cache container

[+spyderman]

Should some things be off limits or should the sky be the limit? You decide, let's here it!

Edited April 22, 2011 by spyderman

[Night_Hiker]

Glass is the only real taboo. Really in general just anything that doesn't have a secure top is bad. The ones i really hate are the plastic mint containers. The log is pretty much guaranteed to be wet. Anyone one who's new to hiding will grasp what and what not to use very shortly. I made the mistake of placing a food seasoning container at ground level and it keeps getting wet. Come to mention it , it just rained so i need to replace it lol. I have read on forums that some people use yogurt tubs which sounds like the most horrible looking geocache haha. I find alot of containers id like to use but they are not water tight. Some however will do fine given the spot they are placed.

[+roziecakes]

I'm sure this is pretty region-specific, but:

 

Plastic Folgers coffee cans! I cannot stress this enough. They may look like great geocaching containers; they're so inviting with their extra wide mouths and nice size, and easy to remove lids, but they are a bad choice. They are not water-tight in the slightest. I even found one once that had a moldy once mushed now a dry molded cracker of a logbook in the bottom, and three black widows living in it. EW. Not good.

 

Ziplock bags with duct tape on them. Really? It's not even a container. I know it's flat and all, and if your goal is to hide something flat, I can understand, but they just don't last.

 

There are others too, like duh, a cardboard pringles can, but the coffee cans and the camoed ziplocks are one of the not so obvious.

[Clan Riffster]

I'm sure this is pretty region-specific, but:

Agreed. A container that sucks in Florida might work great in Nevada, and vice versa.

For my biased caching aesthetics, Suck = any container that regularly fails to protect its contents. Size is irrelevant.

Sucky containers include black & gray film cans, Altoids tins, coffee tubs, coffee tins, cookie tins, hide-a-keys, Gladware, imitation Lock & Locks (sold at many Dollar Stores), imitation Bison Design tubes (often found on EBay), paint ball tubes, prescription medicine bottles with child proof caps, and tape covered baggies.

[+A & J Tooling]

Home-made all the way, baby! We'll just have to let time and your experience judge.

[+Don_J]

Luggage is not a good cache container. A woman's purse is not a good cache container. I have found one of each and they were really gross.

[+briansnat]

Any container can work if it is protected from the weather. Altoids tins are among the worst containers, but I've used two and both lasted a long time because they were not exposed to the elements.

 

So it all depends.

[+iamgeek]

I'm sure this is pretty region-specific, but:

 

Plastic Folgers coffee cans! I cannot stress this enough. They may look like great geocaching containers; they're so inviting with their extra wide mouths and nice size, and easy to remove lids, but they are a bad choice. They are not water-tight in the slightest. I even found one once that had a moldy once mushed now a dry molded cracker of a logbook in the bottom, and three black widows living in it. EW. Not good.

 

Ziplock bags with duct tape on them. Really? It's not even a container. I know it's flat and all, and if your goal is to hide something flat, I can understand, but they just don't last.

 

There are others too, like duh, a cardboard pringles can, but the coffee cans and the camoed ziplocks are one of the not so obvious.

I have had a coffee can work great. It is not the plastic type but the good old fashion metal and nothing has ever been wet in it. It is hanging under a bridge and is not straight up and down (at an angle).

[+dfx]

I have had a coffee can work great. It is not the plastic type but the good old fashion metal and nothing has ever been wet in it. It is hanging under a bridge and is not straight up and down (at an angle).

 

Maybe nothing has ever been wet because the container never gets wet (protected from rain under the bridge)?

 

I've found metal coffee cans. Both container and contents were really really gross.

[+StarBrand]

Any container placed such that it cannot protect its contents for at least 1 year in the wild.

[+kissguy&frannyfru]

Should some things be off limits or should the sky be the limit? You decide, let's here it!

 

I would never ever use a sheet of kleenex for a cache container,just wouldn't hold up i don't think!

[knowschad]

Should some things be off limits or should the sky be the limit? You decide, let's here it!

 

I would never ever use a sheet of kleenex for a cache container,just wouldn't hold up i don't think!

 

Under a picnic shelter in Nevada, that might be just fine.

[+briansnat]

 

[+power69]

 

Critters will just LOVE that!

[+St.Matthew]

 

 

Just in case anyone is confused, there is not a CAN OF OATS IN THE WOODS.

 

In fact, it is a geocass (whatever that is).

[+briansnat]

 

Critters will just LOVE that!

 

What? I washed it out real good.

[+Chokecherry]

I'm not a big fan of the plastic shopping back up a tree cache container. But I suppose in dryer climates without much direct sunlight to degrade the bag it might work.

[sabrefan7]

Dummies who keep using PVC PIPE in an area that will cause commotion

another pipebomb scare

Edited April 24, 2011 by sabrefan7

[GOF and Bacall]

Dummies who keep using PVC PIPE in an area that will cause commotion

another pipebomb scare

 

Not too bad as these things go. No ranting official threatening to arrest people for playing a game that isn't illegal and no promise to garnish wages until some over-inflated cost of doing the job they are paid for has been repaid.

[GOF and Bacall]

 

 

Just in case anyone is confused, there is not a CAN OF OATS IN THE WOODS.

 

In fact, it is a geocass (whatever that is).

 

Actually it is just sloppy handwriting. That says "geocash". Sounds expensive, whatever it is.

[sabrefan7]

[

Edited April 24, 2011 by sabrefan7

[MrGeoFox]

Dummies who keep using PVC PIPE in an area that will cause commotion

another pipebomb scare

 

^Agreed.

[sabrefan7]

heck with it the editor is not working ,,, suffice it to say a LPC was done blown up in Indy

 

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110421/LOCAL18/104210490/Suspected-bomb-turns-out-geocaching-clue?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com

Edited April 24, 2011 by sabrefan7

[GOF and Bacall]

heck with it the editor is not working ,,, suffice it to say a LPC was done blown up in Indy

 

http://www.indystar.com/article/20110421/LOCAL18/104210490/Suspected-bomb-turns-out-geocaching-clue?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|IndyStar.com

 

Just goes to show that it doesn't need to be a PVC pipe to cause a scare.

 

The device turned out to be a waterproof match container like those commonly used by campers, Thompson said.

[+power69]

 

 

Just in case anyone is confused, there is not a CAN OF OATS IN THE WOODS.

 

In fact, it is a geocass (whatever that is).

Sounds expensive, whatever it is.

Yeah!

$1.87 at kroger!

[+nittanycopa]

Depends on the climate, but metal containers such as Altoids containers are pretty horrible in the Northeast. Rain + cheap-o tin = rusty mucky cache disaster.

[+L0ne.R]

Photos of bad cache containers

[+DragonsWest]

In general these are bad -

• Any container which remains fully exposed to the elements which is not water tight.
  
• Any container which remains fully exposed to sunlight an will degrade and become brittle (i.e. plastic)
  
• Any container which has a strong smell of food (thus attractive to animals)
  
• Any container with sharp edges (i.e. a soup tin or tennis ball container)
  
• Any container which will not hold up to repeated opening and closing (i.e. Ziloc or Glad containers)
  
• Any container made of glass, which may break and leave sharp bits around.
  
• Any container which will degrade quickly in the elements (i.e. wooden box)
  

 

Even heavy plastic containers will break down if exposed for extended periods to Ultra Violet (UV) light. I found a Tupperware-type tub in the desert which was mostly in fragments after two years. The container should ultimately be suitable to the environment and placement of the hide. Plastics are just fine if sheltered, i.e. hidden in a hollow log.

[+A & J Tooling]

For plastics, it depends on what was added to the original misture to make it. I know of stuff that has been exposed to the elements for quite a long time and it is still watertight. Heck, you do know they make fuel tanks out of plastic now, right?

 

As for wood, I will bet that ipe holds up pretty long to constant exposure to water. That's what they build piers out of. Some of that wood has been exposed to the worst conditions known to man for quite some time.

 

It all depends on how the item is used and where it is placed. I'm pretty sure you can take any non-water tight container, place it in the middle of Death Valley and it'll never leak.

[+DragonsWest]

For plastics, it depends on what was added to the original misture to make it. I know of stuff that has been exposed to the elements for quite a long time and it is still watertight. Heck, you do know they make fuel tanks out of plastic now, right?

 

Sure, there are some great plastics, but you don't often find containers made of them, unless you buy industrial or MIL grade stuff. I like these Therapak Medium Canisters, but I realize even they will have their limits to UV exposure.

 

As for wood, I will bet that ipe holds up pretty long to constant exposure to water. That's what they build piers out of. Some of that wood has been exposed to the worst conditions known to man for quite some time.

 

Pine which has been soaked in a bath of pitch will last pretty well, but have you looked at utility poles which have been out for a few years? Even they begin to fade a bit and lose some of the outer pitch, going from dark to light coloring. Mostly what I mean, though are these wooden boxes, such as salmon may come in, or painted wooden novelty boxes. The glue comes apart and they usually begin to crack after repeated saturation and drying from rains.

 

It all depends on how the item is used and where it is placed. I'm pretty sure you can take any non-water tight container, place it in the middle of Death Valley and it'll never leak.

 

Death Valley is an extreme place (as is Panamint Valley next door where you can actually leave containers ) and plastics dry out, even the toughest will be tested where temperatures can peak out very high. One ruined plastic container I found was in Panamint Valley. Ammo boxes, Altoids tins, or other metal containers are preferable in the desert, though with sufficient cover (i.e. a small cave) heavy plastics may survive for years.

[+roziecakes]

I'm sure this is pretty region-specific, but:

 

Plastic Folgers coffee cans!

 

I have had a coffee can work great. It is not the plastic type but the good old fashion metal and nothing has ever been wet in it. It is hanging under a bridge and is not straight up and down (at an angle).

 

That's why I said *Plastic* Folgers Coffee cans" I personally wouldn't try a metal one either in our area because they would just rust. But maybe where you live they work awesome.

 

Also, I notice that you have been caching since 2010 (not that this is bad... just actually noting time, I have a lot of newer caches myself since I just moved to Oregon in 2008), so that means your cache probably hasn't had to endure at least a couple of years of weather. That's the true test of a container, whether it can hold up for a couple of years or more.

Edited April 25, 2011 by nymphnsatyr

[+Don_J]

For plastics, it depends on what was added to the original misture to make it. I know of stuff that has been exposed to the elements for quite a long time and it is still watertight. Heck, you do know they make fuel tanks out of plastic now, right?

 

As for wood, I will bet that ipe holds up pretty long to constant exposure to water. That's what they build piers out of. Some of that wood has been exposed to the worst conditions known to man for quite some time.

 

It all depends on how the item is used and where it is placed. I'm pretty sure you can take any non-water tight container, place it in the middle of Death Valley and it'll never leak.

 

Do you honestly believe that it never rains in Death Valley? When it does rain, a whole lot of it comes in a short period of time. If an exposed container is not waterproof, it wil get wet inside, even in Death Valley.

[+popokiiti]

Yogurt containers. Glass - the only glass caches I've find have not been broken, but I am very careful to keep it that way. Makes me nervous..

The driest cache I have seen recently was a plastic kitty litter bucket with lid which held another plastic container within....Folgers coffee plastic variety tub. And we're on the wet west coast!

[+dfx]

Chinese take-out containers. I'm not kidding.

[+AlohaBra and MaksMom]

Please use a totally waterproof container!

[+A & J Tooling]

Do you honestly believe that it never rains in Death Valley? When it does rain, a whole lot of it comes in a short period of time. If an exposed container is not waterproof, it wil get wet inside, even in Death Valley.

 

Well, I wouldn't be dumb enough to hide it in a wadi but I left stuff there one year and claimed it a year later, so yeah I can say I left something that wasn't water proof out in Death Valley and it didn't get wet. It got pretty stale but not wet. Ever eat a 18 month old twinkie? Not good. Not good at all.