How long could you survive if you were trapped in your house?

[Anonymous]

Trapped in the house is such a weird assumption.

The only way I could be trapped in my house is if it literally collapsed on top of me. In which case I'd probably not be cooking and more probably would be dead.

I think more in terms of pandemics (risky to go out) and natural disasters (ran out of refrigerated food).

I live in a walkable suburban neighborhood near an indie grocery store that has generators and a pharmacy. Society would have to be fairly collapsed for me not to be able to get water, food, and medicine by walking. Even in a pretty bad snow season where I couldn't drive, it would probably still be possible for me to walk to the store through big drifts to get food and supplies.

[Anonymous]

I saw the trailer and am interested especially because I love the actors who are the two leads.

The movie is about not being able to physically get out of your house. So it doesn't matter if you can get instacart or have 20 acres, you wouldn't be able to access it because you cannot open the door or windows. You cannot leave. In the trailer it shows the family (who must not have a basemen or foundation) literally break up the floor boards of their living room to access dirt to grow plants to eat.

So basically, how much food do you have in your house. It is insane that in the trailer the people were able to live 1000+ days with whatever rations they had. No way. I remember the super depressing movie the Road and they had enough canned food for the kid to be born and grow to about 10 years old (no way too).

[Anonymous]

We live in the country. I have a pantry. Without leaving my house, I have food for two months probably. Lots of dried beans, rice, pasta, canned soup. Our well relies on electricity, so without power, no well water.

If we include our outside property in this hypothetical, there's a spring so water isn't a concern. And there's wildlife, so there's food. Woods for firewood, enough for my lifetime probably if we're careful. I'm probably still not keeping chickens or planting gardens. We have meadows with edible greens.

[Anonymous]

This is about surving, not thriving. You can stretch a can of black beans to last a day. A stick of butter and two cups of flour will feed 4 people for a day.

It might get real ugly but 10 pounds of rice and 20 cans of broth can easily keep 4 people alive for a month.

It's not hard to stockpile the calories.


You know what Shakleton lived on while walking across the pole? Sticks of butter and caribou meat. For almost a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I saw the trailer and am interested especially because I love the actors who are the two leads.

The movie is about not being able to physically get out of your house. So it doesn't matter if you can get instacart or have 20 acres, you wouldn't be able to access it because you cannot open the door or windows. You cannot leave. In the trailer it shows the family (who must not have a basemen or foundation) literally break up the floor boards of their living room to access dirt to grow plants to eat.

So basically, how much food do you have in your house. It is insane that in the trailer the people were able to live 1000+ days with whatever rations they had. No way. I remember the super depressing movie the Road and they had enough canned food for the kid to be born and grow to about 10 years old (no way too).

Thanks for the explanation! PP in country with pantry and well. If I'm allowed to pull up floor boards, we have an earth cellar. Where lots of things live. There's the protein source. Since my foundation is dry laid stone, I can also collect rain water down there.

Okay. I'm all set!

[Anonymous]

I could go at least 2-3 months, probably more. I have a very stocked pantry. My concern would be my dogs. I have some canned and dry food for them but my freezer is full of their chicken, beef and fish. That might last 3-4 weeks.

[Anonymous]

How can you grow plants just by tearing up the floor? Then you still need light. Did they have grow lights? Windows aren't enough for a lot of food plants.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is about surving, not thriving. You can stretch a can of black beans to last a day. A stick of butter and two cups of flour will feed 4 people for a day.

It might get real ugly but 10 pounds of rice and 20 cans of broth can easily keep 4 people alive for a month.

It's not hard to stockpile the calories.


You know what Shakleton lived on while walking across the pole? Sticks of butter and caribou meat. For almost a year.

Yeah, everyone seems to be calculating it on what your current eating patterns are. If you are truly in a life-or-death situation, you can stretch out a cabinet full of food for quite a while.

[Anonymous]

But when your house locks you in, you have no idea for how long, right? Eating normally, a cup of rice and can of black beans is four meals for husband and me. (We are adding onions, celery, peppers, herbs if the house isnt locked) Do I immediately stretch it to eight? Sixteen? Or do I eat normally for a month hoping the house opens?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"We currently have 3 full fridges with attached freezers, plus a chest freezer and a tall freezer. Plus a full pantry and additional excess food in the basement pantry."

Wt..? Why?

+1 the bigger question is why do you have so much food? You can't eat all of it before its expires. Why do you live like that?

We have 3 growing kids - summer has started. They eat NON STOP.

Frozen food won't expire. We eat through our fresh food/fruit in about a week or week and a half.

You have been hoarding food! School just ended TODAY stop making excuses for your mental illness. You didn't just buy all that for summer liar.

[Anonymous]

I admit, I kind of hoard necessities.

When I first began living on my own almost forty years ago, I had no money & barely had anything in my first apartment.
It was like a coffin ⚰️ so I tend to go overboard when stocking necessities.

(During Covid, I had plenty of toilet tissue!)

That being said since I live entirely alone now (kids flew the coop years ago,) I could probably survive 3+ months or so.
But I wouldn’t have access to any dairy like milk 🥛 or ice cream.
Wait no ice cream????!!

Scratch my first answer >> I would only be able to survive a day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I randomly saw a trailer for some Netflix movie called "The Last House" about a family that was legit trapped in their house for over 1,000 days. Got me to thinking about how long we could survive in our house if we couldn't leave but still had electricity and water. We currently have 3 full fridges with attached freezers, plus a chest freezer and a tall freezer. Plus a full pantry and additional excess food in the basement pantry. We are a family of 5. I would think we could make it at least a year? Maybe more if we actually rationed our food.

are you survivalists?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But when your house locks you in, you have no idea for how long, right? Eating normally, a cup of rice and can of black beans is four meals for husband and me. (We are adding onions, celery, peppers, herbs if the house isnt locked) Do I immediately stretch it to eight? Sixteen? Or do I eat normally for a month hoping the house opens?

how big is the can of black beans?

[Anonymous]

I could at our lake home. I’d fish and we have a fire pit. We have a generator and I could filter lake water to drinking water.

[Anonymous]

Probably a month. We eat fresh food, mostly. We don’t have much of a freezer and have a tiny pantry.