[jboot]

I'm not afraid and I hardly listen to the media. I observe my situation. I live in a rural farming area, yet "strangers" are commonplace. They are mostly seasonal laborers and few of them speak enough English to hold a conversation. Given the opportunity some of them will break in and steal. I've seen it twice on my property and several times next door. I believe that a few of them are capable of worse things. We have had a few unsolved rapes in the county. It is next to impossible to "keep tabs on them" because they are migrants. If you go talk to the farmer who hired them, he will invariably tell you that they hae moved on.

There are a lot of tweakers. I've got one right next door. They generally leave you alone and do their thing, but sometimes they need money for a fix and then all bets are off. Some of them have friends down at the pharmacy who let them know who has presciptions for pain meds. As a buddy of mine discovered if you have chronic pain, you also have chronic break-ins. He switched to an internet pharmacy and it let up.

The town has a large black population. At one time their fathers and mothers worked in the shoe factory and at the stockyard. Few of them work anymore. There is also a growing hispanic population. Few of them work, either. There is a constant background of petty crime, most of which no one bothers to report, because no one is ever caught. An unlocked car with a push-button starter would be gone in the time it takes you to feed the meter. As an added bonus, the black youth and the hispanic youth like to fight each other. Stabbings are common. On summer nights it is best to avoid the downtown.

I'm not describing Detroit. This is a typical small town in a rural area east of the Missisipi. Maybe it's different in Crowheart, Wyoming or Lee Vining, but it is pretty much this way everywhere I see.

I actually work in an urban area 40 miles from my home. I won't bother to discuss the security situation here. It is all that you can imagine.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This sounds like a situation of the worst of all worlds, short of a dense urban environment. And if ignored it could be similar to the white Rhodesians, who sat on their thumbs and let the situation deteriorate.

A possible way of addressing this would be to set up a local civilian posse to act as area security. Think of them as a private police force. Those who want to subscribe to the security force would be part of the negotiated services they would perform. And right now there are a lot of unemployed veterans who would jump at the opportunity.

Likewise, since you have a long commute and are gone much of the time, a room & board & stipend idea would be a great way to have a house sitter. Again, this might be a good idea for a veteran ‘treading water’ until they can get a job.