Preparing to lose your home

[Cave Dweller]

We put a lot of emphases on prepping, storing up supplies, and even having a bug out location (sometimes a half day's travel away for some folks)

I'd like to discuss how to prepare to lose your home either temporarily or on a long term/permanent basis.
In my area, the major disasters are wildfires and earthquakes. Wildfires are common, they happen every year.
In other places you get hurricanes washing your home away, but sometimes it's sudden. Tornado, house fire, etc.
And then there's eviction. Being tossed out of your house or apartment (or leaving voluntarily) because you or someone else can't pay no more.

So here's the scinerieo, you no longer have a place to live.
Either you were evicted or came back from hurricane evacuation to find your house gone, and you have only what you could cram into your car.

Or your house burned down, or got taken to Oz by a twister. And you have only the cloths on your back. (your car burned up too, bummer)

Your remote location is a long drive away, you still have a job, and that's just too far to commute.

How can we prepare for a sudden home loss? Having a scratchback arrangement with a friend in town comes to mind. Storage units are expensive.
A small trailer or rv could provide a place to stay. (I see that all the time during wildfire season around here)

Any thoughts? Suggestions?

[Morning Sunshine]

great website for all sorts of prepping stuff, including, responses to your questions.

http://www.theplacewithnoname.com/blogs/klessons/index.html

[Stein]

Proper insurance is a big one.  If you have enough of the right type of insurance it will cover your temporary lodging as well as the rebuild or new purchase.

The second thought is having all of your important data and records backed up, collected in one spot, protected and portable.

[Cave Dweller]

Thanks, the main problem is the time between loosing your home and getting it back. Unless you were evicted. (like your landlord stopped paying the mortgage.
Whether it's coming home to find your house ok, or waiting for insurance to pay and the contractors to do their bit.

I think keeping some of your preps close but away from your home (ie, A stocked travel trailer or rv at a friends place or storage unit) is real important.

I've put that on my ever increasing "to do" list.

[sarahluker]

When we lost our home with IKE, we came home and rented an apartment on our own dime.  We used a credit card to buy the basics to live on and paid it back when we got insurance payments. We were frantic about paying rent, mortgage and pool note at the same time.  FEMA did come through, though but it was a month later.  The insurance money did not come through until  six months later. Since we flooded and had windstorm damage, the flood cancelled out the living expenses from windstorm insurance company.  Our experience taught us to have enough cash that we can get to to last at least a month.  In all cases, chances are you will lose your possesions, so try not to get too attached!!  You cant move a house full of furniture every summer (sometimes several times a summer) so you figure out what means the most to you and take that.

[Hare of Caerbannog]

Cave Dweller 
 
Great topic and post.
+1

I thought a lot about this last year when I lost my roof to Ike.
Insurance saved my butt, but what if they hadn't?

[sarahluker]

Going through something like that really changes your perspective on just about everything doesnt it.

[Hare of Caerbannog]

Going through something like that really changes your perspective on just about everything doesnt it.

Yea, its a real eye opener.
My insurance company dodged my calls for weeks.
And trying to find a contractor....
Keeping in mind, I'm in Ohio. I can't imagine how the folks in the gulf handle this stuff.

[sarahluker]

Let's just say that it's a good thing that the adjusters left as quickly as they did!  Dreams of tar and feathers haunted me for awhile.

[AZCeltic formerly occeltic]

Great information for those who have had to evacuate their homes due to disaster or eviction, but what about voluntarily vacating your home because you know it's time to run for your BO location and know not when you will return, if ever? You look around your home at all the memories and cherished items you've collected over the years and begin to decide what has value and what does not when it comes down to survival. All the crap you have stored in your garage that you continuously tell yourself "I'll get to it," sits out there in boxes long enough that you have forgotten what those boxes hold. And I know there's something out there that I will need later.

In preparation for that eventuality, we have made a collection in our family room of the most important things that need to be packed into the truck if the time comes to go, but I wonder if I will be level headed enough to remember everything. I have a hard enough time trying to find my glasses and my keys, and unless I put them in the same spot each time, I am up the creek for at least a half an hour looking around the house and retracing my steps. I'm sure that I'm the only one out there with this problem right?

[Hawaii Guy]

I've made sure my insurance is up to date and accurate.

took pics of all my belongings and made copies to my safe dep box, personal safe and parents house.

luckily have my parents home close by that is a lot more modern and safe! i can move prep there if necessary. I also have a larger property with a 20' storage container that can hold a lot of importants... ifneed be.

[Sgt_Dan]

Funny this topic should come up because this is exactly what I'm going through right now.  My housing lose stemmed from a week's notice that I'll no longer be employed.  Stupid government contracting issues and a power struggle at the heads of 2 major companies.  I won't rant on who pays the price for that kind of ass-clownery, so I'll get right into it.

I started a topic called "Personal SHTF", which is what I'm going through.  One of the issues is not being able to afford my apartment as I was trying to dig myself out of debt and Murphy moved in.  I hadn't even been able to start an emergency fund.  So of course that's when my income would go from high $XX to facing $0.  I guess I could have stayed in the apartment until they kicked me out, but that doesn't seem responsible.  So I moved EVERYTHING to storage and talked to a buddy who has a 3 bedroom house.  One of his roommates just moved out so he let me move in.  I'll pay him weekly to what amounts to $500/mo for rent, and don't have to pay utilities.  That's less than half what I was paying just for rent at the apartment, so this helps.  Of course it was dumb luck that this option was available to me.  And trust me, at 30 you really don't want to go back to having roommates.  Good people, but it's an adjustment.

So, what do I do next?  Well my company was trying to find a new position for me and another guy affected.  I haven't heard anything so I assume that didn't pan out.  Which means I'm now in all-out job search mode.  As of Thursday (Wednesday is my last day of work) my full-time and part-time job will be finding replacement income.  Once that happens, I'll try to stay in this roommate situation until I'm completely debt free.  My estimate is about 10 months if I get anywhere close to my previous salary.  That would include my car, student loans, credit cards, etc...EVERYTHING.  Once I'm debt free and have an emergency fund of about 6 months (better to err on the side of caution) then I'll go back to an apartment and start saving for the house.

During this process though, I'll be brainstorming (and looking for your ideas on this very thread) about what to do in a sitution like this.  I've heard some suggestions on the other thread ("Personal SHTF") and those are some things I'd like to do some research and look into.