Caches going missing

[+jamessarjeant]

Hi all,

How often do your caches go missing? We've hidden 4 so far with more planned and two have gone missing. One was a magnetic on a bench which (I am assuming) the council have removed, the bench that is not the cache! and the other was a tupperware that was well hidden at the base of a tree on a little used footpath. Both caches were at opposite ends of the county so not sure its one person with a vendetta but seeing as they have been found missing within a week of each other I'm wondering what other peoples success / disappearance rates are?

PS. Going on holiday for a couple of weeks so might not see replies for a while

[+Team Microdot]

It would indeed be odd for one person with a vendetta to go to the trouble of stealing the entire bench rather than simply pocketing the nano

 

[+Manville Possum]

It all depends, urban hides tend to take a beating.

[+SeattleWayne]

It doesn't take long for someone to accidentally stumble across a geocache placed on a bench. 

[+niraD]

3 hours ago, jamessarjeant said:

How often do your caches go missing?

How long is a piece of string?

My first geocache went missing or was otherwise muggled regularly. I underestimated how much abuse the location took from the skateboarders who used it as an informal skateboard park. Eventually, they destroyed the wooden steps where my cache was hidden. The city rebuilt the steps, and within a couple weeks the skateboarders had destroyed the new steps. The city didn't rebuild the steps after that, and I archived the cache.

I learned a lot trying to maintain that cache. My other caches haven't had nearly the problems the first one did. I've had to repair normal wear and tear, and I've been affected by construction and related access issues. But they haven't been muggled the way the first one was.

[+cerberus1]

This is where getting permission might help...

If the council removed the bench the nano was on, maybe they would have given you a heads-up that it wasn't gonna be there for long, and to look for another spot, if remembering that someone asked them to place a cache there.  

 

Possible someone  nearby is noticing that  a "little used footpath" (I don't know what  "cheeky parking" is...)  is now seeing people accessing.

We see that when a new cache might be too close to a development or home.  Someone notices all the people showing up.

Curious nature, look to see what the heck is going on, find the  (whatever container) and thinks "this doesn't belong here".

[+RufusClupea]

On 7/24/2017 at 1:29 PM, cerberus1 said:

If the council removed the bench the nano was on, maybe they would have given you a heads-up that it wasn't gonna be there for long, and to look for another spot, if remembering that someone asked them to place a cache there.  

IME, park managers & such DO--on occasion--move these things (as well as picnic tables, BBQs... and in some cases I can think of, even TRAILS!)  And I pretty much agree with the rest of cerberus1s' observations.

I've been wondering the same question (about how often caches go missing) from a newbie GC POV, as many I've searched for haven't been there, come to find out they've been muggled.

Could this be one reason we're seeing fewer reg/large caches and so many small/micro/nano caches?

Or do they need to be hidden better than we think they're being hidden?

Or is it just bad luck/coincidence?

To the OP, I think 4 is too small a sample to make any assumptions/conclusions.

 

[+fuzziebear3]

I actually think that many caches ARE there, but may be more difficult to find than one would think.   Thus my DNF is not an indication that the cache is missing, more likely is just the fact that I didn't find it.

 

But yes, in general the regular/large are sometimes easier for a non-geocacher to find, and that could lead to them being 'muggled'.  Micros/nanos are probably less likely to be found by non-geocachers, but may even be hard to find for geocachers in some cases.

[+Team Microdot]

3 hours ago, RufusClupea said:

Or do they need to be hidden better than we think they're being hidden?
 

 

Often this is true.

I've seen plenty of caches which were very poorly hidden and not long after the CO lamenting how their caches are being targeted by a cache trasher.

I've also found plenty of caches which, it appeared, had been barely hidden or not hidden at all by the last finder - although it could just be that the hide has been muggled and left, giving that appearance.

Although I did once have an ammo can in a tree stump that I went to check on and found it sat in full view on top of the tree stump - previous finder or muggle?

That ammo can came home with me and hasn't left the house since as I've not come across anywhere decent to hide it in all the years since.

Edited July 25, 2017 by Team Microdot
typo

[+colleda]

You can just be unlucky at times. In June 2012 we placed magnetic on a steel frame picnic table. It lasted two weeks. On checking it due to a DNF (it was a D1 T1) I found that the whole structure gone and nice new shiny aluminum picnic table in its place! Council had to decided to upgrade their park furniture without telling me. Anyways, it soon had another magnetic replacement attached to it.

[+Team Microdot]

1 minute ago, colleda said:

 Council had to decided to upgrade their park furniture without telling me. Anyways, it soon had another magnetic replacement attached to it.

Did you feel at all compelled to write abusive remarks about the Council or their actions?

[+colleda]

14 minutes ago, Team Microdot said:

Did you feel at all compelled to write abusive remarks about the Council or their actions?

Nah, I'm not like that, I'm a bit of a que sera, sera type.

Here are my logs;

colleda Premium Member 2678  Enable Listing 20/06/2012 Cache has been replaced and is now ready for grabbing. Hint remains unchanged. View / Edit Log / Images   Upload Image

colleda Premium Member 2678  Temporarily Disable Listing 19/06/2012 Not only has this cache been muggled but the whole structure is gone. In its place is a spiffy new, shiney, aluminium replacement. There didn't seem to be anything wrong with the old one. Will look at placing replacement cache in a couple of weeks.

[+BCandMsKitty]

53 minutes ago, colleda said:

You can just be unlucky at times. In June 2012 we placed magnetic on a steel frame picnic table. It lasted two weeks. On checking it due to a DNF (it was a D1 T1) I found that the whole structure gone and nice new shiny aluminum picnic table in its place! Council had to decided to upgrade their park furniture without telling me. Anyways, it soon had another magnetic replacement attached to it.

I'd love to know how you would attach a magnetic cache to an aluminum table.

 

To the OP

I have had relatively good luck with cache longevity, but there have been some that didn't  last even 2 weeks! As far as I am concerned, if you hide them well, and in a good location (out of public view), then it's usually a matter of luck. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. I have most trouble with urban caches, so don't hide many of those.

 

 

Edited July 25, 2017 by BC & MsKitty

[+barefootjeff]

Most of my caches and physical waypoints that have gone missing have been due to flooding rather than muggles - serves me right for putting them close to watercourses or the sea I suppose, but at the time I thought they were above any water flow I could imagine. I've also learnt just how heavy a cache needs to be to stop it floating off when the water comes up around it - one of my replacement containers is now a steel box with two of the heaviest lead sinkers I could find glued into it for good measure and it passes the bathtub test. I also had a hiding place destroyed by a tree falling on top of it during strong winds and another cache was crushed when the large rock it was hiding under moved in heavy rain. All good experience for future hides.

[+colleda]

18 minutes ago, BC & MsKitty said:

I'd love to know how you would attach a magnetic cache to an aluminum table.

 

 

 

 

That seemed to puzzle seekers. A little piece of thin steel and Silastic. It's removable and doesn't do any damage.

[+niraD]

10 minutes ago, colleda said:

That seemed to puzzle seekers. A little piece of thin steel and Silastic. It's removable and doesn't do any damage.

Huh... I just assumed that you had used a nut or bolt or other piece of steel hardware that held the aluminum pieces of the table together.

[+WarNinjas]

The bench removal is obvious what happened.  At the base of a tree often a animal could remove it.  They dig threw areas looking for food and stuff.  Especially if it was a peanut butter jar or something.

[+RufusClupea]

5 hours ago, niraD said:

Huh... I just assumed that you had used a nut or bolt or other piece of steel hardware that held the aluminum pieces of the table together.

That's generally not done due to electrolysis/galvanic corrosion.  But as colleda noted, there are ways around it.

[+jamessarjeant]

Apologies for the delay in getting back but thanks for all of your comments. 

Knowing our council they wouldn't have bothered reminding anyone and the bench doesn't have a replacement because they are the most useless bunch of over paid civil servants but thats a whole other story!

I realise that 4 is a small sample and we will get around to placing more but it just seemed odd. The two in question were a good 40 or 50 miles apart so fairly sure its not a vendetta of any sort but just seemed odd that they both went and they were both very different types of caches.

Its also a shame that people can't just leave things alone if they find them, especially the bench which was in good condition on the seafront where many people would sit and look out to sea. Ah well! Onwards and upwards

[+Team Microdot]

6 minutes ago, jamessarjeant said:

Apologies for the delay in getting back but thanks for all of your comments. 

Knowing our council they wouldn't have bothered reminding anyone and the bench doesn't have a replacement because they are the most useless bunch of over paid civil servants but thats a whole other story!

I realise that 4 is a small sample and we will get around to placing more but it just seemed odd. The two in question were a good 40 or 50 miles apart so fairly sure its not a vendetta of any sort but just seemed odd that they both went and they were both very different types of caches.

Its also a shame that people can't just leave things alone if they find them, especially the bench which was in good condition on the seafront where many people would sit and look out to sea. Ah well! Onwards and upwards

I would imagine that a muggle happening on a cache by accident would consider it odd that people would 'hide' a container with a piece of paper on a bench and then imagine some conspiracy is in play when said container goes missing.