A local is distroying many caches for fun..anything we can do?

[+TeamTwoStar]

Ok GC friends...

 

We know a cacher that recently tried to get 100 caches (non trail) in one day, in my county. They state that at many locations they found the caches to be muggled or destroyed..with a spraypaint tag "Geokiller" near GZ.

 

Probably another cacher..its a shame someone cant find a constructive use for their time.

 

Any suggestions for actions we could take? Not likely, huh?

 

Ever encounter this?

 

Teamtwostar

[+Mick McPhee]

You could put some caches on private property (with approval) and set up a trail cam which are used to photograph wildlife at water holes and trails. If the perp comes in to destroy or deface property you have photo evidence. Take it to the Sheriff or Police depending upon jurisdiction and have they charged with vandalism.

 

You could mark the caches as Premium Member caches to narrow the list of suspects.

[+lamoracke]

PMO may help but folks can get coordinates of caches without ever setting foot on the cache page so do not make the assumption any culprits HAS to be one of the folks viewing the page if you PMO cache data.

 

There have been cache thieves in our area, but never that many in numbers. They just keep going after the high profile ones in the mountains like the Ape cache or other ones of note, and then the ones around them.

[+TeamTwoStar]

You could put some caches on private property (with approval) and set up a trail cam which are used to photograph wildlife at water holes and trails. If the perp comes in to destroy or deface property you have photo evidence. Take it to the Sheriff or Police depending upon jurisdiction and have they charged with vandalism.

 

You could mark the caches as Premium Member caches to narrow the list of suspects.

 

Wow. Nice ideas! Thanks!

[+The_Incredibles_]

I like the idea of hidden cameras.

 

The other thing to consider is this guy craves attention. Any logs mentioned his name, the vandalism etc, and indeed this forum post are just feeding his ego. Without the recognition and drama, he'll get bored and stop. It would be a good thing to spread the word in your area to keep the logs simple such as 'cache appear to be missing' and 'cache replaced' and not to make any reference to who's suspected of doing it, etc.

 

Once you get enough helpful replies, you may consider asking a moderator to delete this thread.

Edited October 20, 2012 by The_Incredibles_

[+Bear and Ragged]

Make the caches Premium Member caches...

Helps a little, but if the culprit already has the details saved, they know where the cache is.

 

Make it PMO and then move it, and change the clue is an option to combat any saved details.

 

As said above, don't rely on the audit log to 'prove' who it is.

Edited October 20, 2012 by Bear and Ragged

[4wheelin_fool]

You could put some caches on private property (with approval) and set up a trail cam which are used to photograph wildlife at water holes and trails. If the perp comes in to destroy or deface property you have photo evidence. Take it to the Sheriff or Police depending upon jurisdiction and have they charged with vandalism.

 

You could mark the caches as Premium Member caches to narrow the list of suspects.

 

The game cameras would be better on public property, as there should not be any expectation or complaints of invasion of privacy.

Edited October 20, 2012 by 4wheelin_fool

[+NanCycle]

The game cameras would be better on public property, as there should not be any expectation or complaints of invasion of privacy.

 

I don't understand. Who would be complaining about invasion of privacy? The perp who comes onto private property to commit vandalism? The property owner who gave permission for the camera to be there? Other people who come onto the private property for whatever reason: e.g. the mailman, invited guests, political canvassers?

 

I think there would be a better chance of being able to prosecute if it is on private rather than public property.

[4wheelin_fool]

The game cameras would be better on public property, as there should not be any expectation or complaints of invasion of privacy.

 

I don't understand. Who would be complaining about invasion of privacy? The perp who comes onto private property to commit vandalism? The property owner who gave permission for the camera to be there? Other people who come onto the private property for whatever reason: e.g. the mailman, invited guests, political canvassers?

 

I think there would be a better chance of being able to prosecute if it is on private rather than public property.

 

I started another thread about game cameras a few months ago, and a few people were annoyed at them. If its public property, privacy should not be expected. Personally, I am very much in favor of using such cameras.

[+Sharks-N-Beans]

That would take alot of cameras unless the guy was showing some obvious pattern. He'll stop in awhile.

[knowschad]

You could put some caches on private property (with approval) and set up a trail cam which are used to photograph wildlife at water holes and trails. If the perp comes in to destroy or deface property you have photo evidence. Take it to the Sheriff or Police depending upon jurisdiction and have they charged with vandalism.

 

You could mark the caches as Premium Member caches to narrow the list of suspects.

 

The game cameras would be better on public property, as there should not be any expectation or complaints of invasion of privacy.

You can have all the security cameras you want on your property. Nobody has any expectation of privacy when they come on your property.

[7rxc]

You could put some caches on private property (with approval) and set up a trail cam which are used to photograph wildlife at water holes and trails. If the perp comes in to destroy or deface property you have photo evidence. Take it to the Sheriff or Police depending upon jurisdiction and have they charged with vandalism.

 

You could mark the caches as Premium Member caches to narrow the list of suspects.

 

The game cameras would be better on public property, as there should not be any expectation or complaints of invasion of privacy.

You can have all the security cameras you want on your property. Nobody has any expectation of privacy when they come on your property.

 

I would offer that 'guests' have some expectation of privacy on private property... but perhaps not on the 'common areas', which would include the cache hide... probably. Which is what I assume you were talking about. Guest bedrooms and washrooms would be a completely different set of rules almost anywhere.

 

Doug 7rxc

[+Sharks-N-Beans]

Are we still talking about catching a dirt bag or have we moved on to cameras at caches for other reasons?

[AZcachemeister]

Are we still talking about catching a dirt bag or have we moved on to cameras at caches for other reasons?

 

I am still talking about catching cache maggots!

Stealing a skirtlifter doesn't bother me much, but the spray painting part is a bit over the top.

Our local cache maggot at least had the courtesy to use an easily removable sticker when maggoting caches.

 

In this case I would agree that the game camera option would be appropriate, but setting up the camera at the correct cache might be 'challenging'.

[+Don_J]

I like the idea of hidden cameras.

 

The other thing to consider is this guy craves attention. Any logs mentioned his name, the vandalism etc, and indeed this forum post are just feeding his ego. Without the recognition and drama, he'll get bored and stop. It would be a good thing to spread the word in your area to keep the logs simple such as 'cache appear to be missing' and 'cache replaced' and not to make any reference to who's suspected of doing it, etc.

 

Once you get enough helpful replies, you may consider asking a moderator to delete this thread.

 

Wow. If he's craving attention from the Geocaching forum, he's sicker than I thought.

[+Graculus]

We've had instances of this in the UK. As said earlier, the people doing this want to know their actions are causing us annoyance. We decided to deny them publicity. We encouraged people who's caches had been affected not to make any comments on the logs. We also asked the forum moderators to remove or lock any threads like this where people were clearly showing their feelings (of course after informing those posting why). I know it is really hard to ignore this sort of vandalism but it did seem to work because the activities of these people did tail off and then stop. That was a couple of years ago. Since then Facebook has now got many geocaching groups so here again we try and tell people to stop discussing it.

 

I also went to the police to ask for their advice. Whilst they did say that taking a cache would indeed be theft it would be very difficult to bring any sort of charges.

 

Chris

Graculus

Volunteer UK Reviewer for geocaching.com

UK Geocaching Information & Resources website - www.follow-the-arrow.co.uk

UK Geocaching Wiki

Geocaching.com Help Center

[+Sol seaker]

There was at least one.case in which someone was prosecuted for stealing a geocache. I don't remember the details.

Sure the police don't want to prosecute, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't. They don't even want to pursue someone in my area who broke into my house, stole a.lot, and continues to take what he can. Sometimes the police need to be encouraged.

 

Yes there are people who are so desperate that they crave attention on these forums.

We had one a while ago who was doing nasty things here for attention. When we quit talking about it he left. I guess there are a lot of people so desperate for attention they will try anything. It is a sad commentary on our society. These people will never be free of that desperation until they learn ways to find positive attention. The negative attention will never fill that hole inside them they are trying to fill.

 

There are a lot of sad people in this world. A lot of hurting people.

 

Yes, let's focus here on solutions.

Making caches "premium member only" (PMO) has helped many places because the cache thief doesn't want to pay to steal.

[+wimseyguy]

The once case of cache maggotry that led to an actual court case was in upstate NY. IIRC the cache that was the tipping point was owned by a local museum and on their grounds. Game cameras were used, and when the individual was caught, evidence from other caches was found in his car. His professional career was put into jeopardy by this behavior as he had DOD security clearance.

 

I agree with those who have said to minimize the amount of attention that is paid to this maggot and he'll drift away after he gets bored and will find others to pester.

[knowschad]

Guest bedrooms and washrooms would be a completely different set of rules almost anywhere.

 

Doug 7rxc

oh oh!!

 

 

 

Edited October 21, 2012 by knowschad

[+WarNinjas]

We have one here. He calls himself the rain of terror. He pees in the caches. One of our large caches was one of them. If you come up with a good idea we could use it!

-WarNinjas

[+Don_J]

We have one here. He calls himself the rain of terror. He pees in the caches. One of our large caches was one of them. If you come up with a good idea we could use it!

-WarNinjas

 

Something to do with electricity comes to mind.

Edited October 22, 2012 by Don_J

[+OZ2CPU]

no matter what hobby or sports you do,

you can always be unlucky there is a local no-brainer

who will try to ruin or damage the sport to others,

the best way to stop their amusements, is to feed them no attention at all,

then they will die of boredom, or find other people to drive nuts..

[+Mike & Jess]

We are having a similar issue, but not nearly as drastic as ones described in this thread. In our case, the caches are being stolen. The culprit is a premimum member as PMO caches are not safe.

Unfortunately the Audit log for PMO caches doesn't give you enough info to pin them.

 

Currently looking into placing a couple game cameras around random caches. Unfortunately I have too many caches to cover all of them, and the caches being attacked are not all new ones.

 

The kicker is, unless you can nail the person with something illegal, nothing can be done through GS once you figure out who they are. The culprit needs to do something wrong on the GC or GS site to have GS step in.

[+OZ2CPU]

or how about a DIALOG ?

if we can understand WHY they do it,

maybe we can change stuff so they leave us alone ?

[knowschad]

or how about a DIALOG ?

if we can understand WHY they do it,

maybe we can change stuff so they leave us alone ?

They do it because they are immature. Period. They may believe they have other motives, but any responsible adult that really cared about their motive would deal with their issues in a more mature manner. An adult that, for example, felt that we were littering, wouldn't simply pee in a cache and leave it there (or paint it, or put a sticker on it, or take the swag and leave the container, etc). They would remove the cache. They would probably attempt to contact the cache owner, and possibly even Groundspeak about their concerns.

[+bflentje]

We've been over this in the past..

[knowschad]

We've been over this in the past..

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.

- Ecclesiastes 1:9

[+jellis]

I like the idea of hidden cameras.

 

The other thing to consider is this guy craves attention. Any logs mentioned his name, the vandalism etc, and indeed this forum post are just feeding his ego. Without the recognition and drama, he'll get bored and stop. It would be a good thing to spread the word in your area to keep the logs simple such as 'cache appear to be missing' and 'cache replaced' and not to make any reference to who's suspected of doing it, etc.

 

Once you get enough helpful replies, you may consider asking a moderator to delete this thread.

If they make them PMO then they can post the message "been replaced" on the cache page instead of the log and it does not send notifications out if they have them on their watchlist.

[+Evil Tom]

or how about a DIALOG ?

if we can understand WHY they do it,

maybe we can change stuff so they leave us alone ?

 

Mind your P's and Q's you little whipper snapper. The Elders have spoken. So mote it be.

[+briansnat]

or how about a DIALOG ?

if we can understand WHY they do it,

maybe we can change stuff so they leave us alone ?

 

I think there are three main types of cache maggots

 

1 Immature miscreants and attention seekers who have fun by messing with other people's fun (this type is by far the most common I think)

 

2 Self appointed enviro cops who see geocaches as litter or a danger to the environment

 

3 Disaffected (and sometimes former) geocachers who have a beef with Groundspeak, an individual or specific group of cachers

 

The first group can usually be dealt with by ignoring them. If nobody notices what they are doing it's not fun anymore. Don't post angry logs on the cache pages, or threads like this one. Just quietly archive or replace the vandalized caches without comment. This type, when ignored, usually gets bored quickly and goes on to other attention grabbing pursuits.

 

The second group can be a difficult one to deal as they feel they are on a mission from god, or mother nature to remove this scourge from the planet. They tend to stick around for a while. But even this type sometimes gets bored and moves on to other things (remember a certain defender of the forest in the PNW?)

 

The last group can be persistent, but the usually go away eventually.

[Mr.Yuck]

The once case of cache maggotry that led to an actual court case was in upstate NY. IIRC the cache that was the tipping point was owned by a local museum and on their grounds. Game cameras were used, and when the individual was caught, evidence from other caches was found in his car. His professional career was put into jeopardy by this behavior as he had DOD security clearance.

 

 

This Upstate New Yorker says that that's pretty accurate. This was the world's most prolific and longest tenured cache maggot, from about 2004-2009. He was indeed a civilian employee of the Air Force, but all charges were dropped if he agreed to not steal any more Geocaches for 3 months, and he didn't. All the then current threads on the subject still exist at the Central New York Geocachers forum (Syracuse area). He was arrested Feb. 16th, 2010, and the charges were petty larceny and fifth-degree possession of stolen property.

 

His pockets are obviously a couple or few thousand dollars lighter from hiring a Lawyer, and making that plea deal happen.

Edited October 24, 2012 by Mr.Yuck

[+hzoi]

The last group can be persistent, but the usually go away eventually.

Did the last one retire his/her cache stealing sack after making off with the Washington state A.P.E. cache, or are they still active?