So two questions; is Mountain House the go to long term food? I have a 4 ft crawl space under my house; can it be stored there? Can rodents get in the buckets?

Are the buckets made of steel?

Depends what kind of rodents

But short answer is yes, they can chew through the plastic buckets.

I store mine in a normal room, well insulated from major temperature swings.

I'd store them inside your house. If you can't find any space at the tops of your closets, try under your bed.

If they are the big buckets that have the pouches, you might have to pack them in something else. Try the Mountain House cans, they will fit under most beds and other locations.

If you want the pouches and are tight on space, you can get a garment bag, that is totally enclosed. Fill to an acceptable level with pouches and hang it in your closet. Adjust the amount depending on the garment bag material and how much your closet hanger rod can handle.

I dont use MH exclusively but its gtg if you got the money

crawlspace is good if it relatively dry

rodents can get through but rarely do. set some traps if youre worried

biggest question is what do you think you need to plan to survive?  The more popular ideas,  societal collapse,  end of the world,  communist invasion and asteroid hits are all low probability events.

Low probability, yet high impact.


OP if you can, store inside your home in a controlled environment. MH and other ready to eat meals should only be a small portion of your food preps. The best way to start is store what you eat, eat what you store. if you eat a lot of canned green beans, buy extras.  You can bucket beans, rice, salt, sugar, corn etc yourself and save a ton of money.

I took care of a Methodist church years back and they had a pre-school/kitchen for events.  We had a rat gnaw through a one gallon jug of cooking oil, that was in a pretty thick container, much thicker than a jug of milk, but probably not as thick as a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket.

They're dedicated little bastards.

Chris

Rodents shouldn't fully compromise the 5 gallon buckets.  The food will last longer inside the house, but if you have to, use the crawlspace.

Some provisions are better than no provisions.  MRE's are most sensitive to hot weather.  Freeze dried is almost impervious to everything except for humidity.  Just ate some rice that was stored in a crawlspace, in 5 gallon food grade buckets with gamma seal lids, packed in mylar bags with O2 absorbers, FOUR years ago, and the rice looked and tasted like I just bought it at Costco.

I had a single wide when I owned some property for a few years.  I gave a fair bit of thought to removing the skirting so I could roll some 55 gallon drums under it and then just put the skirting back up.

Pack drums while upright, then put on side and roll em in there. 

I like glass and metal for food storage.  Anything mylar needs protected in my opinion if in a crawlspace.

To some extent the cans might be fine, but I would do some searching for some 55 gallon drums used for food grade stuff and that have the whole top come right off.

Paint any scratches or rusty spots and go.

If really worried then coat em with something thicker.

I don't know how tall a 55 gallon drum is, and too lazy to measure one or even google it, but if accessing from inside the house maybe you could get an empty one in upright and then load it in the crawlspace?

There are smaller drums and other options of course.

Parents had some squirrels chew through a heavy duty yellow plastic garbage can one winter cause the squirrels wanted the bird seed mom gave the birds in all her bird feeders.  I replaced with drum.  Drum does not have that issue if metal.

I had rodents chew through 5 gal. restaurant/commercial pickle barrel (same as 5 gal paint bucket with waterproof lid) to get the corn inside while stored in shed.
If rodent smells any food on the barrel inside or outside they will chew through it.  Even if the bucket's content does not release any odor you have to be careful not to get any food or food product smell on the outside of the bucket though touch.  I guess the best method to storage is to use large glass jars with metal lid.