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Really bad cache ideas


bittsen

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In an effort to keep the comments about bad caches from ending up in the Cool Cache Container thread, this is the place to post the bad ones.

This is also a good place to discuss WHY the caches are so bad.

 

First up is this set of 4.

 

DSC00949.JPG

 

CIMG5424.JPG

 

DSC00320.jpg

 

CIMG1235.jpg

 

On the face they look like they would be really cool but it appears each one is an irresponsible hide (unless it's on a cachers private property and even then it's a bad idea) IMHO.

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OK, so whats wrong with the first and third?

Oh wait this is bittsen, the first one, made of plastic or metal requires digging to create the plastic or metal by way of drilling or mining.

The third one requires cutting down a tree to build the structure from wood and even reclaimed wood is bad because a tree had to die in the first place. :rolleyes:

Edited by Vater_Araignee
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Depends on how you are defining 'bad caches'. Modified by 'irresponsible'. Perhaps you meant 'guideline violations'?

I think the worst cache I found was a restaurant take-out container (similar to Gladware) hidden under a ten-pound rock, on a lawn in a park. By the second find, the cache was smashed.

Or are you asking about 'cool cache containers gone wrong'?

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Depends on how you are defining 'bad caches'. Modified by 'irresponsible'. Perhaps you meant 'guideline violations'?

I think the worst cache I found was a restaurant take-out container (similar to Gladware) hidden under a ten-pound rock, on a lawn in a park. By the second find, the cache was smashed.

Or are you asking about 'cool cache containers gone wrong'?

There ya go.

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The first one appears to be a road marker that has been "modified" to hold a cache. If it's owned by the cache owner and not bolted to anything owned by the public then it's not necessarily bad (read against the guidelines). I would suspect otherwise without any indication otherwise.

 

The third one may, or may not be on private property. This is why I added the parenthesis part that said "unless...."

 

As for you jokers (I assume you were joking) who pointed to my caches that are "bad ideas", I can't reply properly because this is a family friendly forum. This is a serious topic and would be nice if you could treat it as such.

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Depends on how you are defining 'bad caches'. Modified by 'irresponsible'. Perhaps you meant 'guideline violations'?

I think the worst cache I found was a restaurant take-out container (similar to Gladware) hidden under a ten-pound rock, on a lawn in a park. By the second find, the cache was smashed.

Or are you asking about 'cool cache containers gone wrong'?

 

Good example.

A gladware container can be OK in a caching environment if properly placed (under a footbridge for example) but under a rock or brick, bad idea.

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Not sure on the first one, the third required digging a hole. Pretty sure a pointy thing was used to make the hole.

Third, digging a hole? Looks more like removing a piece of lumber that was already there and converting it into a drawer.

Second, yes digging, not third.

Actually, the drawer was made to fit a hole cut out of several pieces (3 it looks like) of the wall... not made out of the cuttings. Made to fit there yes... ownership would be a factor there for sure, since the wall itself looks like it was modified inside to support the drawer... but that's a guess...

 

Doug

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The first one appears to be a road marker that has been "modified" to hold a cache. If it's owned by the cache owner and not bolted to anything owned by the public then it's not necessarily bad (read against the guidelines). I would suspect otherwise without any indication otherwise.

 

The third one may, or may not be on private property. This is why I added the parenthesis part that said "unless...."

 

As for you jokers (I assume you were joking) who pointed to my caches that are "bad ideas", I can't reply properly because this is a family friendly forum. This is a serious topic and would be nice if you could treat it as such.

 

PIC 1 I had 2 markers at the end of my driveway that looked much like what I can see, sans the modification. Not to say there isn't, but I have never seen publicly owned markers that look like that.

PIC 2 If it is on private property with permission, then it would also fly.

PIC 3 See 2

PIC 4 I am forced to agree with the property thing again.

If you can assume they are all on public grounds and lable them as bad, then I can assume they are all private and say they are not.

 

On a personal level I take issue with the fourth one, big issue with it.

I wont go into it beyond that.

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Am I the only one that thinks that all of these caches are awesome?

 

If there were no guideline restrictions, sure but there are guidelines.

 

Seriously, if there were no guidelines then I could easily bring up a TON of cool new ideas. Many of them requiring digging. But digging, cutting into live trees, defacing public property... all not cool according to the guidelines which is what makes for a Really Bad Cache Idea (RBCI).

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Not sure on the first one, the third required digging a hole. Pretty sure a pointy thing was used to make the hole.

Third, digging a hole? Looks more like removing a piece of lumber that was already there and converting it into a drawer.

Second, yes digging, not third.

Actually, the drawer was made to fit a hole cut out of several pieces (3 it looks like) of the wall... not made out of the cuttings. Made to fit there yes... ownership would be a factor there for sure, since the wall itself looks like it was modified inside to support the drawer... but that's a guess...

 

Doug

I examined the picture again. I don't see fresh saw cuts on the inner portions of the wood.

So either I just cant see, it is an old cache and the wood has had time to weather or it is an old repair that has been capitalized on.

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Am I the only one that thinks that all of these caches are awesome?

 

If there were no guideline restrictions, sure but there are guidelines.

 

Seriously, if there were no guidelines then I could easily bring up a TON of cool new ideas. Many of them requiring digging. But digging, cutting into live trees, defacing what I assume to be public property... all not cool according to the guidelines if in fact it is public property which is what makes for a Really Bad Cache Idea (RBCI).

I fixed that for ya.

 

So buy some property and bring your TONS of cool new ideas into fruition.

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Am I the only one that thinks that all of these caches are awesome?

 

If these are on public property and you managed the land where the wooden structure was defaced, the tree was cut or the ground was dug up, you might not think they were so awesome. Getting geocaching banned is not awesome to me.

 

The hides are indeed unique and if they are on the cache owner's land they are technically OK. The problem comes when JoeCluelessCacher comes along, sees the hide and thinks its a grand idea and tries it in the nearby state park.

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As for you jokers (I assume you were joking) who pointed to my caches that are "bad ideas", I can't reply properly because this is a family friendly forum. This is a serious topic and would be nice if you could treat it as such.

Sorry, I refuse to take anything about geocaching seriously.

 

PIC 2 If it is on private property with permission, then it would also fly.

I think buried is a Bad Idea no matter whose property it's on, and the guidelines provide no exception to the burying rule based on land ownership. Those of us on the forums tend to read a lot and to know what's in the guidelines. Geocachers on the whole are a far more varied lot, and a great many will learn proper practices mainly by seeing what others do. "I saw a buried cache so I'll bury mine." Talk about the check box you click all you want, it doesn't address how real people lead their lightweight non-serious geocaching lives.

 

PIC 4 I am forced to agree with the property thing again. ... On a personal level I take issue with the fourth one, big issue with it.

Not quite sure what you're saying here. That you think it's valid under the guidelines but not really OK?

 

The guidelines say you may not deface public or private property. They don't say it's OK to deface your own property, but clearly the usual interpretation is that alterations may be seen as defacement on someone else's property but merely modifications to your own. But cutting a hole in a tree, to me, is prohibited defacement no matter who owns the tree. Note that gc.com doesn't say anything about property defacement (your own or others) per se, only about property defacement to place a cache.

 

Now if the tree is dead, I can see a distinction. But it looks alive in the photos.

 

Finally I'll repeat the argument I made above.

 

I do agree that #1 and #3 depend on ownership.

 

My own submission for Bad Cache is sounds amazing. Fun idea, beautiful spot, terrible execution.

 

Edward

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Pic 1 looks like the road sign has been sawed apart for the cache.

 

Pic 3 looks like a tree or fence has been sawed up for a cache. If it's a tree thats lame. If its a fence I suppose it's okay if permission has been given

 

Either way, my rule of thumb is always: Modify your cache to fit the enviroment. Don't modify the enviroment to fit your cache.

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Pic 1 looks like the road sign has been sawed apart for the cache.

 

Pic 3 looks like a tree or fence has been sawed up for a cache. If it's a tree thats lame. If its a fence I suppose it's okay if permission has been given

 

Either way, my rule of thumb is always: Modify your cache to fit the enviroment. Don't modify the enviroment to fit your cache.

I think that that statement should be a guideline.

 

And that is coming from someone who is not really fond of guidelines...

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Pic 1 looks like the road sign has been sawed apart for the cache.

 

Pic 3 looks like a tree or fence has been sawed up for a cache. If it's a tree thats lame. If its a fence I suppose it's okay if permission has been given

 

Either way, my rule of thumb is always: Modify your cache to fit the enviroment. Don't modify the enviroment to fit your cache.

I think that that statement should be a guideline.

 

And that is coming from someone who is not really fond of guidelines...

 

+1

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[... Many of them requiring digging....

 

I thought you were not permitted to bury the cache itself. I didn't realize that no digging of any kind was permitted...

 

That blows my cache idea of a ground level trap door...

 

Or does it? :)

 

From the Guidelines:

 

 

<LI>Caches that are buried. If a shovel, trowel or other "pointy" object is used to dig, whether in order to hide or to find the cache, then it is not appropriate.

 

People are posting on here every day making jokes about how to skirt the guidelines, or keep reviewers from knowing what they are doing. I have a great sense of humor, but I just don't think thats funny.

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People are posting on here every day making jokes about how to skirt the guidelines, or keep reviewers from knowing what they are doing. I have a great sense of humor, but I just don't think thats funny.

 

What's funny is that reviewers visit these forums all the time and see that stuff. When someone makes one of those posts don't think that the reviewers don't make a mental note of who wrote it.

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I appreciate the advice, though I was in no way attempting to skirt the guidelines. I am fairly new, and am always learning. I appreciate the input from seasoned cachers.

The guidelines do say that the use of a 'pointy object' to either find or hide a cache is not accepted. However, they also state that exceptions to the guidelines can be made via prior approval by TPTB. If you think you have an awesome idea for a cache, but it does seem to violate the guidelines, feel free to discuss it with TPTB using the 'contact@' email address. They may be able to help you make your idea work or put it out of it's misery before you go through too much effort.

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[... Many of them requiring digging....

 

I thought you were not permitted to bury the cache itself. I didn't realize that no digging of any kind was permitted...

 

That blows my cache idea of a ground level trap door...

 

Or does it? :)

Show you own the property.

Show that the cache location is within property boundaries.

There you have it, just about any type of cache you want ready to be listed.

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On the face they look like they would be really cool but it appears each one is an irresponsible hide (unless it's on a cachers private property and even then it's a bad idea) IMHO.

I’ve seen all 4 of those styles, to some extent, and more. Often, my reaction is “Wow, I wonder how they got that one past the reviewer.” Each one has a reason/situation where it must never be used. And each one is perfect someplace -- in very rare places. Match your hide to the hiding spot. You can use them all in your Boy Scout Camp, as unlisted caches. There are plenty of places where you can go nuts and make super-fancy cool cache containers. That doesn't automatically make them fine everywhere. Use common sense.

 

And, they’re all, more or less, “cool cache containers”. If you want to educate people about what’s wrong with them, mention situations where they can’t be used, and leave it at that.

 

Road Sign With Hinged Compartment

02792c3b-bb6c-4088-90cd-3e34760397f7.jpg

This is good at an abandoned site (unused road in some park, with permission). Not so good as an active road sign, which may be removed or damaged. Of course, you don’t encourage people to saw open every sign they find.

 

Hole Hidden By A Stick

e2ba03bc-aa73-4b77-ab72-4ff9db7b5d79.jpg

Works in an abandoned drain. And you’ll need to be sure it won’t fill with water or critters. Don’t dig holes to bury the pipe, and let people know not to dig holes for caches.

 

Wooden Drawer In A Wall

4320ead0-a4ca-46ce-966d-8770b4b6fb1e.jpg

This is fine on your own front porch. It will be destroyed in typical outdoor environments. Don’t cut other people’s staircases to build cache structures in them. We don't really need to hit people over the head with every possible outlandish thing to not do, right?

 

Pole Made To Look Like A Tree Stump

cc006a7c-bb06-4659-9783-7bde5745a86d.jpg

This is not a “tree”. It’s entirely fake, some kind of post. You could hide the entire box inside the “fungus” without all the post carving. With the exception of the cache box, no part of this hide will last in the wilds, with rough handling by cachers.

 

Ammo Can

6a2c95c0-859d-4bdc-950b-a022ee84154a.jpg

This is some kind of military weapons-grade device. Never use one of these! :blink: There’s no place you could ever put one that won’t cause a commotion. I’ve heard of people placing a nice safe film canister in here. But just use film canisters by themselves. They’re perfect. :)

Edited by kunarion
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Pic 1 looks like the road sign has been sawed apart for the cache.

 

Pic 3 looks like a tree or fence has been sawed up for a cache. If it's a tree thats lame. If its a fence I suppose it's okay if permission has been given

 

Either way, my rule of thumb is always: Modify your cache to fit the enviroment. Don't modify the enviroment to fit your cache.

I think that that statement should be a guideline.

 

And that is coming from someone who is not really fond of guidelines...

 

Sorry to disagree with you. That should be a hard and fast RULE!

 

Doug

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Funny that I caught this thread, because the other day I hid my very first geocache! :blink: Here's a picture of the area where I've hidden it. So.. am I doin' it rite?

 

falklands-minefield1.jpg

 

Now I'm not going to point out exactly where it is in the picture, but I assure you that I didn't use any pointed tools at all to hide my cache. However, while I was there, I did see a bunch of guys all decked out in green who were using pointed tools to hide their circular green Lock&Lock caches! :) Shame on them! I yelled sternly over to them that they need to refresh their knowledge of the geocaching rules, especially the saturation rule where caches have to be placed 160m apart from one another (another rule they seemed to be "conveniently" forgetting about..)

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I think someone here is a Wichtigtuer.

 

 

I only have one year of high-school German, but the internet has all the answers:

 

Wichtigtuer {m}

snob

bumble

meddler

busybody

panjandrum

cockalorum

Nosey Parker

troublemaker

wise guy [coll.]

stuffed-shirt [sl.]

pantopragmatic [joc.]

pompous a** [br.] [coll.]

Wichtigtuer {pl}

busybodies

Wichtigtuer {m} [ugs.]

know-all [coll.]

Wichtigtuer {m} [Politiker]

pothouse politician

 

It's relevant to the discussion that the pictures in question appear to be of caches listed on a website in Switzerland, and therefore the geocaching.com guidelines do not apply.

 

Is calling someone a nasty name a personal attack? What if you do it in a foreign language?

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Am I the only one that thinks that all of these caches are awesome?

No, not at all.

 

I think someone here is a Wichtigtuer.

 

GermanSailor

Opportunity!

Educate me, I read Wichtigtuer as "Important door" so either I'm wrong in translation (very likely) or I don't know the story behind it to interpret it correctly (also very likely).

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Am I the only one that thinks that all of these caches are awesome?

No, not at all.

 

I think someone here is a Wichtigtuer.

 

GermanSailor

Opportunity!

Educate me, I read Wichtigtuer as "Important door" so either I'm wrong in translation (very likely) or I don't know the story behind it to interpret it correctly (also very likely).

 

Simultaneous posting... I was typing the answer to your question before you asked it! See the post immediately preceding yours in the thread.

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Educate me, I read Wichtigtuer as "Important door" so either I'm wrong in translation (very likely) or I don't know the story behind it to interpret it correctly (also very likely).

that's a good one :)

 

"tuer" can indeed mean "door", if it's written as the transliteration of "tür".

 

but "tuer" (pronounced as too-er) by itself is also a word, derived from "zu tun" = to do, to make. a "tuer" is therefore somebody who does something (a "doer"). a "wichtigtuer" is somebody who makes himself (appear to be) important to others.

Edited by dfx
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It's relevant to the discussion that the pictures in question appear to be of caches listed on a website in Switzerland, and therefore the geocaching.com guidelines do not apply.

 

Looking around the site, it appears to be a personal site dedicated to the owner's finding of geocaches, travel bugs, and geocoins listed on geocaching.com. Therefore, I would say that the geocaching.com guidelines would apply.

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It's relevant to the discussion that the pictures in question appear to be of caches listed on a website in Switzerland, and therefore the geocaching.com guidelines do not apply.

 

Looking around the site, it appears to be a personal site dedicated to the owner's finding of geocaches, travel bugs, and geocoins listed on geocaching.com. Therefore, I would say that the geocaching.com guidelines would apply.

The one that I thought was really an Uncool Cache Container (without actually knowing the context) was the fake fire hydrant. Let's hope the nearby buildings never catch fire!
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Am I the only one that thinks that all of these caches are awesome?

 

I thought that they were pretty creative and would give me a run for my money. I could see where some aren't the best places and killing a tree not so good but what if the tree was already dead???

 

I finished reading the thread and have a few more comments:

I have recently seen a whole bunch of new caches using the sprinklers that have been hollowed out and placed in bushes ... great hides in my limited knowledge of the game however by definition these are not allowed as they had to be placed (digging some ground out) ... and i have found some great caches in the ammo boxes i love those and it makes for a great hotel. I guess each person has his/her own idea on what a great cache is if you don't like it .. move on :D

 

Pauline

Edited by TandPSeeker
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