The worst hides ever

[knowschad]

All those had some more or less distinctive sightseeing points at least. Recently a new owner installed a cache with an inappropriate container (due to the first few loggers) which just is on a totally uninteresting railway bridge over a street and you have to climb one post in full sight of the passing cars. On several tries I never had a chance to do this unseen and most probably I will try it only once more and then finally give up. I think I can wait until this one is "archived out" of my homezone...

If you think the cache is that bad, why even look for it? Put it on your ignore list and move on.

No kidding! You don't have to do any caches.

[+The A-Team]

It won't let moisture in from the outside.

The problem I see with most of the bags wrapped around caches is that they're usually shopping or garbage bags, which don't seal, so moist air is constantly being exchanged. Thus, the bag collects moisture as the endless supply of moist air condenses inside.

[+Ben0w]

an inappropriate container (due to the first few loggers) which just is on a totally uninteresting railway bridge over a street and you have to climb one post in full sight of the passing cars.

No kidding! You don't have to do any caches.

Sorry, if not fluent in english grammar as this is not my mother tongue, but the condition simply is "if you want the cache you have to climb". Other way round: if you (or me) don't want the cache, you don't have to climb. And I agree: you (or me) don't have to do any caches. But if I want, I will. On this particular one, I still just want for some reason, after another try I might not want any more. However, I reserve the right to wine about a bad cache even if I still try to log it or already logged it.

 

If you want to discuss my personal right to wine, then that's a totally other topic...I may have not much finds yet, but I enjoy the game for some time (even in a team with another account, this adds up some other finds) enough to appreciate every single cache, that leads me to an interesting place and is not a wet plastic wrapped sheet of soggy paper.

 

Now OK for you? Let's go on wining about some bad hides in this topic.

Edited June 27, 2012 by BenOw

[Mr.Yuck]

I was taught in an Army survival course for emergency drinking water, hang plastic in the woods, as it COLLECTS condensation. And people put their caches in plastic bags?

If I may correct you, the plastic doesn't "collect" anything. It allows moisture that is already enclosed (generally in the form of plant materials or damp sand) to condense into droplets. If the inside of the bag is dry, there is nothing to condense, there is no problem. It won't let moisture in from the outside. On the other hand, it won't allow any dampness that does get inside to escape. That, I believe is the real problem.

 

No, you may not correct me. I was totally talking about garbage bags and plastic Wal-Mart bags, Just like the A-Team said. I have probably found 20 caches wrapped in them, all in the same region, which fortunately is not my own. True, I don't know the technicalities of condensation forming on plastic left outside overnight, but I do know it happens!

 

Caches wrapped in these kinds of bags can get downright disgusting too, yucky, moldy, moisture-loving insects living in them, etc.. Yeech.

[+Sol seaker]

I recently did a series of caches that were all film cans hiding in bushes. I expected something creative because the owner is a long-time cacher, yet that person chose to put out film cans that were pretty much in the most unimaginative spots available.

 

I'm no great fan of film cans in bushes and evergreen trees, and here's a lot of them all together.

 

I had trouble finding one of them, and then realized I had to think of the most unimaginative spot I could, and then I found them quickly without the hint.

[knowschad]

an inappropriate container (due to the first few loggers) which just is on a totally uninteresting railway bridge over a street and you have to climb one post in full sight of the passing cars.

No kidding! You don't have to do any caches.

Sorry, if not fluent in english grammar as this is not my mother tongue, but the condition simply is "if you want the cache you have to climb". Other way round: if you (or me) don't want the cache, you don't have to climb. And I agree: you (or me) don't have to do any caches. But if I want, I will. On this particular one, I still just want for some reason, after another try I might not want any more. However, I reserve the right to wine about a bad cache even if I still try to log it or already logged it.

 

If you want to discuss my personal right to wine, then that's a totally other topic...I may have not much finds yet, but I enjoy the game for some time (even in a team with another account, this adds up some other finds) enough to appreciate every single cache, that leads me to an interesting place and is not a wet plastic wrapped sheet of soggy paper.

 

Now OK for you? Let's go on wining about some bad hides in this topic.

 

I was not criticizing your English.

[knowschad]

I was taught in an Army survival course for emergency drinking water, hang plastic in the woods, as it COLLECTS condensation. And people put their caches in plastic bags?

If I may correct you, the plastic doesn't "collect" anything. It allows moisture that is already enclosed (generally in the form of plant materials or damp sand) to condense into droplets. If the inside of the bag is dry, there is nothing to condense, there is no problem. It won't let moisture in from the outside. On the other hand, it won't allow any dampness that does get inside to escape. That, I believe is the real problem.

 

No, you may not correct me. I was totally talking about garbage bags and plastic Wal-Mart bags, Just like the A-Team said. I have probably found 20 caches wrapped in them, all in the same region, which fortunately is not my own. True, I don't know the technicalities of condensation forming on plastic left outside overnight, but I do know it happens!

 

Caches wrapped in these kinds of bags can get downright disgusting too, yucky, moldy, moisture-loving insects living in them, etc.. Yeech.

OK, I won't correct you even though you were wrong. Consider yourself un-corrected, OK?

 

I totally agree with you about how nasty they can get. Slugs, muddy worm casings, potato bugs, ants... and wet. Just not wet because of what you sa... oh, wait... nevermind.

[+Ben0w]

I was not criticizing your English.

Well, in fact, I was criticizing yours.

This thread is not about getting the cache, my motivation to do it or the game itself, it is about bad caches. The cache in question IS a bad cache (I gave the reasons) and I still have the choice to do it or to not do it. If I want to log it I will have to wait for a busy street to become quiet (or invent some other stealth wizardry) AND to climb the bridge...most probably I'll give it another try (the "inventing stealth wizardry" would be the most interesting part, I guess). You, Sir/Madam, don't have to, sure. No offense given or taken. Thank you for this side discussion.

 

Now back to "bad cache" stories: I have a different one in mind - a totally lovely place with a "lost object" (a large steel device from an abandoned stone mill), but in a sandy area with fantastilliards of ants. Big ants. Aggressive ants. And it was a micro.

 

Most cachers see/feel the ants not before but just when searching the object for the container, they get aggressive on the intruder. Then it's too late - the ants are fast and crawling up on you. Some even jump from the object to your chest and face. There are a lot and the whole ant covered area is around the size of a large baseball field, you have almost no chance to flee before you're eaten. It still icks me when thinking of that cache. In winter this would be no problem, but in summer it gets really scary. So, technically it's not a bad cache itself and the location is wonderful (in fact, it is within top 5 of my favourite caches, now in hindsight), but at the time of logging I guess almost all summer cachers curse on it (they do it in the log entries...).

 

(EDIT: Oh, just noticed that "wining" is written with an "h" -> "whining". Sorry. See, no problem with criticizing my English. )

Edited June 28, 2012 by BenOw

[4wheelin_fool]

I think that the condition of the cache is not a primary qualifier to be "worst".

 

Caches which create alarm and cause someone to shoot at you, such as being placed on private property would be worst. Closely followed by ones that are called in to the bomb squad. It's probably silly these days to be stealthy looking for an urban micro, as mist of the time they don't have any value, or are especially difficult to replace unless they use some handcrafted camo. They would be followed by caches which deface the area and cause land managers to completely ban the activity. Something nailed to a tree really doesn't count, as they may look bad, but don't really irritate a manager as much as a hole bored into a large tree with a one inch drill.

 

Last is container condition. Sometimes all caches need maintenance, but covering it with a bag should only be a termporary fix until someone gets out there. Over time this causes the cache to smell really bad. However, I'd only say a cache was in the worst category if it needed both maintenance and matched something mentioned above.

Edited June 28, 2012 by 4wheelin_fool

[+stlhiker]

There's 2 in our area that I consider really bad geocaches. I feel kind of bad saying it b/c I know the CO's a young boy, but still...

 

 

You got it, unsupervised teen or tween hides in general.

... Not to pick on unsupervised 13 year old boy Geocachers or anything, but I could go on all day, and not just those two.

 

I feel insulted as an older teenager cacher

 

Just wanted to say age doesn't always correlate to cache quality. I know adults with 200+ hides, but there'll all nanos stuck under benches and LPC's. I don't care for crappy hides that took no thought to hide or find. I'd rather find a cache that's in a cool spot or has a nice container. I hate being in a nice park, but have the cache just be stuck under a bench at the soccer field.

 

For my hides, I always try to find a really cool location, then put a nice, waterproof container there. Not to brag or anything... but, I have 16 active caches and 49 favorite points between them. I like to think if it's not worth finding, it's not worth owning. I always try to make quality hides that challenge cachers and show them a cool spot they've never seen before.

[+bpwilldo]

We are sorta new. 3 months and only 250 finds. We have found many poorly maintained caches. We do what we can with them. The worst to me are nanos and micros where one has 100s and perhaps 1000s of acres to hide something. I hate them. I'll hunt them if they are on the way to another but I ain't hiking into the woods for a micro.

I'll hike into the woods for a hike into the woods. A micro is just a bonus.

Well, we are sorta getting old and don't do much hiking for the sake of seeing trees, waterfalls and such. We've been getting out more since taking up GCg. Micros are probably what we find most. Many are quite clever. But, if you have a forest to hide a cache, a micro/nano is lame and is worse than a leaky ammo can, in my opinion. That's all I'm saying...

[+Chief301]

I was taught in an Army survival course for emergency drinking water, hang plastic in the woods, as it COLLECTS condensation. And people put their caches in plastic bags?

If I may correct you, the plastic doesn't "collect" anything. It allows moisture that is already enclosed (generally in the form of plant materials or damp sand) to condense into droplets. If the inside of the bag is dry, there is nothing to condense, there is no problem. It won't let moisture in from the outside. On the other hand, it won't allow any dampness that does get inside to escape. That, I believe is the real problem.

 

Around here (south Louisiana) the humidity is so high that you don't need to put anything damp in the bag to condense moisture, just trap some air in it.

 

If you have to use a plastic bag to protect your cache then you have chosen a poor container to start with. I still put my logs in a ziplock, INSIDE the container, just in case someone does not close the container properly.

[+Dan2099]

I was taught in an Army survival course for emergency drinking water, hang plastic in the woods, as it COLLECTS condensation. And people put their caches in plastic bags?

If I may correct you, the plastic doesn't "collect" anything. It allows moisture that is already enclosed (generally in the form of plant materials or damp sand) to condense into droplets. If the inside of the bag is dry, there is nothing to condense, there is no problem. It won't let moisture in from the outside. On the other hand, it won't allow any dampness that does get inside to escape. That, I believe is the real problem.

 

Around here (south Louisiana) the humidity is so high that you don't need to put anything damp in the bag to condense moisture, just trap some air in it.

 

If you have to use a plastic bag to protect your cache then you have chosen a poor container to start with. I still put my logs in a ziplock, INSIDE the container, just in case someone does not close the container properly.

 

If you live in any damp or high humid area I would say most hides made out of wood could pose a problem...the few I have found all needed sanding.....but I prefer caches made of wood.

[+BlackRose67]

I can't seem to find it now, but another time when this subject came up, somebody posted about finding a skirtlifter in a Walmart parking lot, where the container was an unpainted orange matchsafe, and the log was the receipt for it!

Those one dollar Walmart matchsafes are a great deal. I pick a couple up everytime I'm there. But it never occurred to me to just leave one outside the store. What a great idea! The only downside is that they come full of matches you'd have to get rid of.

Guess it depends on the brand. The Coughlan's ones we get here for 0.90 a piece do not contain matches.

 

The worst one for me to date was not so much a bad cache as where it was placed; a film canister with a magnet attached to the cooling fin assembly of a hydro transformer behind a grocery store.

Edited June 28, 2012 by BlackRose67

[knowschad]

I was taught in an Army survival course for emergency drinking water, hang plastic in the woods, as it COLLECTS condensation. And people put their caches in plastic bags?

If I may correct you, the plastic doesn't "collect" anything. It allows moisture that is already enclosed (generally in the form of plant materials or damp sand) to condense into droplets. If the inside of the bag is dry, there is nothing to condense, there is no problem. It won't let moisture in from the outside. On the other hand, it won't allow any dampness that does get inside to escape. That, I believe is the real problem.

 

Around here (south Louisiana) the humidity is so high that you don't need to put anything damp in the bag to condense moisture, just trap some air in it.

 

If you have to use a plastic bag to protect your cache then you have chosen a poor container to start with. I still put my logs in a ziplock, INSIDE the container, just in case someone does not close the container properly.

I totally agree with you. Please note that my comments about the plastic bag were simply meant in reference to the mis-statement that plastic bags collect moisture.

[+dprovan]

I can't seem to find it now, but another time when this subject came up, somebody posted about finding a skirtlifter in a Walmart parking lot, where the container was an unpainted orange matchsafe, and the log was the receipt for it!

Those one dollar Walmart matchsafes are a great deal. I pick a couple up everytime I'm there. But it never occurred to me to just leave one outside the store. What a great idea! The only downside is that they come full of matches you'd have to get rid of.

 

Yes, you get permission from the store manager. Then a few years later he is no longer employed there, and after 117 people have found it, Walmart security happens to notice the last 3 acting suspicious and calls the bomb squad..

Yeah, good point. I guess from that I can conclude it's better not to get permission. Thanks!

[Pup Patrol]

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=297865

 

 

 

 

B.

[+uxorious]

I totally agree with you. Please note that my comments about the plastic bag were simply meant in reference to the mis-statement that plastic bags collect moisture.

 

If there is moisture in the air or the cache, inside the bag, the plastic will in fact collect that moisture on it's surface. The word collect is correct in this use.

[4wheelin_fool]

I can't seem to find it now, but another time when this subject came up, somebody posted about finding a skirtlifter in a Walmart parking lot, where the container was an unpainted orange matchsafe, and the log was the receipt for it!

Those one dollar Walmart matchsafes are a great deal. I pick a couple up everytime I'm there. But it never occurred to me to just leave one outside the store. What a great idea! The only downside is that they come full of matches you'd have to get rid of.

 

Yes, you get permission from the store manager. Then a few years later he is no longer employed there, and after 117 people have found it, Walmart security happens to notice the last 3 acting suspicious and calls the bomb squad..

Yeah, good point. I guess from that I can conclude it's better not to get permission. Thanks!

 

No, it's better to use a separate account which cannot be traced for the authorities to file the charges. As a premium member it would be rather easy, but even regular members can be tracked through their IP address.

 

This may take some planning..

[knowschad]

I totally agree with you. Please note that my comments about the plastic bag were simply meant in reference to the mis-statement that plastic bags collect moisture.

 

If there is moisture in the air or the cache, inside the bag, the plastic will in fact collect that moisture on it's surface. The word collect is correct in this use.

 

ok

[+Dan2099]

I hate to jump the gun, but I think this should be posted under this thread.....

 

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=297865

[+The A-Team]

I hate to jump the gun, but I think this should be posted under this thread.....

 

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=297865

Too slow. Pup Patrol already jumped the gun up in post #67.

[+Dan2099]

I hate to jump the gun, but I think this should be posted under this thread.....

 

 

http://forums.Groundspeak.com/GC/index.php?showtopic=297865

Too slow. Pup Patrol already jumped the gun up in post #67.

 

Ha I noticed after I posted it, I hate being unoriginal call me Dane Cook....2nd thought don't.

[+briansnat]

I thought I placed the worst cache ever. I used a paper oatmeal carton as a container, a strip of notebook paper torn, not cut out. Broken and filthy swag and I hid it next to a parking lot in disgusting, litter and poison ivy filled spot. I called it the "Worst cache in New Jersey".

 

The sad thing is that a number of finders said they had found worse.

[+Ben0w]

Recently a new owner installed a cache with an inappropriate container (due to the first few loggers) which just is on a totally uninteresting railway bridge over a street and you have to climb one post in full sight of the passing cars.

So, I logged it today in the morning. Not only it's an uninteresting spot in full muggle sight on an unimpressive standard railway bridge (!), even the container is just a simple plastic box with a wet logbook inside, in full view from the street bottom. The coordinates were way off (meanwhile corrected, but still not very good). The best you could say about it: it's not a plastic bag and it's not a micro/nano but a small (one TB already missing).

 

The same owner just placed another cache on a tree in a children's playground (!), just beside a garden, where the inhabitants already got suspicious after three visits, according to the last log. Oh, dear. Quality caching is something other.

[Mr.Yuck]

There's 2 in our area that I consider really bad geocaches. I feel kind of bad saying it b/c I know the CO's a young boy, but still...

 

 

You got it, unsupervised teen or tween hides in general.

... Not to pick on unsupervised 13 year old boy Geocachers or anything, but I could go on all day, and not just those two.

 

I feel insulted as an older teenager cacher

 

Just wanted to say age doesn't always correlate to cache quality. I know adults with 200+ hides, but there'll all nanos stuck under benches and LPC's. I don't care for crappy hides that took no thought to hide or find. I'd rather find a cache that's in a cool spot or has a nice container. I hate being in a nice park, but have the cache just be stuck under a bench at the soccer field.

 

For my hides, I always try to find a really cool location, then put a nice, waterproof container there. Not to brag or anything... but, I have 16 active caches and 49 favorite points between them. I like to think if it's not worth finding, it's not worth owning. I always try to make quality hides that challenge cachers and show them a cool spot they've never seen before.

 

I'll stay out of the "collect" moisture thing. Wait a minute, I'm part of that. Oh, never mind.

 

You don't seem too offended, but I figured I might ruffle a few feather. I mean I've just seen way too many. An old pal of mine lives in a small City in the Youngstown, Ohio area, and about 5 years ago, the only Geocacher in his town was a young teen. OMG, they were beyond horrible, and they were the only Geocaches in the whole City. I'm sure that's changed by now. (P.S. I found like 2 of them, and didn't even log them).

 

I'll give you a good example then. There is a 13 year old Geocacher in South Florida who has his own Geocaching Podcast. He was into it every week for a while as scheduled, but has become rather erratic. The kid does an amazing job. He's even interviewed many guests, including the head Earthcache guy once. If I remember, I'll edit this post and post a link.

 

EDIT: Here it is, Geocraze podcast Looks like he hasn't done a show since September, 2011. But check out any of the archived ones, he's amazing. And the "98" in his name is the year of his birth.

 

So yeah, another disclaimer, I know not all tweens and teens put out horrible caches. Some people "get" Geocaching right away, some are rather clueless, regardless of age.

Edited June 30, 2012 by Mr.Yuck

[Ameliaonstage]

I was taught in an Army survival course for emergency drinking water, hang plastic in the woods, as it COLLECTS condensation. And people put their caches in plastic bags?

If I may correct you, the plastic doesn't "collect" anything. It allows moisture that is already enclosed (generally in the form of plant materials or damp sand) to condense into droplets. If the inside of the bag is dry, there is nothing to condense, there is no problem. It won't let moisture in from the outside. On the other hand, it won't allow any dampness that does get inside to escape. That, I believe is the real problem.

 

Oh dear! We have got a smart one here!

 

The worst one I have ever found has got to be a little dirty wet spice container on top of a power box outside goodwill. Gross. :laughing:

[+Jbird and Zip]

We're relative newbies. Our first find was a guard rail cache about two blocks from our home. It took two days and a special hint from the CO - who knew you could stick a magnet in an Altoids tin? Not too long after that we found our first lamp post skirt cache while on a trip out of state. It was in the parking lot (of course) of the motel we were staying in. We both thought it was the most brilliant thing we'd ever seen.

 

Now we're all the way up to 150 finds. I'm sure the ones that are challenging to us right now will be considered quick P&Gs a year from now - at least I hope so.

[TheDoctorPH]

Hole bored into a 150+ year old tree to hide a leaky film can.

 

wow this makes me angry. my worst fear is that what we do damages nature more then helps it/leaves it alone.

[+As_ter]

As a 17-year-old unsupervised male cacher (no worries, a few months and I'll be legal), lemme give a promise to you that the caches I inevitably hide are all going to be in sealed containers, with actual good information, surrounding terrain, parking, clean logsheets, no thorns, and significantly less fecal matter than all of these posts talk about experiencing. I apologize on behalf of my kind.

 

The worst cache for me was actually at absolutely no fault of the CO, however, it was a pretty unfortunate circumstance that made this a bad hide. Recently (so no logs knew about it), wasps had begun building a honeycomb attached to a cache. Essentially, the cache was resting on a screw, in a sign, and was plainly visible, and just like the others in the series hidden just like it. However, the wasps had begun construction hanging off of the screw the cache was on. So I swaggered up to it, removed the cache, and after signing the log, realized the extreme wasp activity going on in the sign. I then looked through the screw-holes, noticing the wasp comb, and debated on whether to replace the cache in the hiding spot (risking stinging of myself and the next people to find the cache), or remove it (which the owner probably wouldn't like). I decided to replace it and immediately contact the owner about it, so I basically got posed to run, plopped it back into place, and sprinted about 40 feet away. I must have gotten some strange looks from muggles, but, no stings! (And yes, the owner has been contacted and knows about this now)

Edited July 4, 2012 by As_ter

[+Ben0w]

The same owner just placed another cache on a tree in a children's playground (!), just beside a garden, where the inhabitants already got suspicious after three visits, according to the last log. Oh, dear. Quality caching is something other.

OK, I did my fourth (X) and the fifth cache (Y) from this owner. You need an obscure bonus number from X to determine the position of Y. Obscure in this way, that it is absolutely unclear, what vodoo is really behind the bonus number. There is a absolutely unique number coded into the cache X, but this doesn't work. All finders of Y tried brute force (which works, since the formular is pretty lame and shows only one real probable cache hide) OR contacted the owner or a telephone joker.

 

But that is not all, what collects them into the "bad hides ever". The landowner spotted me from his house far away as I tried to get the bonus number, came over with his tractor and a hay fork and interrogated me about what I'm doing on his property. I denied doing something illegally (the place is open directly from the street, so technically access is allowed). He didn't accept, since he has a small fishing area near there, which is totally private. He accused me of illegal fishing (I even don't like fish) AND filed a charge against me!

 

So, recently I got a visit from two police officers...just for visiting a lame cache.

 

Thankfully one of them happens to know Geocaching and had a good laugh about the thing as I explained the background, so I most probably will come out of this case without any bruises, but it still is a real annoying thing. By the way: I already got an insulting mail from the owner for my increasing disgusted notes on his caches. Yes, I can ignore his caches and now I will. But they always will have a top ten position on my list of worst hides ever.

[+Planet]

BenOw,

Sounds to me like you would want to get away from caching in tge more urban areas. You're not having very good luck.

I walk away from caches that don't look good. If they even made it into my list of caches to look for that day.

 

P.S.

the "Ow" under my avatar has nothing to do with your user name.

[+Ben0w]

Sounds to me like you would want to get away from caching in tge more urban areas.

It's considered rural here ("tractor" and "hay fork" are usual tools for the land owners here, I've had luck, since they usually have guns, too).

 

You're not having very good luck. I walk away from caches that don't look good. If they even made it into my list of caches to look for that day.

Oh, the stories here are about the worst hides. Thankfully I already found more good ones.

But it's true for caches of this specific owner. We already had mail contact and he didn't hesitate to argue with me in very bad mood/language. Well, it all will strike back: since I meanwhile know his full name I can and will point all future police investigation to him. Maybe that teaches him to hide in better places - even if it may not teach him to hide better caches (or stop hiding at all).

 

At the moment I'm just ignoring caches from this specific owner. And yes, I already walked away from other caches where I felt bad about something.

 

In the specific case there was no sign (other than the owners name and a history of strange log entries) that this cache could be a real problem. It was free & legally accessible, the description sounded interesting. It just happened that there was some private fishing ground in the creek nearby and the land owner is a very distrustful old man, obviously getting nervous about the increasing traffic there and just waited for the next suspicious looking person...which happened to be me.

 

Turned out that the cache owner obviously hadn't thought very carefully about the cache location or even asked for permission. It was a pretty lame cache, too: promised to be a "high-tech cache", but just was an old laptop case in a stinking plastic bag thrown under a bridge without much cover, the logbook stucked into the tiny battery compartment.

 

This cache formerly was a multi, where the stages didn't work either. On request of previous cachers the owner finally changed it into a simple traditional. It is listed as "regular", but in reality is at maximum a "small" (only fitting the logbook and maybe small/flat swag in the CD-drive compartment of the former laptop).

 

Even the "high-tech" bonus number clue was not working (no cacher had found it yet, all had to use brute force coordinate determining or a telephone joker). A "somewhat special" key on the laptops keyboard was indicated to give away the (alphabet) code for the bonus cache. The only key with something special clearly was the "o" (glued down) - but the resulting coordinate is wrong (points to a totally empty spot on a field nearby, I was there). The correct code is another letter, which simply isn't marked or anything else, so I think the owner just made a big mistake in his own formula. Doesn't matter, since with a little thinking about the logic calculation constraints you have only about 15 coordinate results, from those only one points to a possible hiding spot. There I finally found the bonus cache.

 

In shorter words: it surely qualifies as one of the "worst hides ever" I found. The side story with my police encounter doesn't make it much better.

 

[EDIT: Just for the record: I've just got a very friendly email from the cache owner, feeling sorry for my hassle with the police, promised to contact the officer and sorting things out. So at least he seems to be somewhat reasonable and caring.]

Edited August 4, 2012 by BenOw

[+Seaeyesee]

Lately there has been a lot of recent caches in the area that aren't fun. I believe that one of the reasons you place a cache is the location, his is always on a random street sign, light pole, or dead end (they are mostly nano's). It's good for numbers if you care about that, I guess. Half the time the coordinates are off, and there's not even a description on some! it's just not fun!

Edited August 7, 2012 by Seaeyesee

[+Lexmarks567]

I think that the condition of the cache is not a primary qualifier to be "worst".

 

Caches which create alarm and cause someone to shoot at you, such as being placed on private property would be worst. Closely followed by ones that are called in to the bomb squad. It's probably silly these days to be stealthy looking for an urban micro, as mist of the time they don't have any value, or are especially difficult to replace unless they use some handcrafted camo. They would be followed by caches which deface the area and cause land managers to completely ban the activity. Something nailed to a tree really doesn't count, as they may look bad, but don't really irritate a manager as much as a hole bored into a large tree with a one inch drill.

 

Last is container condition. Sometimes all caches need maintenance, but covering it with a bag should only be a termporary fix until someone gets out there. Over time this causes the cache to smell really bad. However, I'd only say a cache was in the worst category if it needed both maintenance and matched something mentioned above.

 

A cache not far from here a cacher posted a note saying they were approached by the fence owner saying he would bash in anyone's head who came around there.

[AZcachemeister]

I'll have a go at this...

 

Out in the desert, along a lonely country road with no view of anything interesting. Someone (I sure hope it wasn't the CO) had skinned a bunch of insulated cable and dumped a huge pile of the insulation by the roadside...pieces about three feet long and definitely enough to fill a full-size pick-up bed. The CO (instead of deciding to CITO) decides to use the pile as a needle-in-a-haystack hiding opportunity and sticks a prescription bottle in one of the pieces of insulation.

[+AneMae]

We have 400+ horrible hides here. It is called the London Loop. You drive telephone pole to telephone pole (about every 160m) to get a cache, a film canister in 90% of the cases. To quote Mr. Yuck:

 

" Pull the car over every 600 feet on a rural roadside? I'd rather douse myself in Gasoline, and light myself on fire. I'm in, as I was for the 45 or so I once found in Southern Ontario, still my only "power trail run". Identical containers, identically hidden (such as film canisters hanging in a tree), not interested. "

 

 

Edited August 8, 2012 by AneMae

[Mr.Yuck]

We have 400+ horrible hides here. It is called the London Loop. You drive telephone pole to telephone pole (about every 160m) to get a cache, a film canister in 90% of the cases. To quote Mr. Yuck:

 

" Pull the car over every 600 feet on a rural roadside? I'd rather douse myself in Gasoline, and light myself on fire. I'm in, as I was for the 45 or so I once found in Southern Ontario, still my only "power trail run". Identical containers, identically hidden (such as film canisters hanging in a tree), not interested. "

 

Excuse me? I love the London Loop. Otherwise, I would not have one named for me, would I? L.L. Mr.Yuck

[+Achernar86]

Found this one in Pisa a few weeks ago. Great location but... band aids? Really?

 

The Cache

[+Viajero Perdido]

... the mis-statement that plastic bags collect moisture.

Oh yeah, they collect moisture.

 

I've found plenty of caches wrapped up in plastic bags. When you unwrap the bag (big green garbage bags are the worst), you're looking at plenty of holes from critters chewing away at it. Rainwater falls into the holes, collects in low points, breeds mosquitoes, and takes forever to dry out. I've unwrapped garbage-bag caches on perfectly dry days and gotten my arms all wet from the entrapped water.

 

Yuk.

[4wheelin_fool]

Hole bored into a 150+ year old tree to hide a leaky film can.

 

wow this makes me angry. my worst fear is that what we do damages nature more then helps it/leaves it alone.

 

I feel a little responsible, as I had hidden a few puzzles a week or two before which used "tree faces" as clues to find the final, which he had found. I tried to use firetacks size pins to hold them up, but that didn't work so I eventually used tiny nails and figured it wasn't too bad. Then his cache appeared a week or two later using a tree face, but only with a giant hole bored behind the nose. I wrote a polite log, but told him at an event what I thought about it and he got indignant. Eventually he left the game and all his caches were archived for non maintenance. I archived mine eventually to prevent more people from copying it. Oddly I was initially worried that a kid might copy the idea in a bad way, but then an adult did. Someone in their late 50s who owns hundreds of acres of property and is probably worth more than most other people geocaching..

[+SSO JOAT]

The nitpicking about "young people" prompts me to mention that the worst hides we've ever had in our area were placed by "old people" that have thousands of finds and hundreds of hides (most are archived as they rarely last more than a year) - (they even log their own hides as finds, right before they archive them). Bad containers coupled with very questionable locations... such as a matchholder sitting on top of a stump next to a burned out building foundation on a private lot that has a big "for sale" sign at the end of the driveway. Or, how about a slip of paper in a crack on a telephone pole at an intersection in a residential neighborhood. Or a can tossed in the trunk of an abandoned junk car way out at the end of a marginal road by a gravel pit full of trash. Oh, and just to add to the "joy" of the seekers, they usually had a major typo in the published coordinates that threw the cache off quite some distance. I remember one that was off by miles when they typo'd a major digit in the coords. After a week of people tearing up some guy's backyard at the published coords, I actually FTF'd that one when I treated it like a puzzle and started plotting out the potential typo's to match up a single digit error with a location that fit their description. Sure enough, a single digit error of 1 minute. After posting the real coords with my find, the CO did finally correct the coords (via reviewer).

 

The other kinds of "worst caches" are those that don't have attributes selected or have any effort put into writing the cache description. Couple that with a recycled plastic food container, regular paper log (instead of Rite-In-Rain or map paper), incorrect D/T rating, and "fuzzy" coordinates gathered via a cell phone and you have the setup for the worst cache.

[+Sol seaker]

I did one recently that was a filmcan. The hint is "rock." When you arrive you see a huge expanse of foot-sized rocks coming down a hill from a water storage area. This is next to a rock wall.

Yeah, thanks for the hint.

 

Yesterday I did one that could have been on the top of my list.

It was an incredible tour of a nearby town. It's a well thought-out multi with waypoints at beautiful views of the Puget Sound (think islands, sailboats, ferries) and public art. Beautiful. I'm thinking "favorite point."

 

then we get to the final.

 

After spending about 45 minutes looking, we called a friend.

I had just wanted a hint. He told us. OMG.

 

The hint on the cache page had three components to it. Only one of them was correct. The others lead you away from the cache, as do the coordinates which are 80 feet off.

It's listed on the cache page as a small. It's a micro: a keyholder in a bad spot.

 

Mind you, there's a large wooded area there to find spots in.

What happened? The CO ran out of creative juice when he got to the end? Such a great beginning made the ending more disappointing than it would have been. No, it still would have been disappointing.

 

This guy obviously has some great cache smarts. I have hopes he'll get a new container and move the final to create one of the best caches in the area, rather than one that makes this thread.

[+littlegemsy]

Honestly, whilst not bad in themselves, I'm finding far too many people here chuck a small/regular (well not over 1l but listed as a reg, prob more like 500-800ml) in the bases of trees that take no imagination, effort and should never be listed over a D1. Some are well done but the majority... aren't. They seem to be the cornish equivalent of the film canisters chucked everywhere. I guess at least most are waterproof though.

 

But I love well hidden nanos (not the magnetic kind, the tiny containers hidden in pinecones, sticks, tree knots and various custom containers) just as they tend to show more effort than "find a tree, chuck a pot in the bottom". So maybe I'm the odd one!!!

 

My planned small in a tree will be made more interesting though

[+DaysJourney]

The worst for me was a 'front yard' cache that my wife decided to look for. I am not a fan of private property hides. Even if the description states that its ok with the property owner, to me it still feels weird. I sat in the car, reading another cache page as she stood on the sidewalk, poking around in the hedges in front of some house. It wasn't long before she attracted the attention of a neighbor, who approached and asked what she was doing. He wasn't unfriendly but was - concerned. She explained that she was geocaching and that the person living in the house was the one who placed it (as per the cache description). So the 'concerned' neighbor got the homeowner, who, knowing nothing about a cache in their front yard, also became concerned and came out to see what was going on. While that was taking place, my wife happened to find the cache. It was a disposable, plastic food container, cracked and missing the lid. Turned out that the person who had hid the cache had moved away over a year before and had basically abandoned the cache - even though they had a couple of other, active caches nearby. The new homeowner was not impressed and wanted my wife to take the cache with her, which she did. Needless to say, the situation ended with my wife embarrassed and two homeowners having a bad impression of that 'geocaching thing.' We threw what was left of the crappy container (no trackables) in the trash and left a 'needs archived' log.

[+Mike & Jess]

The worst one we have locally was a take out container, hidden in a ditch, under a couple planks used as a brdge. The cache just fit under the planks of wood. The instant we got rain, it was soaked.

[+sparklefingers]

The ones that get me are the sign post caches. I hate them yet in my town urban caches are all you tend to find and they're always on the street signs...

If I'm 5m from a cache and there's a sign that's the first place I look.

[knowschad]

The ones that get me are the sign post caches. I hate them yet in my town urban caches are all you tend to find and they're always on the street signs...

If I'm 5m from a cache and there's a sign that's the first place I look.

 

Amen to that!!! Those are the new LPC in my neck of the woods. I could probably keep a streak up simply by checking stop signs randomly as I walk around town.

[+sparklefingers]

The ones that get me are the sign post caches. I hate them yet in my town urban caches are all you tend to find and they're always on the street signs...

If I'm 5m from a cache and there's a sign that's the first place I look.

 

Amen to that!!! Those are the new LPC in my neck of the woods. I could probably keep a streak up simply by checking stop signs randomly as I walk around town.

 

Yeah, our signs are the English street signs. Pushed into the top corner the most thought out one I've had was a fake screw on the back of the sign.

[+OZ2CPU]

yesterday I found a cache 2meters from a DOG-toilet area !!

imagine the smell was terrible..

container was GLASS yar, filled with illegal fireworks and a lighter and a log book..

lucky there was a trashcan near by.