bka0721 wrote:
ReneeG wrote:
A great article for all of us. What I found particularly helpful was the line drawing in the road to determine if anyone came in while you were gone and securing the ladder to prevent access to the roof vents. With a stationary ladder, doesn't fold up, what would you suggest to secure it?
Hi Renee. Glad you enjoyed the article and there certainly will be more in the second part.
I have run up on this before and what I have seen others do, successfully, is use a sheet of aluminum the width and length of your stairs and attach it to the stairs with holes drilled (or two hinges) to allow a pipe clamp top and bottom to work like a hinge to swing the sheet out and away when you need access. The right side has a hole drilled through it to allow a long hasp padlock to secure to the upright of the ladder.
All said, all you are attempting to do is slow someone down by making it a less accessible avenue of egress. Simply attaching a bike rack and bikes padlocked to it will slow someone down too. That is the real point of locking the ladder. What is an invitation is when a step ladder is shock corded to the RV's outside ladder. If you have to have one, at least padlock it to the outside ladder, bike lock or something.
b
Thank you. This really helps. The first boondocking trip out, I was like your DW "there's no one around", but I was hooked and prefer to camp that way. We're very cautious following most of your safety rules, so the line drawn and ladder thing were two we hadn't thought of. The lights off and no reflectors, which we also don't do, are another couple of things I hadn't thought of the reason for not doing. We've boondocked a lot and can tell you things we've seen and possibly prevented by using common sense. On one trip out, we left late, so we pulled way off the road to sleep before continuing on. In the middle of the night, the sound of a car stopping woke me. I looked out and saw two guys getting out of a car. I flipped on all the lights, inside and out and got our two big dogs to barking. Those guys jumped in the car and took off. Same trip, after we had set up camp, we went to town. Upon our return, turning down the dirt road to our camp, there was a beat up car parked with a guy inside, as soon as we turned down the road (where many boondocked) he honked the horn. DH said, he's giving a signal to someone down the road. We looked out at all the camps as we drove by but saw nothing. It was after that trip's experience that DH took a course and obtained a CWP. One can never be too cautious.
