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RUBBISH! Why oh Why?


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I havent been caching a lot lately, due to a number of factors but I thought hey! sun is shing lets go do some maint on a cache or two and grab some others.

Get to the caches and all the swops have been replaced by absolute trash, things like a wine bottle cork, stupid plastic soldier, pencil sharpener that has no blade, broken ping pong ball etc. etc. etc.

 

Now i know you dont have to swap and thats cool I dont always have good stuff with me so I dont leave or remove anything, but why on earth do others take stuff and leave rubbish ( I am being very polite here, pleas e note).

 

Anyone who reads this Please Please Please think of the little ones who have walked and hunted to find some buried treasure and on opening the cache find tat. STOP IT PLEASE!!!

 

Its not just my caches that i find this in its nearly every single cache I open these days, is this a consequence of greater publicity or just general stupidness/lazyness???

 

Grrrrrrr!!!!!!

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yup, quite agree on this subject.

Why do people put stuff in caches that are useless if damp (T-bag I found and removed). I would rather do a TNLN if I did not have anything suitable to swap rather than take something nice and put a 'bit of tat' in it's place.

As we cache with no kids (both very mature cachers'old gits') we tend to visit £ shops and always carry a stock of small toys and bits that we put into caches that are empty so that any familyies who find later do not have dissapointed children. It's suprising what you can get for a couple of quid in a £ shop these days.

Placed a couple of largish caches last year and have just done a re-stock on one of them and found '10p piece, pebble, and a phone charm' so re-stocked with a few nicer items we always carry.

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Anyone who reads this Please Please Please think of the little ones who have walked and hunted to find some buried treasure and on opening the cache find tat. STOP IT PLEASE!!!

 

 

Are we now saying that every cache, and it's contents, should cater to children?

 

5 or 6 years ago the biggest single "whinge" on this board was the number of caches that contained cheap kids toys.

Edited by Lost in Space
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No we are not saying that every cache should cater for children, what we are saying is dont swop for junk. + lets face it most of the swops are going to be aimed at children anyway. Unless you want to collect used wine botle corks or beer bottle tops and I am sure there are folk out there who do want to collect them, I just dont want to find them in caches thats all.

 

I tend to stock mine with stuf for kids and the swops I carry are for kids as well. Although I do throw the odd wherewolf in for older cachers as well.

Edited by wolfshead57
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My wife had a good suggestion today after visiting the Mega Event hall - inspired by the nice lady selling boxes of mixed sweets for the kids, how about a stall selling mixed boxes of cache swaps for people to add to their caching bags. We've got a huge box of swaps at home which I stocked from the "wholesale" section on ebay - loads of corkscrews, keyrings, LED torches, as well has kids toys, etc. Okay, I probably invested 30-40 quid in that box, but it's going to last us for at least a year of caching (at our current rate of finds), and also provides a stock of stuff for the odd occasion when I get around to putting out a cache of my own.

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Only been doing it a week and only one box was great (pookie's in south oxfordshire, uk), however there is one In Abingdon, UK that all there was in the box was an allen key and notepad. One done tonight had a royal mail keyring advertising its services, a geocacher offering his services in making ceocaching keyrings and a dozen or so cards from other geocachers (thought the logbook was the way to do that).

 

Ive not done any swaps in days, but started off swapping some cheap tachy toy for some decent earphones for a well known brand that i have hoping by putting these into caches the next person might choose these and put something of equal value or more and put the quality up.

 

Still waiting for my first cache to be given approval and now im wondering if i have gone over the top with 10 items + TB and good deal of money spent on it. If what ive read above and seen today is true then it saddens me that ive spent that sort of money on doing a cache that will probably end up with a few copper coins, a few pens and some bolts... great trade :cool:

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To be fair, our little ones quite often happily take the 'tat' - a shell or a pebble or a kackered matchbox car seem to please them. They don't like soggy cards though. ;) And half packets of polos are a definite no-no - we had a full blown toddler tantrum when those were swiftly removed from a cache the other day.

One child's tat is another child's true treasure. Our biggest trouble is the oldest seems to have a photographic memory for tat that's come out of caches. Which means we can't get rid of the broken McD toys. :wub:

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when i set a trinket cache i try to put nice things in that are varied so will appeal to different ages groups. sadly though after a while when i go check on them, my caches become filled with tatty stuff like a rubber balloon or a wadge of wire ties that have gone rusty.

i like to go hunting for caches that have the trinkets in, but most times i find them they are full of useless stuff that i wouldnt even donate to the charity shops.

ive nothing against trinkets for kids but at least put good stuff in in the first place and then trade fair too.

i am a lone cacher, i have a young son that i do think of when i look at the trades, but most of the stuff i wouldnt dream of picking out for him cos its horrid, i wish there were more trade things suitable for adults though, we dont want junk either.

 

i am planning to set a new cache once i find a good hiding place for it. its going to be a larger container and i intend for it to hold a diverse lot of trade gifts - books, small handmade craft stuff, kid stuff, nice stuff for adults - small things. the trades must be a book for a book or a craft for a craft etc.

how long do you think it will take for the trades to go rotten and the box be filled with crap instead?

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One of my caches had a log that noted several items removed and replaced by a used golf ball :wub: - to add insult to injury the log ended 'hope you dont mind' :P - with a caching name I could not decipher and they never logged it either.

 

and another had all the items removed and replaced by a bunch of copper coins. ;)

 

so now I just fill my caches with party toys and something extra for the FTF.

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When caching with kids a good technique is to go on the caching route the day before and place toys which the kids like in the cache. It’s a real thrill for the kids to open a cache and find a keyring with their name on it.

 

You really should get a life - too much effort :wub::);)B):P:D

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One of my caches had a log that noted several items removed and replaced by a used golf ball :wub: - to add insult to injury the log ended 'hope you dont mind' :P - with a caching name I could not decipher and they never logged it either.

 

and another had all the items removed and replaced by a bunch of copper coins. ;)

 

so now I just fill my caches with party toys and something extra for the FTF.

 

You'll never beat this:

 

"Took hard drive, left a nice caching friendly pen on lanyard."

 

It was a 300 gb hard drive, and it was working fine.

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We always carry a bag containing swaps for adults & children. When we open a cache, if it is not very appealing, we get rid of any rubbish, adverts, out of date vouchers, broken things etc. and replace with an adult and child swapsie. Just a packet of tissues, rubber frog or the like. We always put something in if it's empty and we try to make it so that it's the sort of cache we would like to find. We also dry out wet caches and carry silica gel to put in. Our friends collect silica gel sachets out of new bags and shoes for us! Surely this is what it's all about, just a bit of consideration for other cachers and owners? :D

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We always carry a bag containing swaps for adults & children. When we open a cache, if it is not very appealing, we get rid of any rubbish, adverts, out of date vouchers, broken things etc. and replace with an adult and child swapsie. Just a packet of tissues, rubber frog or the like. We always put something in if it's empty and we try to make it so that it's the sort of cache we would like to find. We also dry out wet caches and carry silica gel to put in. Our friends collect silica gel sachets out of new bags and shoes for us! Surely this is what it's all about, just a bit of consideration for other cachers and owners? :D

 

Being a newbie this is what i thought it was about, but some caches ive seen have one item to trade within while another had a royal mail keyring and a broken toy... However the best cache i found had loads of kids stuff and certainly lived up to the youtube video on this site of what a cache should look like.

 

Just hope my first cache doesnt get abused considering the money i spent on it. :drama:

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We always carry a repair kit in with our swap items.

(it contains a few small bags, silica gel sachets, insulatiung tape for repairs, a couple of magnets, some spare sheets for temp addition to log books and some tissue to dry out wet caches).

Have carried out a couple of repairs and left a few temp log books along the way and always recieved a thanks from the cache owner, only log I don't carry is nano ones as there is no room for an extra shhet.

Have found a couple of caches recently where somebody was leaving a T-Bag in a paper slip and one we found was justa soggy mess, would have thought that a T-bag would come under the 'NO food' category.

 

Have just restocked our swaps bag with a selection of Croc Plugs and Croc Bracelets that the plugs can be attached to, so some kiddies will find a few nice swaps.

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One of my caches had a log that noted several items removed and replaced by a used golf ball :D - to add insult to injury the log ended 'hope you dont mind' :mad: - with a caching name I could not decipher and they never logged it either.

 

and another had all the items removed and replaced by a bunch of copper coins. :drama:

 

so now I just fill my caches with party toys and something extra for the FTF.

 

You'll never beat this:

 

"Took hard drive, left a nice caching friendly pen on lanyard."

 

It was a 300 gb hard drive, and it was working fine.

 

I'd have thought that after spending time in a cache the pen was a lot more likely to work than the hard drive. I certainly wouldn't consider an untested hard drive that had been left in a box in the woods as being worth very much!

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Being a newbie this is what i thought it was about, but some caches ive seen have one item to trade within while another had a royal mail keyring and a broken toy... However the best cache i found had loads of kids stuff and certainly lived up to the youtube video on this site of what a cache should look like.

 

Just hope my first cache doesnt get abused considering the money i spent on it. :rolleyes:

 

And expect you'll hope you don't get found logs that read

"chose a couple of toys and left two T.B.'s"

(imediately after after you've replenished the cache )

 

Strangly some people think that is a fair swop ?

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cant we write up a set of guidelines about how to trade fairly and how travelbugs/coins are not trade materials? i mean we usually place the what is geocaching info sheet for those muggles that may accidently find the cache.

just an idea, it may help clarify the trade gameplay for those that may not know.

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Before we go on holiday we change our swaps bag contents so that we will have 'useful' holiday things ( 3 in 1 tin openers/bottle opener/spoon, ponchos, torches, reflective belts etc) plus we take mini packs of cards, puzzles and things to keep kids ( and adults) amused on rainy days. All of them are obtained from Asda/ Pound shops or from outdoor shops that have 3 for 2 type deals. Actually found Maplins and Halfords to be quite good.

 

Piglet 1 is no longer interested in contents for swapping, but piglet 2 still likes to find something decent. We try to restock if a cache is running low just so the next cacher gets the benefit.

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I agree sadly with all the comments, I am a newbie and have only found a few caches, however the ones found were all full of tat except for the grange arch cache in dorset which had been just restocked. The last one we found in upton country park, dorset was full of tat including a plastic toy soldier, a couple of penny toys and 2 stones, not even nice looking stones. I have always made an effort so far to put something nice in for the next person but it does put you off from leaving anything nice because you wonder if anyone does.

Oh well, i'm still going to put nice things in even if just for the kids as it is about the thrill of finding it that appeals to me.

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just to let you all know Tescos are doing a 4 items for £1 for stationary stuff all of it canny enough for little pressies. so no need to spend loads.

 

I guess it takes all kinds! Personally I think stationary stuff rates among the least inspiring stuff we ever find in a cache :laughing:

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I guess it takes all kinds! Personally I think stationary stuff rates among the least inspiring stuff we ever find in a cache :laughing:

 

Go then, tell us all what inspires you.......given that " I guess it takes all kinds"......

 

By "stationary" do you mean stuff that doesn't move?

Edited by Lost in Space
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Being a newbie this is what i thought it was about, but some caches ive seen have one item to trade within while another had a royal mail keyring and a broken toy... However the best cache i found had loads of kids stuff and certainly lived up to the youtube video on this site of what a cache should look like.

 

Just hope my first cache doesnt get abused considering the money i spent on it. :laughing:

 

And expect you'll hope you don't get found logs that read

"chose a couple of toys and left two T.B.'s"

(imediately after after you've replenished the cache )

 

Strangly some people think that is a fair swop ?

 

funnnily enough after the ftf found it it did have two travel bugs, so one has left the cache and will be placed in the cache im placing at the weekend.

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I guess it takes all kinds! Personally I think stationary stuff rates among the least inspiring stuff we ever find in a cache :laughing:

 

Go then, tell us all what inspires you.......given that " I guess it takes all kinds"......

 

By "stationary" do you mean stuff that doesn't move?

 

Well looking at it practically I'm mainly into Geocoins because they have a story behind them, whilst they're not regarded as swaps they're definitley good thiungs toi find in a box. I also like pin badges that are easily carried attached to a lanyard and traded in and out of caches. However the daughter loves tacky Mctoys, clothes pegs, model animals and even the cheap toy soldiers, pine cones, stones and golf balls that so many hate. It really does take all kinds and if we're honest we must surely know that not all caches can contain something that we absolutely love.

 

If we take your suggested definition of stationary I think I'm happier with swaps that don't wriggle, crawl or sqirm too much ;)

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Personally, I'm always happy to find a box with no treasure - it means my delightful children can't bicker about who has what, whose turn it is to have such and such etc etc.... I left my 8 year old sulking at the foot of a tree once because he disagreed with my ruling that it was his brother's turn to have the item of treasure they were both after.

 

I pity the next cacher who came along and swapped him for a plastic elephant! :laughing:

Edited by HouseOfDragons
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No one can accuse me of trading down, I've just typed the following log: "Took Shrek "donkey" book, left Colorado 300 "

 

Of course, it's not in the cache, that would be too easy. It's somewhere in the grass where I stopped to tie shoelaces. I think I want to cry!

Blast!

Just too far away to go and swap these broken Maccy D toys... :laughing:

 

(Hope a nice cacher/muggle finds it for you)

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OMG HouseofDragons, that's awful! Will you be able to go back and look for it? If it was near London, send me a PM, and if I am close enough I'll head out and look for it for you.

 

I've just gathered a great collection of swaps for caches.....my old bedroom at my parents house is full of quite nice tat that I acquired as a teenage girl.......hundreds of little ornaments and trinket boxes and things that my friends gave me as presents. I've kept the stuff that has real sentimental value, but I can't keep all of it, and I'd rather it was recycled into caches ;)

 

Perhaps we should start a campaign to raise the standard of cache contents in the UK? :laughing:

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OMG HouseofDragons, that's awful! Will you be able to go back and look for it? If it was near London, send me a PM, and if I am close enough I'll head out and look for it for you.

 

No need, but thanks for the offer , it's very kind (my friend just said "I'll go and look for it - I fancy a Colorado!"). It's actually out the back of her house as I lost it whilst there feeding her cat :laughing:

 

I've already ordered a new one - I'll sort out any insurance claim later. I may well go back tomorrow morning in daylight for another look.

 

I don't usually leave such high quality items near caches! ;) I have a vast amount of tat to donate instead.

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just to let you all know Tescos are doing a 4 items for £1 for stationary stuff all of it canny enough for little pressies. so no need to spend loads.

 

I guess it takes all kinds! Personally I think stationary stuff rates among the least inspiring stuff we ever find in a cache :laughing:

 

Morrisons have some nice 3 for 2 offers in their back to school section. I got a nice fat purple pen, a set of three coloured gel pens and a set of three little character rubbers all for a quid. They are even thoughtfully wrapped in cellophane bags to keep them clean and dry whilst in the cache :anicute: These items are 50p each noramlly, and they also have pencil sharpeners and mini staplers, as well as ordinary rubbers etc. I don't know many adults who bother swapping stuff and these make great cache fillers for my kids caches.

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