Bluesman wrote: Assume its year 3 of the ZPAW....You're hiking through the ZPAW by yourself on a late spring day, following some old railroad tracks. (Temps are running mid 60s0- 80s). The faint rumble of thunder can be heard and you can smell the rain that is coming. You have two hours until dark.
1. Do you move in and look for shelter or are you going to pitch camp in some remote area?
(Assuming you approach the house)
The house front faces east and has the spraypainted markings of a house searched by govt. Agencies. Apparently the town was evacuated sometime in the past. The front door is closed, but the lock has been forced and is broken. You sweep the house and find nothing dangerous or of value.
In the living room there is some furniture including a couch. You could put something in front of the door and sleep on the couch. There are two windows looking east and one looking west.
The master bedroom on the north end of the house has a broken window overlooking the backyard choked with tall weeds. There is a bed in the room. There is a walk-in closet that could you could sleep in as well.
The small bedroom on the other end of the house has bunkbeds which would be are usable if a bit small. There is one window looking over the backyard.
The kitchen offers nothing but a tiled floor to sleep on. There is a small window looking east over the sink. But overhead is an access to the attic crawlspace that will a bit of effort could be used for the evening with the only outside opening being a small louvered vent on the northside.
There is also a door in the kitchen that leads down to a slightly dank unfinished basement with a bare cement floor. There are two small retangular windows high up on the west wall. An old washing machine grants you access to one one of them
2 Where would you sleep in this house and why?
Yes, I'd make use of the house.
No sense in probably getting VERY wet when there's a perfectly good abandoned house that's likely to be dry. Engaging in a code of conduct that's way out of date, that doesn't matter anymore and that would do a Harrison Ford movie character proud because you're trying to adhere to some bullshit code of ethics that's totally pointless has never made sense to me. I would still have a code of ethics to guide me, but they would be
MY ethics and they would suit my environment (burning down a house merely for the hell of it wouldn't be within my code of ethics though, that pretty much falls under the '
Why the hell would I do that???' category. It's not like many new houses are going to be built in the near future, it would just alert people to my position and it would completely eliminate the chance to possibly use it again in the future).
The first question that I would want answered after I swept the house to make sure that there really wasn't anyone living there and to make sure that there were no small animals that had taken up housekeeping in there is to find out how big that vent in the attic above the kitchen is?
If it's big enough for me and my weapons/gear to fit through should someone (or several someone's) come into the house and I absolutely needed a way out I'd grab several cushions off the couch and sleep up in the crawl space. More than likely
IF someone did come into the house I'd just try and stay quiet, but I like leaving my options open (Fight : Able to ambush them from a superior position if they turn out to be hostile - Or Flight : Getting through the vent or window to the outside and alternating between shooting and running my ass off because there are too many of them for me to handle and they're hostile). If the vent in the attic isn't big enough for me and my gear/weapons to fit through as an emergency exit out of the house then the second option would be the small bedroom with the bunk beds and the window overlooking the backyard after I dragged the bigger bed in there (might as well be comfortable) and dragged the bunk beds into the living room and hallway and arranged them for someone to trip over should they enter the house.
I wouldn't barricade the door with anything because if someone did come then they'd automatically know someone was there. However I'd probably put a bunch of debris and trash that was likely to make quite a bit of noise that any person walking over or by would likely trip on and make some noise. I've noticed in that houses that have things on the floor (broken glass, empty cans, small pieces of trash like foil or potato chip bags that crinkle, loose pieces of wood, small bits of gravel, stacked up books or magazines, glass knick knacks, kitchen utensils/bowls/plates, cardboard boxes filled with various crap that's totally useless, electronic appliances with their cords just laying there slightly in the way etc etc) or that are crammed full of furniture that you're likely to tip something over or make some sort of noise even if you're being careful and it's bright in there. I'd still want it to appear as though it were abandoned though. So I'd arrange things where the doors didn't appear to be truly barricaded, but where the living room and the hallway would be arranged to make some noise where anyone walking by would be channeled towards certain areas of the room and where they would trip something over or step on something that would alert me to the fact that they were there.
Priority number one is staying dry, otherwise I wouldn't stay there to begin with.
Priority number two is to reduce light and noise that might alert someone to me being in the house. (lighting a fire even if it had a fireplace would be a big 'No-No', that would literally send smoke signals to whoever was in the area and let them know that someone was in the house).
Priority number three is staying in one of the rooms where I'd have a way out and where I'd have the upper hand from a strategic sense and where I could arrange trash/debris and furniture just so to channel people into certain areas so they'd make some noise and trip over stuff (I'd try not to make it too obvious though, just messy and crammed full of furniture and looted with things strewn about all over the place). With either of these places I'd have the jump on anyone entering. Either I'd be above them in the crawl space or they'd have to walk down a hallway of some sort.
After the storm or possible rain/bad weather passed I'd keep going and leave it like I arranged it (I might need to use it again someday).
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