When you’re putting together your urban survival kit you’ll probably get the basics down. Of course you’ll want plenty of water, clothing, food, and utility related items. Batteries, flashlights, firestarters, and about a million things you’ll need to live off the grid when the “grid” goes down. Even so there may be a few odd and unconventional items that may not have occurred to you in the prepping process.
1. Dental Floss
Dental floss can be used for more than just dental hygiene (and gum mutilation) it also many applications in basic survival. Dental floss if nothing else is available may be fashioned into fishing line, be used to as a minty flavor binding for tying together sticks and other items to form a shelter, and in some cases have even been used to fashion traps for birds and small animals.
2. Watch
Some of you may remember wrist watches from the days before they invented cell phones. People would wear them around their arms to tell time when larger clocks (also employed before computers and cell phones) weren’t available. Since cell phones may not be available in the disaster age a watch may come in handy, but not just for telling time. If you don’t have a magnetic compass and you live in the northern hemisphere a must for this trick to work) you can fashion your watch into one as well. First you simply need to line up your hour hand directly with the sun. Then make a straight line between the hour hand and the 12:00 mark on your watch. That line will indicate the north-south line, and the part furthest from the sun will be north.
3. Cotton Balls
Cotton balls may seem a simple thing but they can be vital for various first aid applications, cleaning and sterilization, and even as kindling to start a fire.
4. Shoestrings
Shoelaces, like dental floss make great fishing line and are good for tying sticks and other items together for basic shelters. In one case (as featured an episode of man vs. wild) it has been used to climb a mountain.
5. Aluminum Foil
Aluminum foil can be used for much more than simply wrapping up leftovers. With enough of you can use it reflect the sun’s rays for a cool shelter, improve the quality and strength of an antenna, cook food (I especially to use it for grilling baked potatoes) and even boiling water if other equipment is unavailable.
