City living challenge

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tytek

Forager
Dec 25, 2009
235
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Leeds
I have posted this question on the 'Trueways' forum with some good results.

Now it's your turn.

Here's the challenge...

How would you manage or more to the point sustain yourself in the big bad city using only survival skills???

No money, no fixed abode, no phone (tough one), no friends......

Your thoughts?
 
I have friends who lived (sometimes still do)this way. It's not easy, it's not clean, it's not fun.
They became very lean, very aggressive, very, very quick at spotting an opportunity, a free thing, in some ways an entire moral shift. What wasn't tied down (or unprisable ) was their's if they wanted it. Always on the look out for the next chance, meal, warmth, drink. Like living in a parallel universe one said. Other people's opinion of them, social opprobium, social rules, quickly became unimportant, didn't impinge on their lives.
Still recognisably themselves though, and still friends, just they went kind of feral.
The Scots on the forum who've met some of them will understand exactly what I mean.
Bushcraft played no part. Urban foraging aka midgie raking, did. Parkland is generally devoid of much that is of any use beyond an occasional overnighter unless a society is created there. i.e the Pollok Free State or the Peace Camps.

cheers,
Toddy
 
Now here's a thing.....good question matey.
When I first moved from the wilds into the big bad city, all I had was a guitar an' a sleepin' bag.....(plus the clothes I was wearin').
I slept rough fer a few weeks in Bute park an' busked durin' the day t' get gold fer eats, smokes an' beer.....(couldn't get dole or jsa at the time cos I had no address).
Skip raidin' was the 'norm'....usually tescos or asda stores......they threw away loads o' stuff that was only 'just' out o' date. So a veritable bonanza till they introduced the polocy o' cuttin' the packagein' an' pourin' bleach on the stuff!...grrr.
Squatted a couple o' houses wi' a few drugies fer a few weeks....or until they sussed we were there, an' turfed us out.
I think the only time I ever used 'bushcraft' skills was t' shelter from the wind an' rain in the park under a canvas tarp I nicked from a buildin' site...lol
Tryin' t' do it now would be hard.....but not impossible......I think ifin it all went bottom up in this country...I'd agree wi' Toddy...most would go 'feral'....but then there are some who would try t' organise an' re-establish society......btw....the new seires o' survivors is back on a week tuesday. loved the original runnin' as a kid.
 
Humans are wasteful, and the bins are always overflowing. Charity shops have bags left outside sometimes! Need I say more. Just walking around there are loads of opportunities, if you don't stay alert you don't last.

I have known a few people get arrested to get a meal and a bed for the night. The list is endless, but interesting, its only the rest of us that stay within the law that don't always see what goes on.
 
The only way I can see me thriving if left penniless and friendless in a city is to walk out into the countryside where I am more in my comfort zone.
I hate cities at the best of times and can never see any good reason to stay in one, especially if I was penniless and friendless with nothing to hold me there!
 
Very interesting thread. I honestly think I would not last long as I've never lived in a city. I hitch-hiked in Europe many years ago and that was an interesting experience. Very tiring but creeping around un noticed and washing in fountains was good, the majority was not. The hitching was an experience in its own right. Of course the weather was beautiful. So was the countryside.
I agree with John in that I would end up in the countryside by default as that is what I understand.
Toddy and Cap'n Badger you both paint an interesting picture. I suppose you really do adapt but as I have never had to, the thought process is not one I can follow easily.

Swyn.
 
The only way I can see me thriving if left penniless and friendless in a city is to walk out into the countryside where I am more in my comfort zone.
I hate cities at the best of times and can never see any good reason to stay in one, especially if I was penniless and friendless with nothing to hold me there!

I totally agree, and I couldn't have put it better.

What makes someone who's homeless want to sleep rough in Peckham? A few coupons from the daily star, and they can be in the south of France in a few days?

It amuses me that winos choice or beer is Tennants - anyone see the irony?

Go in the city/town, get what you need and get back out into the woods.
 
I think there is plenty of homeless people up and down the country who could tell you how to survive on the streets and how difficult the reality is.
 
I think there is plenty of homeless people up and down the country who could tell you how to survive on the streets and how difficult the reality is.

Interesting thread!

Considering the homeless on the streets of London and other large cities - begging is often a large part of their survival method. Otherwise, wouldn't it be "easier" to be homeless in the countryside? Foraging/trapping etc. - of course, you'd have to have the skills. If one were "voluntarily" homeless then move to the country BUT, many homeless people have associated drug/alcohol/mental health issues and, for others, there is probably more possibility of getting off the streets in a city with charities/Salvation Army/hostels etc.
 
As an airline pilot, I lay over in cities all over the world, and I frequently wander around looking for what I call "urban wilderness" - little overgrown pockets where nobody goes. I have frequently stumbled into whole "villages" of homeless people along river banks, in highway medians, etc. I often smell them before I see them.

Foraging in a city would be much easier than in the country. Thrift shops, dumpsters, construction sites, outright theft, etc. Anything unsecured, as Toddy mentioned.

I think the biggest problem would be security - finding a place where you could rest easy and not worry about your things being stolen. Most homeless people have either drug addictions or mental illnesses, and they prey on each other like animals. They undoubtedly spread diseases and parasites to each other as well.

The mobility and load-carrying ability of a bicycle would be useful. Make the rounds, then skeddadle to a hidden, private camp. A bicycle would make you look at least marginally more "respectable", too - good "urban camouflage".

There's plenty of healthy wild meat in cities that's much easier to approach than it would be in other settings. Squirrels, pigeons, ducks, rats, etc. The problem is figuring out a discrete way of harvesting it. You could keep yourself well-fed with a suppressed .22 pistol, some rat traps and a few snares, at least until you got caught.
 
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Thanks for the replies guys.

Running to the hills is not an option - the city limits are as far as you are allowed.

Having lived in a city all my life I should be able to survive a week, a month, indefinately - that could be tricky.

It's not just food, water and warmth that are factors here.
Personal safety and appearance are big issues to me.
People act very differently to you as to how you appear.

Keep the suggestions coming:rolleyes:
 
Hmmmm, methinks your scenario is unrepresentative of real life.
We can go where we choose. There are no 'city limits', no borders to the countryside. The society we live in may have many flaws but those freedoms have been established since England got rid of it's serf laws.

Maybe it's a different world view from bushcraft to survival :dunno:

I know how my friends survived living indigent and homeless in cities. Would I do it ? Not a chance, I'd take the walk.

cheers,
Toddy
 
I agree with you Toddy - you do have the choice to leave.
I'm trying to get ideas for those who choose not to.
 
Then find friends and social agencies. Do not cheese off the police; a police record is a real issue in the way to employment.
Suss out the hostels and the soup kitchens.
They'll see you have a chance at a decent nights sleep, something in your belly and a chance to get clean and organise clothing. They also have contacts that might get you hourly work.

Better chance of moving on healthily that way.

Or are you asking so that someone can be totally Lone Wolf ?

cheers,
M
 
from what I've heard living in such a way in the city is extremely difficult and dangerous (severe risk of being bullied and mugged) but its easier to eat. Living in the country in this way severely reduces your opportunites to gather food. You don't find many early morning bread deliveries in the sticks.

With your scenario the hardest part would be finding a secure place to stay. I always look for camping/ hummocking spots in the city but you can guarantee that if its secluded enough, the local youth will have colonized it too. Sadly, this may often make it a bit dangerous especially for any marginalised/ different people.

I've thought about being in the position in your scenario many times. If I found myself there (unlikely as I have an exceptional group of friends and family) I would definitely head for somewhere like tinkers bubble or similar. (the names of the well established Scottish tinkers sites evade me right now).
 
Suss out the hostels and the soup kitchens.
They'll see you have a chance at a decent nights sleep, something in your belly and a chance to get clean and organise clothing. They also have contacts that might get you hourly work.

The queues are getting bigger.
 
The mobility and load-carrying ability of a bicycle would be useful. Make the rounds, then skeddadle to a hidden, private camp. A bicycle would make you look at least marginally more "respectable", too - good "urban camouflage".

I saw someone not so long back who pitched a tent right on the edge of a shopping centre There was a bike chained to a tree and nobody seemed to approach it, less than an hour later it was gone. And I saw the footprints and biketracks in the frost. Nobody had approached.

There's plenty of healthy wild meat in cities that's much easier to approach than it would be in other settings. Squirrels, pigeons, ducks, rats, etc. The problem is figuring out a discrete way of harvesting it. You could keep yourself well-fed with a suppressed .22 pistol, some rat traps and a few snares, at least until you got caught.

Yup this is pretty much what Id do.
 
you wouldn't need a .22.

you'd just need some stale bread. if you sat at parkbench scattered the bread around you and waited - you 'd be able to catch pigeons in your hands while sitting down.

city vermin for dinner though, blech. :eek:
 

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