Anti-Hoarding Measures
A well-intentioned idea that may be out of hand.
My wife just got back from a Costco run. More than a month into the crisis, they’re still having trouble keeping some staples supplied and are limiting purchase amounts. Other area grocers, including Trader Joe’s, are doing the same.
While understandable, there are rather substantial downsides.
Let me acknowledge up front that they’re in a no-win situation. And that our circumstances are unusual.
Social distancing practices have made getting into the store to begin with challenging. It took her half an hour or so waiting outside to get in. Thankfully, there was a break from the torrential storms. Still, people would naturally be quite angry to get inside and find the shelves bare.
On the other hand, they’ve taken to imposing rather drastic limits on everyday items. Not just the fabled toilet paper and bottled water but milk, eggs, and such. And, oddly, their store brand frozen pizza. There was either no sign or she didn’t see it but she apparently tried to buy three boxes and was informed at the register she was only permitted to buy one.
Complicating matters is that, what might well constitute “hoarding” for a little old lady living with cats is just “shopping” for us. With two college-age kids at home with on-campus classes canceled, we have a household of seven. So, a box of pizzas isn’t enough to feed the kids one meal.
We are, like most across the country, under orders from the governor to remain at home other than for essential business. We’ve done our best to comply, limiting ourselves to rare grocery runs and some occasional pick-ups of take-out food.
But, of course, if stores are limiting how much one can buy at a time, then we’re going to have to go out much more often. Or make multiple stops each trip. That seems to rather defeat the point.
It’s kind of a Catch-22 here.
I have been trying to go shopping only once a week, to limit social contact. Last week this meant buying 8 cans of soup. I ended up having to go to multiple stores because they all either had no soup, or were only allowing you to purchase 1 or 2 cans at a time.
Neither the free-for-all solution nor the anti-hoarding solution really solved the problem.
Per-person allowances are probably the rule with the least downside. The two college kids can go to the store too.
The two college kids can go to the store too.
The local Kroger has a sign at the main entrance “One Shopper per Household Allowed in the Store at a Time.” There is an employee greeting customers as they go in.
The other entrance, less than 100′ away has no sign and no employee and customers enter and exit as they please.
@Mister Bluster: my store has one person per account at a time rules, when one person is done, they leave and the next person on the account comes in.
@Teve: …one person per account…
Not sure what that means.
I have a Kroger Plus Shoppers Card good for discounts and gas points. Since I live alone I am the only one who uses it. Is this an account?
I do not have any kind of discount card for Schnucks. Don’t buy much there.
The sale prices of many items are higher than the regular price of the same item at Kroger.
Only crazy people shop at Schnucks.
@Mister Bluster:
The store I frequent most, has signs advising of one shopper per household. It’s still common to see two people shopping together, but it’s been close to a month since I’ve seen children along with their parents.
@Kathy:..it’s been close to a month since I’ve seen children along with their parents.
Thank you for jogging my memory. I believe the sign at the entrance to Kroger’s reads:
“One Adult Shopper per Household Allowed in the Store at a Time.”
Very frustrating, though I blame the panic-buyers for necessitating these measures. I feel bad for the poor Instacart shoppers who are constantly having to refund and replace items.
We’re having to order far more restaurant delivery than we did pre-apocalypse.
News like this won’t help matters. Thankfully we have two packages of bacon on hand.
I cannot imagine trying to keep enough food on hand for a household of seven.
If we expected this to last for a few years, like Britain in WW2, I expect we’d set up a system equivalent to ration cards with an allowance per head being fed. At this point we’re expecting it to be temporary, there’s little government guidance, so individual stores are improvising. It’s hard to see how they can do any better than X limit per shopper. Even if we get into a system of rolling shutdowns or something over a longer period of time I wouldn’t count on the Trump administration doing anything useful, but perhaps newly woke Virginia might do something at a state level. I’m afraid here in FL the odds of Guv DeSantis doing anything useful are also meager.
This also defeats the purpose by exposing more people to contaminants. I sympathize with the store’s desire to limit the number of people there.
Our local Kroger affiliate offers a deal where they bring the groceries out to your car after you order online. It’s great, and they waive the $5 fee for now. I’d like to see a world where customers are not allowed in the store, that would be safer for everyone.
I know one clerk at that store who says there are several folks who come in every day to wander around – just for something to do, potentially exposing others (or themselves) to virus for no reason. Horrible people exist everywhere.
@Nightcrawler:
See, I’m the exact opposite, I’ve pretty stopped ordering from restaurants because I know a lot of them routinely force employees to work when sick and I’m worried about someone who couldn’t take off handling my food.
I’m trying to stick to pre-packaged food for the most part.
@Teve:
Sure, but, again that defeats the purpose. Rather than one person exposing themselves to the risk, multiple people are. And, realistically, the small kids can’t go.
@gVOR08:
Right. The on-the-fly system is rather haphazard. And, while I get the impetus, the second-order effects of more stops and more trips may be worse.
We are on the store hopping circle also because of missing items. But last Saturday surprisingly the shelves at the first store we stopped at were very well stocked, only a few things missing. They even had sufficient amounts of ground beef. Normally we could go once every two weeks and get everything. Now we have to go to three or more stores, three or four days a week.
Both of us go, as she needs my help to get everything in the grocery cart and into the car quickly. She seldom sends me to the store unless it is for snacks or soft drinks.
The state seems to have a strange set of rules. Churches are closed while liquor stores can open.
That has people riled up here.
@Tony W:
Oh, don’t get me started.
The person who wears a mask all day long, but never covers their nose. the one who wears gloves, and thinks they don’t need to wash their hands any more. The affluent people who send their chauffeur out on errands every day. The people who don’t understand what keeping one’s distance means.
@Stormy Dragon: never did much take out before, can’t see that its very attractive option at this point. Since we are retired, we have lots of time to cook, and lunch and dinner take up some of the time.
But if we we were still working and had kids I suspect that we might feel different
@Tyrell:
Churches have congregations by the nature of their organizational structure. Liquor stores don’t. In the last 20 times I visited the liquor section of my local store (or the liquor store itself back in the day), I was the only person in that section at the time of my trip. The fact that this riles up the Tyrells of the world bothers me not one whit’s worth.
As to limits and such, because I’m single and live alone, they don’t bother me at all, but I feel for the frustration of others. Today was my grocery day and because my refrigerator and cupboards were both bare, it was the first “big” shopping that I’ve done in a long time. For me, because my typical store trip is to restock fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy (eggs every other week) I don’t have any issues with limits, but I suspect that rationing would probably impact me to some degree because it would involve spreading pain more equally. Today in addition to my usual fresh goods, I added a package of pasta, 2 cans pasta sauce, cereal and stocked up a little on meat. Because there was still packages of bathroom tissue on the shelf, I bought a package of it, too, in case I run out, but I expect that what I have would last until the “crisis” is over.
Shopping for a largish family has got to be a problem, though, but I don’t know how to solve the hoarding issues. It’s amazing to me that the same size of inventory that keeps my local big box store stocked to the rafters usually creates perpetual shortages at times like this. The best that I can do is not succumb to the panic and buy only what I need. This is what I’ve kept trying to do.
Our local restaurants have started selling bulk food from Sysco. It’s helped ease the shortages on flour, yeast, eggs, milk and TP our ONE local grocery store is experiencing. That grocery store has started putting only 10 carts outside, every shopper has to have a cart, no children under 18 allowed in the store.
Up until today, Wyoming had no confirmed deaths. An older gentleman on the other side of the state passed away today. 🙁
@Jax: Wyoming is quite suitable for social distancing. I understand Ennis and Jack are very comfortable being together.
One of our local retail bakeries has started selling a limited selection of dry goods. So you can order ahead and pick up fresh baked goods and loaves of bread, a disposable box of coffee or a gallon of brewed ice tea, and pantry items all at once. They are also selling ‘Baker Bonds’ – essentially allowing you to prepay for future full-service items once their dining room reopens. Pretty smart!
@Mister Bluster: Maybe things have slowed down or maybe Sleepytown is different, but from what I hear, the Fred Meyer’s (Kroger chain) stores in our area have 50-100 people waiting at the doors for the start of senior citizen’s hour. I find going at 9 am works well. The crush is over and I get in and out pretty easily, but most items that I want are still in stock. 🙂
My wife and I are use to keeping a well-stocked freezer and pantry. It goes back to our time being posted to the embassy in Berlin and our twice-a-year trips to the nearest U.S. Army commissary in Bavaria.
Luckily, my wife grabbed a couple of supersized packages of TP at CostCo back in February and, just have lockdowns were being talked about, we made some large restock trips, keeping it very basic, knowing we were both good at cooking and baking. I’ve been out a couple of times since Governor Hogan shut things down, but just to get fresh milk, bread, and fresh fruits and veggies.
The local Giant has been fine when I’ve been there. They’ve implemented social distancing rules and sanitization very well, IMHO. I don’t even both looking in the TP aisle and have noticed shortages of some very particular items. I did notice today that there was hardly a frozen pizza or TV dinner to be found in the frozen foods section. Those shelves were just bare.
Regardless, we are in very good shape. I’d venture to say that we could stay home without ever going out to restock as long as we were willing to bake our own bread, use powdered milk and eggs, and only canned or frozen fruits or vegetables for at least the next six months.
@Teve:
Sure, but then instead of one person exposing themselves to the virus, three do. The whole point of “stay at home” is to minimize the exposures.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:..Maybe things have slowed down or maybe Sleepytown is different…
I have reread my post and I see that I was not being clear. Let me try again.
I don’t know how many geezers are at the door at 6am. I’m not there.
@Tony W: If shoppers are not allowed in a store, how are they going to know what kinds of products sre available, expiration dates, discounts and clearance items, and all the candy chouces available at the checkout? That would not work. A person might as well just go to a convenience store.
We shop a lot at stores like the WalMart that sell clothes and other things.
That sounds too much like some country like Cuba or Venezuela.
Stores are doing this because they know what governments don’t have the stones to admit yet – we’re going to start running out of a lot of different kids of food.
Produce is rotting in California.
Workers are walking off the line at meat processing plants because of how bad conditions have gotten.
Governments NEED to start issuing ration cards now, but they won’t because Republicans are going to cry “socialism!”
@Tyrell:
I do not understand this.
I have not used proper TP in weeks.
Using Bounty now (which I now know not to flush). Probably 2 weeks supply left of that if I do the math.
The amount of square inch – age of paper required diminishes weekly. 4 squares, 3 squares, 2.
Unless I can can buy something new in those type of hygenic supplies I have no idea rather than my huge supply of plastic grocery bags stuffed into other grocery bags. The bag of bags.
– that doesn’t work at Costco where you have to show a membership card at the door – and they track your purchases by membership card, no going through the line twice. Costco is also only two people per card.
Shortages in my PNW area are still: TP (duh), bottled water, flour, yeast, some meats. And those cleaning wipes (I prefer a rag in bleach water myself). There was a run on eggs and bread but plentiful now. Frozen vegetables were wiped out, but lots of fresh. Seriously, my freezer was pretty full before so I don’t understand where these folks are putting their frozen goods. Maybe we’ll loose more people to food poisoning soon. I seriously don’t expect these folks to bake much (I hear banana bread is the big thing now though).
I’m going out once a week for rounds of the stores. One has a formal line and a hand washing station outside. I avoided the beginning of the month. I’ve made one Costco visit (wasn’t bad, parking lot 1/3 full). Limit of one rotisserie chicken. Seriously, who is hoarding precooked chickens (but they are)? What disgusts me are the rubber gloves in the parking lot.
The Marijuana stores had an initial run, but the parking lot of the one near me seems less full than normal now. [Essential – state needs its taxes]. Homebrew store is doing good business (preorder, curbside delivery)
An acquaintance in AZ has health issues and has been using the Walmart pickup service since they started it. He recently had to go go into the store wheeling his O2 tank as the online ordering was largely “out-of-stock;” they didn’t know what they had.
Taprooms and breweries have curbside pickup, but they have little outside sales. The Brewers Assoc just did a survey and, “Responding to that question, 45.8% said they could only last one to three months. Another 24.8% said they could only last three to six months.”
The other day I ordered online a to-go pizza from BJ’s Brewhouse, a large chain (½ off = reasonable price). They had their 3 doors marked: Grub Hub, UberEats, General Public (me) and I’d guess from my 3 minutes there that most of their business was the delivery apps. But no servers, bartenders, etc. A BBQ place I go to is selling out most nights, but all fine dining is all closed around here.
Crime has gotten worse as deterrence against crime has decreased. Folks wearing a mask getting free stuff, burglaries of closed businesses (like a nail salon, all equipment stolen a mile from me this weekend). Non-violent prisoners are being let out, and just as importantly people under Community Custody (parole) who violate their conditions aren’t being sent back (Prison system has 8 sick inmates, all at one location). I’ve been following two cases in the local Superior Court – all the preliminary meetings and hearings have been canceled.
I was in a video conference Town Hall this afternoon with the head of my county’s health department (about 30 invited people). Things are looking OK (not as bad as projected), about 1000 cases of COVID-19 in the county (mass testing of sick people was ~2% positive, 48% of the tested were health care workers). The new quarantine center (nice motel) is fairly empty (over 90%), and the non-transient homeless have been spread out (including into closed high school gyms). BTW, I’ve found my ChromeBook is the easiest for these video meetings.
One thing is for sure out of all this, lots of data to be mined to prove whatever you want to prove, and lots of material for PhD thesis.
@de stijl:
Do what half of the world does, wash your behind with water, then dry with a washcloth or a paper towel. I learned that at the same time I learned to used a squat (Benjo) toilet. I was, um, where is the toilet paper?
@Richard Gardner:
America is staying quite sane for now.
How people can behave in grocery stores can get way worse than what we’ve seen.
Will it continue?
I would pay $50 for a four pack of Charmin.
Literally have not seen TP for sale at any price since February.
We used to mock the Soviets for this exact scenario.
Failure to provide for basic needs.
I have brought up my failure to find TP many times.
It is a proxy for how we stock shelves.
With the Smithfield shut-down, we lose 4-5% of of pork production.
The supply chain that allows us to live an existence untethered to cilantro and pork chops and ginger and how they get to our grocery store is extremely tenuous.
If that chain fails….
@de stijl: Go old school: take a shower afterwards…
@Jim Brown 32:
Not my first choice, but I will if I can’t find a wipe in the next two weeks.
(I will try the plastic grocery bags first, though. It might work, plus I have a buttload (ha!) of them.)
Plastic grocery bags are my personal hydroxycholoroquinine. The magical bullet that will save my rep and ensure my re-election, but will likely fail to do the job adequately.
Next toilet I buy is gonna have a built in bidet.
@Tyrell:
My pediatrician’s wife died when a rehab center cold turkied her. Taking away alcohol can be lethal.
I got a Tibbers bidet attachment in November or December when they were around 35 bucks, they have since gone to 130, and they say it’s because they had to spend 1 million bucks to buy the factory in China that was making them so they can ramp up production.
Highly, highly recommend.
@Tyrell: A lot of stores have apps that will tell you if an item is out. WalMart has had a pick-up service for years.
My last two times grocery shopping were via delivery. I made my list via app and it told me if things were out of stock and if the app was wrong, the shopper messaged me with alternatives. it worked great.
I recognize that not all stores or locations will have this ability, but the point is that it is doable.
(And since WalMart is in on the act, it isn’t like this is some high-end only phenomenon).
And, TBH, it seems to me that instead of being something out of Cuba or Venezuela, it is something out of our future/already reality for more affluent people who can spend a little more for delivery and save all the time needed to shop).
@Teve:
The long term problem with the budget bidet is that you still need a wipe.
If the bidet does it’s job it replaces one aspect of the need to wipe, but your tushie is now wet, so then needs a TP wipe.
I need an AI Japanese super toilet that bidets me and then gently, warmly dries my tushie thereafter.
I am a big reader and always have an open book. Would be down for drying time. Not a prob at all.
The pleb, scrub bidet means you still have to wipe. That defeats the purpose.
@Steven L. Taylor:
After our first week of isolation, my wife and I decided we would check out delivery for our groceries, so I started to research it. I quickly discovered that none of the nearby stores offering delivery or curbside pickup had slots available for taking any new customers for the service. I’ve seen stores locally advertising for additional drivers and shoppers so that appears to be a growth industry. While I’m sure many of their customers will go back to their normal ways of shopping once this crisis passes, there will be many long-term changes to our collective behavior and this is one of them.
Threads like this one have me dreading my trip to Safeway across the street from where I live. I stocked up around 2 weeks before the SIP orders in the Bay Area and now I finally am at a point where I need food (and if the TP Gods are with me I can get at least 6 rolls of TP).
The thing is, the very few time I have gone out (to do a drive thru lunch/pick-up a food order from say Olive Garden) I can see that the parking lot is packed and it never seems to empty out during the day…shudder, not looking forward to my trip indeed.
My boss says I need to allot at least 90m for my grocery run, at least 30m to get in, 40-60m to do the shopping, and the remainder of the time standing in a line to checkout where we all have to be spaced out.
It goes without saying that I am going to stock up on as much as I can (as allowed considering there will be limits on how many of each item I can buy) during this trip and fortunately living alone means I do not have to make multiple trips (the horror, the horror) to grocery stores to get enough to feed say a family of 5-7 folks.
I really hope after a few more weeks plans start to develop on how we can speed up the process of obtaining groceries…folks are not going to be able to go through this grind/hassle for more than a few weeks before, as Drowning Pool says in their incredible awesome hard rock song Bodies, something’s got to give.
Speaking of, Bodies is a very un pc song to listen too in these calamitous times but if hard rock floats your boat you may have already heard this song or might want to scratch the itch to listen to it again. And that is the end of my thread digression.
@de stijl:
Have any phone books? If not, ask your neighbors if they have any to spare. People often have a bunch of old ones piled in some dark corner that they haven’t gotten around to throwing out. Also, some phone companies will deliver free phone books on request. There are also yellow-pages companies that work independently of the phone company that might give you a few or maybe even a stack for free if you go get them.
You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot now just to get past the toilet paper crisis.
“Bidet attachments” mount at the back under your toilet seat lid. They’re primitive and don’t heat the water, but personally I don’t find cold water on my tush to be that big a problem. Not so long ago you could pick one up on Amazon for $25. I almost waited too long and had to pay $10 more. They’re out of that one now but an identical one is selling for $97.
The best I could find just now is $35 “used” and direct from the Amazon warehouse. Oddly, they’re not listed on Amazon’s warehouse site. I found them on amazon.com by clicking on links that don’t show a price, and then clicking the “available from these sellers” link.
@de stijl: I went to Fred Meyer recently. The TP and paper towel aisle was bare. However, in the Natural Foods section, I found plenty of Seventh Generation toilet paper and paper towel packs. The 12-roll packet of SG toilet paper was $11.
@Steven L. Taylor:..instead of being something out of Cuba or Venezuela.
Maybe Tyrell was thinking of the Walmart in Cuba, Missouri.
About 100 miles down the road on State Route 19 from Mexico MO.
@Tim: All of the local WalMarts were out of slots the last time I looked. And the grocery store I used is more expensive than WM (and I know that Whole Foods is also delivering, according to a friend). It is a luxury (which is why the Cuba ref is off-base to me) and I agree that after this is done, some business models will be permanently changed.
I already told my wife that I would be using the delivery for some shopping going forward and would prefer to pay a moderate fee to save the time of shopping.
All right, that’s it….somebody get me de Stijl’s mailing address, I will find him some toilet paper and mail it to him! The manager of our grocery store gets paper products in every time, but she keeps it in the back so people can’t buy it all up and leave none for people who really need it. And I can also get the industrial stuff from one of the restaurants. 😉
Seriously, James and/or Steven, get de Stijl’s address and send it to my email, the gal at the liquor store is gonna order a case for me.
@Franco Ollivander:
I would not be comfortable with a used bidet attachment.
I know that sounds too germaphobic for this era, but too far for my brain to accept now.
I was in front of the curve, Vox has a big story on bidets this afternoon.
@Jax:
I’m cool for now. I have Bounty. I have the process nailed on shuffling the doody rag bag from the porch to bathroom and back as needed.
Push comes to shove, I have the bag of bags. Literally hundreds of plastic grocery bags.
Push really comes to shove I can do the @Jim Brown 32 solution and just shower.
Thanks for the concern, but I will cope. Crabbily, but I will cope.
@de stijl: It’s no biggie, man, and if you don’t want the whole case (We can always use backup TP around here 😉 ), I’ll stuff a bunch into a Post Office “If it fits it ships” box and send it your way!
@de stijl:
Sorry, I sometimes forget that not everyone has spent half their life as a caregiver. Poop doesn’t bother me at all so long as I’ve got the proper gear and supplies. If I’m in doubt about something (like a used bidet in these coronavirus times) I just apply an appropriate disinfectant and it’s good to go.
That said, while I wouldn’t put anything past Amazon’s resellers, I just don’t see Amazon Warehouse reselling something that’s been used in someone’s toilet. These are probably are returns that people didn’t like after opening the package, or that didn’t fit their toilet’s bolt spacing, or maybe even brand new never-used items whose boxes were damaged in the warehouse.