The four places
The grab bag
By the front door or at the bottom of the stairs. One rucksack per adult plus the children's own. Documents, cash, torches, radio, power bank, foil blankets, medicines and the medicine list, a change of clothes each, baby things, pet paperwork. Something you can carry down a flooded street.
The kit box
One hard lidded box, about 35 to 45 litres, in the hall cupboard or under the stairs. Stove and gas, lantern, batteries, first aid, the bucket toilet (with the bags inside it), hand warmers, tin opener, purification tablets. Label the lid in marker: KIT.
The food
In the kitchen, where you'll rotate it. For scale, a month of food for a family is roughly 250 to 300 litres of tins and packets: four to six 50 to 64-litre boxes, which fit under two double beds or on top of two wardrobes. Keep the no-cook shelf in the actual kitchen cupboard.
The water
Separate, on a cool cupboard floor or under a bed, never with cleaning chemicals, paint or fuel. Not the garage or shed: freezing splits bottles and heat makes plastic taste.
Why hard boxes, not bags
Clear, stackable, lidded boxes do four jobs: you can see what's in them, they stack in dead space, they keep damp out, and mice can't chew through them in a night the way they chew through cardboard and bin bags. The Really Useful Box range is easy to find in the UK; the 35 L is the kit box, the 64 L and 84 L are food boxes.
Really Useful Box 35 L ×3 ad Really Useful Box 84 L ad Really Useful Box 43 L ×3 ad
Mice, rats and moths
From October, rodents move indoors. Anything stored in a garage, shed, loft or outbuilding is at risk, and a mouse can get through a gap the width of a pencil. Inside the house, a few rules cover it:
- Never leave dry food in its supermarket packaging. Paper flour bags, cereal boxes and plastic rice bags are the first things mice find. Decant on the day you shop into airtight tubs, glass jars or a galvanised metal bin with a lid.
- Tins are fine as long as they stay dry, so the seams don't rust.
- Flour can carry weevil eggs: 48 hours in the freezer when you buy it kills them.
- Keep boxes 15 cm off a concrete floor on a shelf or a couple of bricks, and check behind them monthly for droppings or gnawed corners. Bin anything they've touched.
- Pet food left out overnight is a rodent magnet. Lift the dog bowl.
KICHLY airtight containers ×18 ad
Damp, heat and light
Ideal is 10 to 15 °C, dark and dry. The airing cupboard is the worst place in the house; the cupboard under the stairs is often the best. Light and heat turn oils rancid and make plastic bottles taste. Damp rusts tins and breeds mould on cardboard. If the only space is a cellar or garage, use sealed boxes, off the floor, and check them more often.
Documents
Copies of passports, birth certificates, insurance, the medicine list, the pet paperwork and a list of account numbers in a waterproof, ideally fireproof, pouch in the grab bag. Photograph them to the cloud as well. Originals in a small fire and water chest if you own one; a biscuit tin upstairs if you don't.
JUNDUN fireproof, waterproof document bag adorJUNDUN fireproof document box with lock adorMaster Lock fire & water chest ad Master Lock fire & water chest ad
The six-month check
Do this when the clocks change. Charge the power bank and lantern, test the torches and the CO alarm, rotate the water, swap the children's clothes for the next size, look at every date, replace what you've eaten. It takes about twenty minutes, twice a year, and keeps everything in date and working.