLite than converting one.