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Respect My Cache


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On more than a few occasions while I was out doing cache maintenance, I found my caches to be disturbed—they were not in the same condition or hiding place that I had carefully planned. Some were even moved close nearby to where I can only assume a geocacher thought they were hiding it better :( , or forgot where they found it and just placed it anywhere in the close proximity of GZ :shocked: . Have you had any of this activity on your caches?

 

I think it’s important to cautiously remove a cache from it’s pre-determined hiding spot, and take every precaution in making sure it gets replaced exactly as you found it.

 

For the most part, a person hiding a cache will have invested a fair amount of pre-planning in determining the right mix of container, camo, affixing medium, and hiding place, before deploying his cache for the community to enjoy. Even the intricacies of a riddle, mystery, puzzle, or multi can be thrown off and disturbed if the cache re-placement was not respected.

 

Plundering a cache’s contents has been beaten to death in other threads, but what are your thoughts on what I think is a lack of respect issue?

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That drives me up the wall!

 

I hate when people move the cache. Just put it back where you got it.

 

:shocked: I just adopted a cache the was abandoned and had a habit of "walking around" the hide site. I went out and clean up the cache, get a good set of coords for it, BTW it was 49' away from original coords, and then I took great care to hide the cache in the perfect stop. In fact it was so well hidden that when I came up the trail past the hide spot, after scouting out some other new cache locations, I had to stop and think where I hid it. Anyway the very next cacher posted that they "Hid the cache better but made sure at least one corner could be seen for the next person." It was fine to begin with. Put it back like you found it. :(

 

***rant off***

 

Now if the cache is obviously setting out in the open, ready to be muggled, I would try to hide it better. I would also contact the owner and let them know. As with this cache.

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I have suspected this on finds. Especially micros that are harder to find.

 

I am just placing my first caches and I plan on monitoring them periodically for this. However, one will be fastened so that shouldn't be an issue.

 

I can understand the sentiment...that would be irritating. I know it is when I suspect that's what has happened (and on one occassion the cache owner verified and I relocated it properly since he was out of town).

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A short note in 58 point bold font on the cache listing page, along with a supply of notes bearing the same message, each note laminiated and printed in 34 point bold font and stuck inside the cache container, with each message warning that anyone who fails to return the cache to the proper original hiding spot will be executed, is usually all it takes to guarantee conformance with your demands.

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Cache Migration™

 

I have a few caches that have moved as much 25 feet from the original placement over the year's.

 

I once moved it back only to have the next cacher retreiving a bug move it back "to the right spot" - where he had found it a month or so before. - sigh - it happens.

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A short note in 58 point bold font on the cache listing page, along with a supply of notes bearing the same message, each note laminiated and printed in 34 point bold font and stuck inside the cache container, with each message warning that anyone who fails to return the cache to the proper original hiding spot will be executed, is usually all it takes to guarantee conformance with your demands.

 

Don't you usually have to follow through on that at least once before anyone takes you seriously? I mean... a lot of people do just make idle threats ya know!! :shocked:

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Sometimes you forget where you got it from. I pulled a small micro out of a large area covered with rocks. I took it over to a nearby picnic table where I could sit down and read the log and sign it. When I went to replace it I couldn't remember which rock I found it under. My GPS was no help since the coords placed it in the middle of some bushes nearby. I replaced it as well as I could remember and then kept checking the logs to be sure someone else was able to find it

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I agree wholeheartedly!!!!!!!

 

I have a cache that is located near some high-traffic areas and I planned the hide spot very carefully. I have probably gone out to said site a half a dozen times to replace the cache to the location I wish. I placed it to where if you drive by, you cannot see it...lo and behold, people get lazy and hide it where I can see it as I drive by!

 

I put on the cache page TWICE that the cache should be put back where you found it. Does it do any good? Nope! You'd think people could read...

 

So...I am not good with HTML or any of that...how do I make a nice, big red warning about this on my cache?

 

The cache in question, BTW, is this one: Memorial Park Armory

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I have actually had a cache move so far that I could not find it on a maintenance run. I replaced the cache thinking it had been muggled. A week later someone logs a find and says that the cache container did not match the description (I changed it from a small to a micro). I had to e-mail that finder and have him tell me where he had found it so I could go and retrieve it. :shocked:

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Sometimes you forget where you got it from. I pulled a small micro out of a large area covered with rocks. I took it over to a nearby picnic table where I could sit down and read the log and sign it. When I went to replace it I couldn't remember which rock I found it under. My GPS was no help since the coords placed it in the middle of some bushes nearby. I replaced it as well as I could remember and then kept checking the logs to be sure someone else was able to find it

 

If I do this I leave my GPSr where the cache was.

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A short note in 58 point bold font on the cache listing page, along with a supply of notes bearing the same message, each note laminiated and printed in 34 point bold font and stuck inside the cache container, with each message warning that anyone who fails to return the cache to the proper original hiding spot will be executed, is usually all it takes to guarantee conformance with your demands.

 

Don't you usually have to follow through on that at least once before anyone takes you seriously? I mean... a lot of people do just make idle threats ya know!! :(

 

How do you know he hasn't??

 

:shocked:

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I have actually had a cache move so far that I could not find it on a maintenance run. I replaced the cache thinking it had been muggled. A week later someone logs a find and says that the cache container did not match the description (I changed it from a small to a micro). I had to e-mail that finder and have him tell me where he had found it so I could go and retrieve it. :shocked:

Thats kind of what i was thinking could happen.

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Now if the cache is obviously setting out in the open, ready to be muggled, I would try to hide it better. I would also contact the owner and let them know. As with this cache.

Our first cache totally relies on magnets. When they failed the cache was out in the open. A difficult situation i suspect for cachers. Do you leave it in the open, remove the cache, or re-hide it somewhere close by? We ended up not losing the cache, but i can completely understand if someone moved it to a close by pine tree.

 

Although this is another issue... :shocked:

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How about this?

 

December 30, 2006 by ThirstyMick (539 found)

Found with PolskiKrol on our Christmas vacation cachetour. We fortunately didn't read the logs before going out there and didn't "know" it was missing...we found it!! And thought the hide was ingenious haha..

Went first to the spot & dug through the sticks. turned up nothing. figured we were having some forest bounce and walked around.... extending our radii (two separate gps units) to about 150 feet. We were almost ready to give up when PolskiKrol says to me "So where WERE your closest readings?" So I walk back to the spot, and lo and behold in about five minutes the cache was in our hands!!! It was buried under a smaller pile of sticks near the large pile of sticks but not immediately under or next to it. We figured it was a brilliant decoy. I guess it was an unintentional brilliant decoy, but it had us stumped for a good 45 minutes!

[view/edit logs/images on a separate page]

 

[upload an image for this log]

 

December 7, 2006 by <Cache Owner> (8 found)

Went out for a hike last Sunday, 12/3/06, and found the cache was gone!! Rather than disable this site, I'll leave it active as the usual pile of sticks that cover the cache are still there and very evident. So, find the sticks and you can log a find. I'll get a new cache out there in the next couple of weeks.

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I have actually had a cache move so far that I could not find it on a maintenance run. I replaced the cache thinking it had been muggled. A week later someone logs a find and says that the cache container did not match the description (I changed it from a small to a micro). I had to e-mail that finder and have him tell me where he had found it so I could go and retrieve it. :shocked:

Whenever I archived a cache and pull it or confirm it's missing, I always email the last finder to make sure I looked in the right place. At least once it's help me retrieve a cache that was somewhere else and which I could not find.

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How about this?

 

 

December 7, 2006 by <Cache Owner> (8 found)

Went out for a hike last Sunday, 12/3/06, and found the cache was gone!! Rather than disable this site, I'll leave it active as the usual pile of sticks that cover the cache are still there and very evident. So, find the sticks and you can log a find. I'll get a new cache out there in the next couple of weeks.

 

:shocked:

 

Gimme a break. Just disable until you replace it.

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Good point (and exactly why i changed the owner name to "cache owner"! :shocked: ), but we hadn't even seen that note when we went to look for it, we compiled the list in a rush just taking down the waypoint and coords, if we read the note we probably just would have skipped it.... incidentally, there were exactly 0 logs of "Found sticks, logging find"

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A short note in 58 point bold font on the cache listing page, along with a supply of notes bearing the same message, each note laminiated and printed in 34 point bold font and stuck inside the cache container, with each message warning that anyone who fails to return the cache to the proper original hiding spot will be executed, is usually all it takes to guarantee conformance with your demands.

Don't you usually have to follow through on that at least once before anyone takes you seriously? I mean... a lot of people do just make idle threats ya know!! :shocked:

How do you know he hasn't??

:(

Exactly. Enuf said.

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I'm guilty of "hiding it better" but with only when it's obviously no longer at the posted difficulty. When I arrive at GZ and find a bunch of sticks piled up like someone was about to start a bon-fire I just can't help myself... I have to make it a little less obvious for the next cacher. I always leave it right where I found it though!

 

For what it's worth, I honestly believe that the caches are found by non-geocachers much more frequently than we realize. We're probably lucky they put them back at all.

 

-Ericles

"When hiding a cache, think 'where would a squirrel put this?'"

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One of my first cache hides is in a local state park. After just two or three hides, the cache was found in the MIDDLE OF THE TRAIL! Luckily, it didn't get muggled!

 

We have 6 members in our team, and I often cache with groups of 2-4 people. We have a rule that "he who finds it, rehides it" because only that person truly knows how the cache was hidden when they found it, thus making them the best "re-hider!"

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This drives me nuts. I have an urban cache on under a news rack. It disappeared and I replaced it a while ago. Finally, I pulled it in to do maintanence on it and the signatures just didn't match the online logs and these are people that I know and trust. I sent hubby out to check under the other news rack and he found the original. The two are not attached and are seperated by about 5-6 feet. I removed one and put a fresh log in the one in the correct location. I then placed an owner maintanence log stating that I had removed the extra one and that now that it was in the correct location to PLEASE put it back where they found it. Darn if the very next finders bragged in their log that they didn't think the cache was where it belonged and they moved it about 8 feet. At that point I just had to throw up my hands. I have another one where the very first finder put it back in a different bush. We moved it back to where it started, but it has now migrated to the other spot so many times that I have decided it WANTS to be there and there it can stay. Sometimes the cache knows best. LOL

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It's annoying. It's also par for the course.

 

Expect it, send out the message that it's not kosher, but also give up on being annoyed for more than 30 seconds. You will love longer.

I agree that it is annoying and I also agree that you shouldn't fret the things that you can't change. :shocked:
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Sometimes you forget where you got it from. I pulled a small micro out of a large area covered with rocks. I took it over to a nearby picnic table where I could sit down and read the log and sign it. When I went to replace it I couldn't remember which rock I found it under. My GPS was no help since the coords placed it in the middle of some bushes nearby. I replaced it as well as I could remember and then kept checking the logs to be sure someone else was able to find it

 

If I do this I leave my GPSr where the cache was.

 

I carry a tennis ball in my backpack and put that in the location if there can be any confusion.

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More than once this issue of finders not re-hiding the cache properly has nearly made me archive my caches.

More than once I've found one of my caches "re-hidden" in a way that looked like the finder just put it on the ground and walked away!

It really makes me mad :unsure:

 

I check one my caches nearly every time it has been found.

On average out of every 10 finds of this cache I would say that:

2 finders re-hide it as found

5 re-hide it nearly as well as they found it

2 do a poor job

1 does a #@&* job.

On each visit I always cover it up as I would like the next finder to do.

 

On the assumption that these statistics are not far from average, I feel the approach of re-hiding caches you find at least as well as, if not better than, you found them is perfectly reasonable, even responsible.

 

Ahh, that's better - nothing like a good rant occasionally. :blink:

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Check the HTML box on the listing page and then add

 

<font color=red size=5><b>PUT IT BACK RIGHT!!!!</b></font>

 

Better:

 

<span style="font-size: 200%; font-color: red; font-weight: bold">PUT IT BACK RIGHT!!!</span>

 

(yeah, I know, I'm a Web developer, can't resist nitpicking HTML...)

Edited by marnen
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I just did a cache that had been moved, the original GZ flooded and washed away, it's hiding spot toppled, but not completely destroyed in recent storms.

 

But the new hiding spot is most certainly not Terrain: 1 (more like 3.5-4), prone to slides and fairly dangerous to approach. Someone is going to get hurt because they may not recognize how unstable the terrain - a very steep slope already heavily weakened from multiple storms - is.

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my cache that got muggled got moved to where the previous cache in the area had been hid. I had hidden mine in all the bushes, not on the sign. Lots of kids, so I know that one of them probably thought it was a lost ball or something.

 

I have two new caches I plan on hiding. I have ideas, just not a place to put them.

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...

I put on the cache page TWICE that the cache should be put back where you found it. Does it do any good? Nope! You'd think people could read...

 

 

I have one where I took it a step further and wrote what the placement should be, because people were leaving a 3 difficulty hide out in plain view. Everyone since then has followed the instructions - so I would say cut people some slack and spell it out for them. I think they're just too excited to remember where it was.

 

PS - enjoyed your interview on the Slaga podcast!

Edited by Kacky
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...

I put on the cache page TWICE that the cache should be put back where you found it. Does it do any good? Nope! You'd think people could read...

 

 

I have one where I took it a step further and wrote what the placement should be, because people were leaving a 3 difficulty hide out in plain view. Everyone since then has followed the instructions - so I would say cut people some slack and spell it out for them. I think they're just too excited to remember where it was.

 

PS - enjoyed your interview on the Slaga podcast!

I found a micro while on a cache run with a couple other guys in April, that had been moved from the back of an object to the top. Since one of the other cachers I was with had already found it, and knew where it was suppose to be, I put it back. Left a note on the log, too: Put this back where I was told it belonged.

Having it not where it belonged could have created some potential Public Safety issues.

 

What about putting a note on the cache container, on the logbook, somewhere? Couldn't that help? Something like:

Please Replace this cache EXACTLY where you found it. If it doesn't seem right, drop the owner a private message.

Seems to me that people might remember easier with it right there.

 

Not that we should have to remind them, though. Should be common sense.

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What about putting a note on the cache container, on the logbook, somewhere? Couldn't that help? Something like:

Please Replace this cache EXACTLY where you found it. If it doesn't seem right, drop the owner a private message.

Seems to me that people might remember easier with it right there.

 

Not that we should have to remind them, though. Should be common sense.

I'm suggesting we go a step further and say where & how we mean.

Edited by Kacky
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We have yet to find one of our caches moved at all. Perhaps we are just lucky that the local cachers are courteous. Here's a snippet from one of our cache descriptions:

 

Please replace exactly as found. The longevity and character of this cache depend on the finder's ability to rehide it for the next finder. Thank you for making this an enjoyable experience for your fellow cachers!

 

If finders don't follow this request, this cache could literally end up miles from it's original location.

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This thread really hit a HOT spot with me. I more cases that not, I find my caches totally exposed when checked. I have a series in our local town park that consists of four micros with info in each to find the fifth and final. A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by one of our local TV stations who wanted to do a story on caching so I thought taking them through the series would be good. I went out the day before to check on the micros and found all four poorly hidden to the point of being in plain sight. Needless to say, I was not very happy. How hard is it to "re-hide as found" !!?

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On more than a few occasions while I was out doing cache maintenance, I found my caches to be disturbed—they were not in the same condition or hiding place that I had carefully planned. Some were even moved close nearby to where I can only assume a geocacher thought they were hiding it better :lol: , or forgot where they found it and just placed it anywhere in the close proximity of GZ :( . Have you had any of this activity on your caches?

 

:laughing: I think we were the last finders on a bunch of yours just before you did your last maintenance run. Just for the record, it wasn't us.

 

Mile Square NOLF-1 was archived because the owner couldn't find it. It was supposed to be in plain sight, but it was re-hidden under some foliage.

 

I have a plain-sight cache that only makes sense if it's placed up high and straight. I've found it hanging askew, and I've found it at shoulder level. In either case, it just doesn't look right. I don't need some muggle coming by and thinking, "what, the...?" Eventually, I just stopped going out to check on it. If it gets muggled then it gets muggled. I can't take the suspense.

 

Another plain-sight cache I have tends to migrate to a more-hidden spot, rather than the bold visible place I put it. I don't care so much about that. It just seems funny that it can survive the muggles just fine, but people who know what it really is can't bear to leave it in plain sight.

 

Then there's our first cache. The base remains hidden under the natural plants and debris, and the lid emerges out of it like a hump of dry clay. Someone removed the whole thing from its place and left it sitting on top, looking quite unnatural. I learned that not everyone is an artist, and people won't necessarily put it back with the same eye for detail. Oh, well. It's still alive and doing well, so I guess I can't complain.

 

Change is just something you have to accept. When you've got that many people finding the same cache, it's not going to remain exactly as it was first placed. You can have angst about it, or you can just let people have their fun and let it run its course.

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I would note that in my limited experience with placing caches, I have been very pleased with the care that has been taken. On a couple of occasions were some accidental damage was done, the cache e-mailed me and let me know there was a problem. Caches have been satisfactorily rehidden.

 

I think the vast majority of caches are respectful of caches, but of course a few bad apples can do alot of damage.

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I am working on publishing a bunch of caches in the next week, and appreciate what some have posted here. I've been working on making caches that require less maintenance, and this will be an opportunity to place these kinds of caches, with a new mindset and understanding that some caches are going to get moved. I'll continue to periodically check on them to see where they're migrating to, but will post a request in the ones that I think need to be respected for their original placement.

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