Nosy neighbors are never a good thing. Especially if you’re a prepper and they take a casual attitude to being prepared themselves. The last thing you need is for them to start gossiping around the neighborhood about what you’ve got or completely relying on your supplies when a disaster eventually strikes.
If you can’t discretely convince that nosy neighbor to be serious about some basic preparedness supplies, you have to be cautious about letting them know just what you’ve got. This includes some simple strategies for stockpiling supplies without alerting your nosy neighbors.
Shop When They’re Not Home
Bringing stockpiles of prep supplies home without alerting your neighbor is much easier if you simply do your shopping when you know they’re away. Most people keep predictable schedules during the weekdays.
If you need to bring home something large that might draw your neighbor’s attention, it’s best to schedule the delivery when they’re at work. Especially if the thing in question requires some installation or other people to help you bring it in.
Related: 7 Stores Where You Can Buy Cheap Survival Food
Another option is to bring home bulk stockpile items in the wee hours of the morning. If your neighbor is the kind of person who likes to sleep in on Saturday, bringing home your stockpile in the pale light of dawn is an easy way to keep from alerting them.
Bring Stocks Home at Night
Another way to bring a stockpile home without alerting your neighbors is to do it under the cover of darkness. However, this requires a little more planning and forethought than it might sound on screen.
Consider any external lights or lighting around your home or garage. Make sure motion lights and such are turned off.
Otherwise, the lights coming on, are more likely to draw your nosy neighbor’s attention than if you brought it in during broad daylight!
Ideally, you want to be able to pull your vehicle into your garage to offload directly into the house. If you have to unload in the driveway to bring things in, try to plan for sightlines or make accommodations to keep your neighbor from seeing what you’re bringing in.
Hide Your Garbage
If your stockpile comes with a lot of packing material, an overflowing garbage can, or recycling bin could alert your neighbors that you have something going on. Anything sticking out of your bins also gives clues to them on what you might have hidden in your home.
Take the time to break down cardboard boxes and remove all shipping labels. If you can’t easily remove printing on a cardboard box, black it out with a permanent marker.
Styrofoam, box supports, and other structural packing materials should also be broken down into small pieces. You should then put them inside black opaque garbage bags to keep the lightweight stuff from flying out when the garbage truck picks it up.
Related: Are You a Bad Neighbor?
If you think your neighbor is nosy enough to go into your garbage, you can place some biohazard stickers on the bags. Then only bring your garbage cans to the curb on pickup day.
Order and Buy Discretely
If you live in a small town, word of your stockpile can spread quickly if one of your neighbors is a clerk at a local store. If they see you constantly stocking up on cases of canned food one week, bulk toilet paper the next week, and ammo the week after that, it will draw their attention. Especially, if you have a small family!
Do your best to purchase your stockpile from different stores. If you simply can’t, then try to shop when you know your closest neighbors aren’t working.
You should also get some of your supplies delivered. Online retailers these days offer a full spectrum of bulk supplies that can be delivered straight to your door.
Just do your best to be home in the delivery window. The last thing you need is a perfect storm of porch pirates and nosy neighbors tempted by boxes sitting by your back door.
Conceal Your Stockpiles Inside Your Home
Even if your nosy neighbor isn’t a peeping Tom, you still need to make an effort to keep your stockpile of supplies out of plain sight. This goes beyond shelves with open cupboards and racks visible through basement windows.
All it takes is one neighbor coming over for a cookout and noticing your bathroom cupboard is packed to the brim with toilet paper and medical supplies for the word to get out.
It’s usually a banal slip-up like this that gets nosy neighbors curious about just how big your supplies are.
Long-term stockpiles can be hidden in plain sight using this method throughout your home. This includes things like sealed under-the-stairs shelves, inside heavy pieces of furniture, or even in a secret floor vault under a disused closet.
Even if you don’t want to do all that engineering and home construction, the bulk of your stockpile needs to be out of plain sight. This could be as simple as keeping it in the basement in a locked room, or perhaps locking a spare bedroom storeroom anytime you have guests over.
How to Talk About Prepping Without Mentioning Your Stockpile
When there’s a neighborhood event like a block party, or you’re just chatting up your neighbor over the back fence, don’t advertise your supplies. It’s one thing to boast a little bit to your other prepper buddies when you add something new to your stockpile. Yet you don’t want that information getting out to the general public via your nosy neighbor’s big mouth.
If there’s something of concern going on in the world, and your neighbor brings prepping up, be careful about how you address the topic. It’s best to promote the idea of having some basic supplies and extra canned food on hand. Get their wheels spinning on what they can do to start their stockpile. This reduces the chances that they’ll come knocking on your door if something goes wrong.
If they ask about what you have stocked up in case of an emergency, give them a standard response.
You could even quote FEMA saying that you’ve got a gallon of water for each person, and enough food for each person for three days. Along with some batteries, flashlights, and first-aid stuff.
Be sure to include words like “Per Person” in your reply to your neighbor. This gives them the impression that you’re only basically prepared for each member of your family, and you don’t have any major excess to go around. You could even drop the line that “FEMA says you should also have a whistle.”
You want to send the message that being prepared is important. Yet you don’t want to come off as having a deep knowledge base until something happens. This maximizes their chances of researching for themselves and investing in their own stockpile of supplies. In the grand scheme of things, it can even reduce the chances that they’ll come knocking on your door when something serious goes wrong in the world.
While keeping nosy neighbors at bay is crucial, there are a lot of other considerations to make when prepping to ensure you stay fully prepared for any scenario. That’s why I found A Navy SEAL’s Bug-In Guide so helpful—it’s packed with practical advice that goes beyond just food and supplies.
The guide includes smart tips on home security, stealth, and how to keep a low profile, which is especially relevant if you’ve got neighbors who might take an unhealthy interest in your preparations. It’s helped me tighten up a lot of my own strategies to avoid drawing attention, and I think it could do the same for you.
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