I stand corrected Sir!
And Cassie's Crusaders, I'm East Northants too and saw your caches change status, as well as an example of what we're talking about (which I'd fortunately visited a short time ago before this). Shame, but understand.
I suppose there are a few categories of people who do this:
- People who remove caches because they have no permission to be there,
- People who remove caches because they feel they shouldn't be there because of the specific nature of the area (areas of SSI etc) even though there is permission to place
- People who are malicious and enjoy the negative impact on others
- Random vandals who simply come across the cache (usually kids)
The 1st group of course have right on their side (if the land owner/agency), though it would be nicer to contact the cache owner to negotiate a solution or at least notify them they need to move it.
The 2nd group although in the wrong if there is permission to place, are perhaps possible to negotiate something with.
The 4th group is a fact of life, but not usually a problem in non urban locations.
The 3rd group is evidence of some of the more unpleasant tendencies of human nature
I think pretty much the only thing we can do is to accept it is a fact of caching and continue as best we can. On the plus point, it does make me want to actually start placing some caches (with proper permission) which I'm long overdue for