Ground Floor - Why?

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#1
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Pretty simple topic, but it's something that's been bugging me for a while, and it came up again in the most recent episode (The Grove):

 

Who in their right mind in the ZA would EVER spend time sitting around in the ground floor of a house, with unboarded windows and with light emitting devices during the night time?  We saw this with Rick and Carl in the early part of this cycle, and then again most recently with Tyrese, Carol & the girls.

 

All I can think, when I see that, is that they haven't learned a thing.  Walkers would see the light from outside, be attracted to the light, then easily stumble through the windows and then... madness.

 

If they were going to use candles or flashlights, wouldn't they put up heavy blankets over the windows (which, to be fair, Morgan and his son certainly did in S1)?

 

And who in their right mind would ever sleep downstairs?  At the very least, shouldn't they be on the second floor, with a barricade across the top of the stairs?  Better yet, when its time for sleep, up in the attic with the ladder/steps pulled up with them?

 

I love this show, but this one thing really drives me crazy.  I just can't believe anyone would hang out on the first floor of an unfortified building, especially at night and/or while sleeping.

 

What's your view?


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#2
Lioness

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I guess it is better than sleeping out in the open on the railroad tracks. Sure, they probably would really do that. But I think the idea was that these people had discovered something that felt like a real home to them and for a brief moment they chose to forget the rest of the world. 


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#3
BitBrit

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I wondered the exact same thing!

I'd be with you in the attic, but maybe it's so they don't get trapped upstairs by looters/walkers?
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#4
Cammi

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First of all, this house was wwwwwaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy off in the woods.  Secondly, there was a wire fence around the perimeter of the house.  Thirdly, being that they didn't encounter any zombies around the perimeter of the house or in the woods where they were searching for water, they didn't see need for that much precaution.  Maybe they'd been there for a few days with no incidences.  That's the only reason why I think they'd gotten so comfortable so quickly.


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#5
Xtracate

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I agree they should be more cautious, maybe they got a bit complacent to the walker threat in the prison and now they are still not being as careful as they should, so far none of the groups have been, they put up boundaries to warn the when sleeping outside but seem to think the windows, walls and doors will protect them, when we know they wont. 

 

Carol should have been more concerned but I think the isolation of the house helped ease any worry, the fence offered some protection, though Lizzie’s playmate got in, maybe she opened the gate, so that might not count, but I think they felt fairly safe there.


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#6
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Pretty simple topic, but it's something that's been bugging me for a while, and it came up again in the most recent episode (The Grove):

 

Who in their right mind in the ZA would EVER spend time sitting around in the ground floor of a house, with unboarded windows and with light emitting devices during the night time?  We saw this with Rick and Carl in the early part of this cycle, and then again most recently with Tyrese, Carol & the girls.

 

All I can think, when I see that, is that they haven't learned a thing.  Walkers would see the light from outside, be attracted to the light, then easily stumble through the windows and then... madness.

 

If they were going to use candles or flashlights, wouldn't they put up heavy blankets over the windows (which, to be fair, Morgan and his son certainly did in S1)?

 

And who in their right mind would ever sleep downstairs?  At the very least, shouldn't they be on the second floor, with a barricade across the top of the stairs?  Better yet, when its time for sleep, up in the attic with the ladder/steps pulled up with them?

 

I love this show, but this one thing really drives me crazy.  I just can't believe anyone would hang out on the first floor of an unfortified building, especially at night and/or while sleeping.

 

What's your view?

That doesn't bother me near as much as sleeping outside with some flimsy twine strung up and a few cans to warn you. If even more than a few walkers came by you would be zombie chow.

In fact, barricading yourself on the upper floor isn't a good idea either. If you have to escape, you can't always do so safely from a second floor. More so now then ever,  humans are a bigger threat and I wouldn't want to be trapped in a home if invaders wanted to take my home or worse.

As I've mentioned before, the amount of tents they have shown people using bother me more than anything. I'd feel like a sitting duck without any way to see what is coming my way. It would be very hard to stop someone who wanted to enter the tent.


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#7
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That doesn't bother me near as much as sleeping outside with some flimsy twine strung up and a few cans to warn you. 

 

Yeah... especially since they only seem to put the string up a few feet away from where they were sleeping too. At least Maggie, Sasha and Bob did if I remember correctly. Like you wanna have enough string to give you at least  100 feet of warning time, especially if there are more than a few walkers.. Haha


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#8
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Yeah... especially since they only seem to put the string up a few feet away from where they were sleeping too. At least Maggie, Sasha and Bob did if I remember correctly. Like you wanna have enough string to give you at least  100 feet of warning time, especially if there are more than a few walkers.. Haha

Yeah, I'd be learning how to climb some trees - Michonne style. haha


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#9
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I thought those rope/tin cans should have been strung out a lot further away too. Then again, maybe they didn't have any more twine or cans? Either way, that would give them all of a millisecond warning before a walker was on them. 

 

As for that house, Carol and the girls were preparing those pecans, and then baking them (which holy crap sounded tasty), so to me it made sense they were all hanging out in the main area. Plus, like others have said, the main floor gives better access for escape. Look at what Rick went through when he went to sleep on the second floor. Imagine that with a baby and two young children? 


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#10
Thanos

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Yeah, I'd be learning how to climb some trees - Michonne style. haha


If the walkers saw you climbing the trees would they not just wait there until you had to come down or would they lose interest and walk off? If the latter I would love in a tree house like Tarzan
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#11
Macilly

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I like the idea of sleeping in the trunk of cars.  At least you know zombies can't get you and its very doubtful any human would give the car a second glance.  I thought Bob did a pretty good job during his flashback of sleeping safely (on top of truck and in that pipe with a makeshift gate). 

 

A tent or the tin cans strung around trees don't do it for me.  At least rope yourself into a tree like Katniss!!


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#12
DaniB7

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I've had this same question for a while.  I tend to agree with the other posters about getting trapped.  I keep thinking back to the building that Sasha found in "Alone" and how perfect a place it would be to stay, plenty of windows for keeping watch, the second floor could have easily been rigged to close it off from the first floor and there was plenty of room.    


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#13
Jayne23

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Pretty simple topic, but it's something that's been bugging me for a while, and it came up again in the most recent episode (The Grove):
 
Who in their right mind in the ZA would EVER spend time sitting around in the ground floor of a house, with unboarded windows and with light emitting devices during the night time?  We saw this with Rick and Carl in the early part of this cycle, and then again most recently with Tyrese, Carol & the girls.
 
All I can think, when I see that, is that they haven't learned a thing.  Walkers would see the light from outside, be attracted to the light, then easily stumble through the windows and then... madness.
 
If they were going to use candles or flashlights, wouldn't they put up heavy blankets over the windows (which, to be fair, Morgan and his son certainly did in S1)?
 
And who in their right mind would ever sleep downstairs?  At the very least, shouldn't they be on the second floor, with a barricade across the top of the stairs?  Better yet, when its time for sleep, up in the attic with the ladder/steps pulled up with them?
 
I love this show, but this one thing really drives me crazy.  I just can't believe anyone would hang out on the first floor of an unfortified building, especially at night and/or while sleeping.
 
What's your view?

Yes sooooo agree. I wondered this all along since Morgan had done that at his own home at beginning
At least someone learned quickly and stuck to it even when he moved to that building....only mistake he made was not putting down his wife right away like rick told him to do.
I was confused why they stocked the basement of the farm house and not one person sought it out/ the herd would have moved on....
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#14
moop420

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Sleeping on the ground floor doesn't bother me anywhere near as much as leaving windows wide open. At least hang a dark curtain or heavy blanket so the zombies can't see you or any fire light. As others have said though, they've spent so much time in relative safety they have all become pretty sloppy. I'll just chalk it up one of those quirks of the show, like how important conversations apparently happen off-screen.


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#15
Vicki48

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From the time they moved into Hershel's home I thought, "Someday the walkers will show up."  Never thought it right that zombies should be able to climb stairs, but since these did, thought even then the survivors should remove most of the treads and risers from the stairway and use ladders. 

If I were in the ZA, I would always carry one of those portable emergency escape ladders with me.


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#16
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I was going to start a thread on this a few weeks ago.  Since this half of the season began, they've been stepping over dead bodies and not making sure they were completely dead.  Maggie just jumped onto the bus and started grabbing dead bodies, even though her dad lost his leg by stepping over a dead body.  

 

You would think after over 500 days since the ZA started it would be pretty hard for a zombie to sneak up on them.


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#17
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I've questioned some of the above actions myself.  I, too, would opt for the second floor but considering the possiblities of escape with a child might make me think twice.  Judith can still be carried.  Imagine the difficulty in hauling a child of three or four around.  Or multiple little ones.

 

I found it incredible that Daryl and Beth sat around the living room of that house, lights on with piano and singing filling the dark silence of the night.  Was there any better announcement of their presence?

 

Some have cited the greater danger being other humans, which brings me to another point.  Obviously, there are other survivors - so how long can the remaining food last?  Perishables were gone in a week.  That leaves cans and plastic-wrapped dry goods - and the survivors who arrived before you.  What are the odds of running into others when people are foraging and moving on?

 

Rick was laughed at for turning "farmer" but someone better start growing some shit or they're gonna starve.  The food supply is finite and Safeway isn't "safe." It's likely been cleaned out like all the other ransacked stores they've encountered.

 

Surely, the bottled water has been snapped up, too.  Did they boil that creek water at the prison?  God knows, our streams are so polluted as to be useless without a purifying kit.


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#18
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I've questioned some of the above actions myself.  I, too, would opt for the second floor but considering the possiblities of escape with a child might make me think twice.  Judith can still be carried.  Imagine the difficulty in hauling a child of three or four around.  Or multiple little ones.

 

I found it incredible that Daryl and Beth sat around the living room of that house, lights on with piano and singing filling the dark silence of the night.  Was there any better announcement of their presence?

 

Some have cited the greater danger being other humans, which brings me to another point.  Obviously, there are other survivors - so how long can the remaining food last?  Perishables were gone in a week.  That leaves cans and plastic-wrapped dry goods - and the survivors who arrived before you.  What are the odds of running into others when people are foraging and moving on?

 

Rick was laughed at for turning "farmer" but someone better start growing some shit or they're gonna starve.  The food supply is finite and Safeway isn't "safe." It's likely been cleaned out like all the other ransacked stores they've encountered.

 

Surely, the bottled water has been snapped up, too.  Did they boil that creek water at the prison?  God knows, our streams are so polluted as to be useless without a purifying kit.

 

 

I didn't hate Rick as a farmer too, though it was odd to me that it seemed to be only him (with Hershel's help) doing it. Everyone should contribute to gardens for growing food if you are in a secure area. In Woodbury we saw gardens and herb beds all over, right on the main street, indicating that it was a town effort, not just one or two people. Foolish to not learn everything you can to survive without modern conveniences. 

 

As for drinking out of creeks, I would think that after nearly two years, a lot of the pollutants would have washed away somewhat. Without vehicles running all the time, airplanes, trains, factories, etc, the earth would probably heal itself rather quickly. My biggest worry would be the nuclear power plants and the inevitable meltdowns after all the automated systems shut down. Not sure how long that would take, but eventually it would happen. 

 

I'd still boil water if I could, of course. Air pollution aside, there's still animal waste that gets washed into our water supplies. After a while, humans would adapt though. I mean, I don't think our ancestors and Native Americans were boiling water before drinking. 


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#19
d2daybreak

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I've questioned some of the above actions myself.  I, too, would opt for the second floor but considering the possiblities of escape with a child might make me think twice.  Judith can still be carried.  Imagine the difficulty in hauling a child of three or four around.  Or multiple little ones.

 

I found it incredible that Daryl and Beth sat around the living room of that house, lights on with piano and singing filling the dark silence of the night.  Was there any better announcement of their presence?

 

Some have cited the greater danger being other humans, which brings me to another point.  Obviously, there are other survivors - so how long can the remaining food last?  Perishables were gone in a week.  That leaves cans and plastic-wrapped dry goods - and the survivors who arrived before you.  What are the odds of running into others when people are foraging and moving on?

 

Rick was laughed at for turning "farmer" but someone better start growing some shit or they're gonna starve.  The food supply is finite and Safeway isn't "safe." It's likely been cleaned out like all the other ransacked stores they've encountered.

 

Surely, the bottled water has been snapped up, too.  Did they boil that creek water at the prison?  God knows, our streams are so polluted as to be useless without a purifying kit.

 

The food supply in Georgia is not as finite as people believe. Yes, there would be few manufactured supplies in stores and homes at this point, but Georgia is an agricultural state. The Grove proved that. The episode title was named after the peach and pecan grove near the house they found. Being an agricultural state, groves and fields from farms would be plentiful and growing food in the summer months, especially in the countryside outside the cities. Georgia ranks number 1 in the US for pecan and peanut production, number 2 for cotton and rye, and number 3 for peaches and tomatoes. "Georgia has 11.1 million acres of land devoted to farms, with an average farm size of 222 acres." "Approximately one in six Georgians works in agriculture, forestry, or a related field." As a farming family, Hershel, Maggie, and Beth would know this and would know that at this point foraging in fields would be a better bet than scavenging in houses. Daryl, a survivalist, would know this too. "Other crops produced in Georgia include apples, berries, cabbage, corn, cotton and cottonseed, cucumbers, grapes, hay, oats, onions, peaches, rye, sorghum grain, soybeans, tobacco, tomatoes, vegetables, watermelons, wheat, and ornamentals, turf grass, and other nursery and greenhouse commodities." Many of these are perennials, meaning they continuously recur year after year.

 

As for livestock, along with pigs they had at the prison, "beef cattle, dairy cows, and hogs are produced on farms throughout the state. Miscellaneous livestock such as meat goats and sheep, catfish, trout (aquaculture), and honeybees are also produced." Georgia is also the number one in the nation in chicken and egg production. If Daryl can still find deer, as Patrick thanked him for doing in episode 1, then some of these animals or birds would still be around too. Also, though I have seen walkers in the rivers, I have never seen one eating fish. I doubt they could even catch one as slow and uncoordinated as they are. I am a better fisherman than hunter, so I would look for a rod and reel in any building I came across. 

 

I am glad that they are finally portraying the food available in the countryside in the grapes the girls and Beth found in Inmates, and the pecans and peaches in The Grove. If they are stumbling across farms, then they should be stumbling across fields with food.

 

ETA: I agree with learning to farm, so that once you find a stable place that you wouldn't have to risk your life foraging in fields to find food. Being an agricultural state, there would be plenty of farming supplies around. Along with farming though, I would learn canning, so that I would have food year round. Thankfully, Georgia is a southern state and with generally mild winters, but they do have winters and would need food to eat then too. Wild animals and birds would be scarce in the winter too.


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#20
DeadInDetroit

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I didn't hate Rick as a farmer too, though it was odd to me that it seemed to be only him (with Hershel's help) doing it. Everyone should contribute to gardens for growing food if you are in a secure area. In Woodbury we saw gardens and herb beds all over, right on the main street, indicating that it was a town effort, not just one or two people. Foolish to not learn everything you can to survive without modern conveniences.

As for drinking out of creeks, I would think that after nearly two years, a lot of the pollutants would have washed away somewhat. Without vehicles running all the time, airplanes, trains, factories, etc, the earth would probably heal itself rather quickly. My biggest worry would be the nuclear power plants and the inevitable meltdowns after all the automated systems shut down. Not sure how long that would take, but eventually it would happen.

I'd still boil water if I could, of course. Air pollution aside, there's still animal waste that gets washed into our water supplies. After a while, humans would adapt though. I mean, I don't think our ancestors and Native Americans were boiling water before drinking.


Damn, as much as ive thought about living in a ZA and/or apocalyptic world, i never thought of the nuclear plants and the effect that would have on the Earth when they eventually shut down!! Best to stay as far away as possible from those damn plants!!

an yea id def be boiling water!! No tellin whats in it, could be a dead human or walker right up the creek spillin guts into ur water supply! Rain water catchers would be set up ALL OVER the place!!!]
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#21
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Oh yeah, dead walkers, forgot about that!

 

Also, fixed the quote for you.  :)


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#22
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For me, being on the ground floor means I can hear any sounds from outside that might pose a threat. If you were upstairs and didn't hear anything coming you could find yourself with a living room full of walkers and only one stairway down. If there was a roof access and a way to get to another building then maybe I would risk it but if you're on heightened alert, every sound will draw your attention and I would be on the ground floor.


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#23
kombat

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Georgia ranks number 1 in the US for pecan and peanut production, number 2 for cotton and rye, and number 3 for peaches and tomatoes.

 

Never had cotton before. Is it tasty?  :smiley-confused002:


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#24
Vicki48

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Re Lioness' post about TWD including environmental  and other sorts of threats.

 

I actually viewed "The Grove" as a commentary on a social issue, or threat of a sort.

 

I originally taught kids with behavioral disorders.  Don't know what the correct title for the position would be now, but I do know, firsthand, how difficult it was to get treatment for a very sick, potentially (read that to mean 'probable') violent child.  The requirement was, despite all the red flags, the boy had to harm someone first. 

 

I don't believe that has changed any over the last 40 years.  Maybe treatment has improved, but clearly we haven't developed any effective means of preventing unprovoked violence by someone who is seriously ill and intent on doing harm. 

 

After watching the show and then reading on the forum, I couldn't help but wonder if people were actually responding to situations like the Newtown school shootings.  People seemed to take Lizzie's death in stride; an unpleasant, but necessary resolution to a problem.  Don't think anyone has referred to it as a murder.

 

I think one of the  things I love most about this (dystopian) genre is that each person has to take a stand; has to act.  If you're faced with a hard decision, you can't pass it off to the next guy to take of.  Gotta love Carol for having that kind of courage.


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#25
Nareen

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Re Lioness' post about TWD including environmental  and other sorts of threats.
 
I actually viewed "The Grove" as a commentary on a social issue, or threat of a sort.
 
I originally taught kids with behavioral disorders.  Don't know what the correct title for the position would be now, but I do know, firsthand, how difficult it was to get treatment for a very sick, potentially (read that to mean 'probable') violent child.  The requirement was, despite all the red flags, the boy had to harm someone first. 
 
I don't believe that has changed any over the last 40 years.  Maybe treatment has improved, but clearly we haven't developed any effective means of preventing unprovoked violence by someone who is seriously ill and intent on doing harm. 
 
After watching the show and then reading on the forum, I couldn't help but wonder if people were actually responding to situations like the Newtown school shootings.  People seemed to take Lizzie's death in stride; an unpleasant, but necessary resolution to a problem.  Don't think anyone has referred to it as a murder.
 
I think one of the  things I love most about this (dystopian) genre is that each person has to take a stand; has to act.  If you're faced with a hard decision, you can't pass it off to the next guy to take of.  Gotta love Carol for having that kind of courage.


I don't get the relationship to the horror that was Newton.

I don't look at Lizzie's death as murder in the sense that the perpetrator acted in either a fit of passion or had something to gain from it. I think Lizzie's death gutted both Carol and Tyreese. There were no good options in the situation they were in. In the prison or any other settled community they could have kept her locked up and looked for other solutions. But in their situation, with Lizzie a clear threat to Judith as well as herself, Tyreese wounded, walkers around all the time, there was no way to control Lizzie. Leaving her would be more cruel and a threat to other people. But having to euthanize her was nothing less than horrible and tragic.

I've been convinced from the beginning that Carol hadn't become as cold as she had convinced both herself and Rick that she was. She was trying to be like that but it's not really in her. I think she loved those girls and having to kill Lizzie was punishment enough in itself.
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