April 29, 2025 • 11 mins
Spring cleaning isn’t just about sparkling garages and organized shelves—it’s also the perfect time to double-check your emergency supplies.
In this episode, Jimmy and Megan roll up their sleeves and dive deep into their own camping and disaster gear to figure out what’s worth keeping, what’s better off retired, and why even a dusty water filter might still deserve a spot on your emergency supply shelf.
We cover it all: sleeping bags, tents, camp stoves, old MREs, even a hand-crank blender that once seemed like a brilliant idea (and now feels like a workout machine). We've got tips on how to sort your gear, what red flags to look for, and why some forgotten items might still be lifesavers when you need them most.
If you’ve ever looked at an old sleeping bag and thought, "Should I keep this?"—this episode is for you.
If you've ever wondered if your garage junk pile could actually come in clutch during a disaster—you’re definitely in the right place.
Spring cleaning just got a whole lot more useful—because sometimes, the gear you almost tossed is exactly what you’ll need most.
Life Safety Associates specializes in emergency response training for corporate ERT Teams. We help businesses create competent and confident first responders who are ready to handle unexpected emergencies. For more information you find us @lifesafetyassoc or email@lifesafety.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jimmy (00:00):
What's happening.
It's Jimmy with your girl Megs.
Hello, with another life andsafety podcast.
Today we're going to talk aboutspring cleaning.
And yeah, you're thinking, well, how does that save?
Well, it's safe on a lot oflevels.
If you do what your wife oryour partner says, it's probably
(00:20):
pretty safe.
No, what we're going to talkabout is a quick conversation
backstory on this.
Jenny and I were looking at ourcamping supplies and said, damn,
we've got to organize thatbetter.
It's just a lot of old stuffthere and a lot of old things.
And I said, yeah, we should,and we should think about doing
(00:44):
our spring cleaning, clean thegarage out, but also look at
some of our disaster stuff,because do we get rid of all of
our old camping stuff or do wekeep it and maybe put it
someplace else and have that asour disaster supply stuff?
So she started to answer me andI said stop, wait, that's a
(01:07):
podcast idea.
We tabled that conversation andhere Megan and I now are having
a conversation about it.
So I want to put Megan on thespot and say Megan, what do you
think when I say that Likesprinkling, cleaning, cleaning
(01:27):
up your disaster supplies and oryour camping stuff?
Megan (01:33):
Well, personally speaking , I have like I wish I'm kidding
, I have like ten differentsleeping bags at my house right
now.
I'm in the process of needingto go through, like for me
personally, my sleeping bags,because there's some that are
way too small for me, that arenice for, like my nephews, but
do I need to keep the sleepingbags so that my nephews can use
(01:53):
them?
Jimmy (01:54):
No Wait, do they have like cartoon characters and
stuff on them?
Megan (01:58):
No, but they're small.
They're like small people, likeI'm not that tall, but I am too
tall for these sleeping bags.
But my nephews are, you know,still under the age of 10, so
can fit in them.
Jimmy (02:09):
Sure, sure no.
Megan (02:13):
I was like morally opposed to pink things when I
was younger.
I'm still not a huge fan ofthem, but so all of my like
stuff that I have are, you know,like reds and greens and stuff.
So it would work for the boysNice.
Jimmy (02:27):
So they're not the you know Paw Patrol.
No Dora the Explorer.
Megan (02:33):
I don't know that Paw Patrol was a thing when I was
younger.
Jimmy (02:36):
Those are the first two cartoony things that popped in
my head.
Fair Little Einsteins you knowzooming through the sky, you
know.
So all that kind of stuff youknow kicks in, yeah.
So sleeping bag is obviously abig one, something that people
(02:59):
don't think about in theirdisaster supplies, you know,
like where am I going to sleep,you know, and your old sleeping
bag and their disaster supplies,where am I going to sleep, your
old sleeping bag?
Take that old sleeping bag andif you have the room for it and
you can keep it, put itsomeplace else.
The thing that I like to tellpeople to do is get a huge.
(03:21):
They make these really largecontainers that are on wheels
that you can buy at Target, andI want to say they're like the
size of an ice chest, maybe alittle bit bigger than an ice
chest, and that's a great spotto put things in.
If you have the room and youcan put that, you can start
(03:42):
maybe building a shelf in acloset.
If you're in an apartment ortownhouse or something like that
, maybe a hall closet orsomething, maybe a crawl space,
you can have stuff like that inthere or maybe, if you have a
larger I know some apartmentsI've been to have these really
large closets as a kind of ayeah, there's small living space
, but there's a lot of storagein here.
And in there.
(04:03):
You can have that.
So that's just some ideas whereyou can store that sleeping bag
.
And sleeping bags are prettycompact.
You can really, if you have anice stuff sack, you can really
really make them small.
So don't just throw them awayeither.
Recycle them.
If you do a Google search onrecycling sleeping bags, there's
(04:26):
a couple of different ways todo it.
Um, I know RAI sometimes has aum, I guess I don't want to say
buyback, but they'll have,they'll host things like that
and they have recycling bins fora lot of gear.
I believe they do one, Ibelieve Sports Basement does it
also, and I know there's a lotof.
Megan (04:49):
Yeah, Ari, I retire your gear.
Jimmy (04:51):
Yeah, yeah, and I've seen people that are really good
like sewing will take their olddown or their old sleeping bags
and they'll cut them and they'llmake them into jackets or vests
.
I've seen that.
I guess it's upcycling them.
Th a t's something to do.
This is a great time for yourfood and water, so you start to
(05:18):
spring clean.
You get some new disaster food.
So you start to spring clean,you get some new disaster food.
If you have your freeze-driedfood, like your Mountain House
that's a brand or something likethat or MREs that are getting a
little bit old maybe they haveone more year in expiration and
you don't want to cook thatnight try it, and that way you
know how to use the heaters orthe MREs, or you can remember
(05:41):
how to use them practice.
Or you could, you know, rememberhow to like boil some water?
Maybe get that jet boil out orwhatever you have and make sure
it works.
Megan (05:52):
Do we want to keep it?
That's a good one.
Jimmy (05:55):
Right, do we even want to keep this thing?
Do we even have the fuel for itor what have you?
And make sure those work andyou can try that.
And then you know it's just alittle outdoor, you know, try
and work kind of a thing.
Do you have propane for yourlittle burner?
Or like dang, I keep meaning tobuy that, you know my little
(06:20):
propane thing and it doesn'twork.
And they make a recyclable orrefillable propane cans, now
little five gallon ones, um,you've probably seen it back
there on my desk.
I had one back there, yeah, um,so that works really good.
So another thing is to do isalso it's a great idea to start
(06:40):
looking at anything that mightexpire.
Um, like a lot of waterfiltration pumps.
I have one that still uses alittle chlorine drops to it.
You put it in a little filterand then it works really cool
because it's a little hand pump.
And then I really like itbecause you can take the supply
line, basically, and stick it ina stream, lake, whatever, and
(07:02):
it goes through this filtrationsystem and then the other side,
where it collects that actuallyscrews onto a Nalgene bottle.
Megan (07:08):
Oh cool.
Jimmy (07:10):
So it works really cool and I really like it, but it's
getting to a point now whereit's getting really hard to buy
the components for it.
It's old, I believe Jenny and Iactually got it 20 years ago
for a wedding present.
Oh nice, we actually registeredat REI for wedding stuff and
(07:31):
not like it.
I think we did REI and someother store.
Megan (07:37):
I kind of love that.
Jimmy (07:38):
Right, kind of fun, right , and so we have a lot of
camping stuff I think we'regoing to.
One of the things we're talkingabout getting rid of is we
actually have a hand crankblender.
Cool yeah, you take it and youactually C-clamp it to like a
table and then you hand crankthe sides of it.
You know, and when we wereyounger, when we got married,
(08:01):
we're like yeah, for margaritas,then it turned into smoothies
and we got the kids.
Hand cranking smoothies is notthe business.
Megan (08:09):
No, that sounds like a lot of work.
It's pretty hard.
Burn off all the caloriesyou're going to get from the
smoothie.
Jimmy (08:16):
Right, right.
So those are some of the thingswe're looking at.
And then tents I think we havethree or four tents.
No, I just told a story, wedon't have that many.
During the fires in 2020, weactually donated our tents I
(08:40):
just remember that To a lot ofthe fire victims and stuff like
that.
But now's a good time, you know.
Look at your old tents or lateyour tent and put it up.
Is it moldy?
Did you put it away wet?
Does it work?
Megan (08:56):
That's a good one.
We one time I went camping andwe had a few tents cause there
were lots of people but one ofthe tents wouldn't.
It wasn't our group, I think itwas another group, but the tent
wouldn't go up because the polethings, that snap was broken
and they couldn't fix it.
And they're like now, ourtent's just floppy, yeah, and so
that was not fun for them tosleep in.
Jimmy (09:18):
That's the worst, but yeah.
Megan (09:21):
I think they ended up giving up and pairing up with
another group that had a largertent until they could go get a
new tent.
Jimmy (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, you know when you're the spring, you know
you're starting to plan youroutdoor trips with that stuff.
You know it kind of turned intolike a little disaster thing,
like where would I set this upon my property if I could or if
I needed to?
You know where are my backyardsflat, where would I use the
(09:50):
bathroom?
You know you got to turn yourwherever you're at into like a
little makeshift bathroom or alittle makeshift campsite.
So you know where the bathroomis.
I try to say where would youwash the dishes at?
Where would you sleep?
You don't want to sleep next toyour latrine, so to speak.
Yeah, so there's some of thethings you can think about this
(10:12):
coming up spring, when you startdoing your spring cleaning,
think about cycling out yourfood, checking all your camping
stuff, getting ready for thecamping season.
Be safe, peace.
What's happening.
It's Jimmy with your girl Megs.
Hello, with another life andsafety podcast.
Today we're going to talk aboutspring cleaning.
And yeah, you're thinking, well, how does that save?
Well, it's safe on a lot oflevels.
If you do what your wife oryour partner says, it's probably
(00:20):
pretty safe.
No, what we're going to talkabout is a quick conversation
backstory on this.
Jenny and I were looking at ourcamping supplies and said, damn,
we've got to organize thatbetter.
It's just a lot of old stuffthere and a lot of old things.
And I said, yeah, we should,and we should think about doing
(00:44):
our spring cleaning, clean thegarage out, but also look at
some of our disaster stuff,because do we get rid of all of
our old camping stuff or do wekeep it and maybe put it
someplace else and have that asour disaster supply stuff?
So she started to answer me andI said stop, wait, that's a
(01:07):
podcast idea.
We tabled that conversation andhere Megan and I now are having
a conversation about it.
So I want to put Megan on thespot and say Megan, what do you
think when I say that Likesprinkling, cleaning, cleaning
(01:27):
up your disaster supplies and oryour camping stuff?
Megan (01:33):
Well, personally speaking , I have like I wish I'm kidding
, I have like ten differentsleeping bags at my house right
now.
I'm in the process of needingto go through, like for me
personally, my sleeping bags,because there's some that are
way too small for me, that arenice for, like my nephews, but
do I need to keep the sleepingbags so that my nephews can use
(01:53):
them?
Jimmy (01:54):
No Wait, do they have like cartoon characters and
stuff on them?
Megan (01:58):
No, but they're small.
They're like small people, likeI'm not that tall, but I am too
tall for these sleeping bags.
But my nephews are, you know,still under the age of 10, so
can fit in them.
Jimmy (02:09):
Sure, sure no.
Megan (02:13):
I was like morally opposed to pink things when I
was younger.
I'm still not a huge fan ofthem, but so all of my like
stuff that I have are, you know,like reds and greens and stuff.
So it would work for the boysNice.
Jimmy (02:27):
So they're not the you know Paw Patrol.
No Dora the Explorer.
Megan (02:33):
I don't know that Paw Patrol was a thing when I was
younger.
Jimmy (02:36):
Those are the first two cartoony things that popped in
my head.
Fair Little Einsteins you knowzooming through the sky, you
know.
So all that kind of stuff youknow kicks in, yeah.
So sleeping bag is obviously abig one, something that people
(02:59):
don't think about in theirdisaster supplies, you know,
like where am I going to sleep,you know, and your old sleeping
bag and their disaster supplies,where am I going to sleep, your
old sleeping bag?
Take that old sleeping bag andif you have the room for it and
you can keep it, put itsomeplace else.
The thing that I like to tellpeople to do is get a huge.
(03:21):
They make these really largecontainers that are on wheels
that you can buy at Target, andI want to say they're like the
size of an ice chest, maybe alittle bit bigger than an ice
chest, and that's a great spotto put things in.
If you have the room and youcan put that, you can start
(03:42):
maybe building a shelf in acloset.
If you're in an apartment ortownhouse or something like that
, maybe a hall closet orsomething, maybe a crawl space,
you can have stuff like that inthere or maybe, if you have a
larger I know some apartmentsI've been to have these really
large closets as a kind of ayeah, there's small living space
, but there's a lot of storagein here.
And in there.
(04:03):
You can have that.
So that's just some ideas whereyou can store that sleeping bag
.
And sleeping bags are prettycompact.
You can really, if you have anice stuff sack, you can really
really make them small.
So don't just throw them awayeither.
Recycle them.
If you do a Google search onrecycling sleeping bags, there's
(04:26):
a couple of different ways todo it.
Um, I know RAI sometimes has aum, I guess I don't want to say
buyback, but they'll have,they'll host things like that
and they have recycling bins fora lot of gear.
I believe they do one, Ibelieve Sports Basement does it
also, and I know there's a lotof.
Megan (04:49):
Yeah, Ari, I retire your gear.
Jimmy (04:51):
Yeah, yeah, and I've seen people that are really good
like sewing will take their olddown or their old sleeping bags
and they'll cut them and they'llmake them into jackets or vests
.
I've seen that.
I guess it's upcycling them.
Th a t's something to do.
This is a great time for yourfood and water, so you start to
(05:18):
spring clean.
You get some new disaster food.
So you start to spring clean,you get some new disaster food.
If you have your freeze-driedfood, like your Mountain House
that's a brand or something likethat or MREs that are getting a
little bit old maybe they haveone more year in expiration and
you don't want to cook thatnight try it, and that way you
know how to use the heaters orthe MREs, or you can remember
(05:41):
how to use them practice.
Or you could, you know, rememberhow to like boil some water?
Maybe get that jet boil out orwhatever you have and make sure
it works.
Megan (05:52):
Do we want to keep it?
That's a good one.
Jimmy (05:55):
Right, do we even want to keep this thing?
Do we even have the fuel for itor what have you?
And make sure those work andyou can try that.
And then you know it's just alittle outdoor, you know, try
and work kind of a thing.
Do you have propane for yourlittle burner?
Or like dang, I keep meaning tobuy that, you know my little
(06:20):
propane thing and it doesn'twork.
And they make a recyclable orrefillable propane cans, now
little five gallon ones, um,you've probably seen it back
there on my desk.
I had one back there, yeah, um,so that works really good.
So another thing is to do isalso it's a great idea to start
(06:40):
looking at anything that mightexpire.
Um, like a lot of waterfiltration pumps.
I have one that still uses alittle chlorine drops to it.
You put it in a little filterand then it works really cool
because it's a little hand pump.
And then I really like itbecause you can take the supply
line, basically, and stick it ina stream, lake, whatever, and
(07:02):
it goes through this filtrationsystem and then the other side,
where it collects that actuallyscrews onto a Nalgene bottle.
Megan (07:08):
Oh cool.
Jimmy (07:10):
So it works really cool and I really like it, but it's
getting to a point now whereit's getting really hard to buy
the components for it.
It's old, I believe Jenny and Iactually got it 20 years ago
for a wedding present.
Oh nice, we actually registeredat REI for wedding stuff and
(07:31):
not like it.
I think we did REI and someother store.
Megan (07:37):
I kind of love that.
Jimmy (07:38):
Right, kind of fun, right , and so we have a lot of
camping stuff I think we'regoing to.
One of the things we're talkingabout getting rid of is we
actually have a hand crankblender.
Cool yeah, you take it and youactually C-clamp it to like a
table and then you hand crankthe sides of it.
You know, and when we wereyounger, when we got married,
(08:01):
we're like yeah, for margaritas,then it turned into smoothies
and we got the kids.
Hand cranking smoothies is notthe business.
Megan (08:09):
No, that sounds like a lot of work.
It's pretty hard.
Burn off all the caloriesyou're going to get from the
smoothie.
Jimmy (08:16):
Right, right.
So those are some of the thingswe're looking at.
And then tents I think we havethree or four tents.
No, I just told a story, wedon't have that many.
During the fires in 2020, weactually donated our tents I
(08:40):
just remember that To a lot ofthe fire victims and stuff like
that.
But now's a good time, you know.
Look at your old tents or lateyour tent and put it up.
Is it moldy?
Did you put it away wet?
Does it work?
Megan (08:56):
That's a good one.
We one time I went camping andwe had a few tents cause there
were lots of people but one ofthe tents wouldn't.
It wasn't our group, I think itwas another group, but the tent
wouldn't go up because the polethings, that snap was broken
and they couldn't fix it.
And they're like now, ourtent's just floppy, yeah, and so
that was not fun for them tosleep in.
Jimmy (09:18):
That's the worst, but yeah.
Megan (09:21):
I think they ended up giving up and pairing up with
another group that had a largertent until they could go get a
new tent.
Jimmy (09:29):
Yeah, yeah, you know when you're the spring, you know
you're starting to plan youroutdoor trips with that stuff.
You know it kind of turned intolike a little disaster thing,
like where would I set this upon my property if I could or if
I needed to?
You know where are my backyardsflat, where would I use the
(09:50):
bathroom?
You know you got to turn yourwherever you're at into like a
little makeshift bathroom or alittle makeshift campsite.
So you know where the bathroomis.
I try to say where would youwash the dishes at?
Where would you sleep?
You don't want to sleep next toyour latrine, so to speak.
Yeah, so there's some of thethings you can think about this
(10:12):
coming up spring, when you startdoing your spring cleaning,
think about cycling out yourfood, checking all your camping
stuff, getting ready for thecamping season.
Be safe, peace.
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