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Why do muggles remove geocaches?


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I've always been curious about this.

 

I understand there are spiteful people who will vandalise things because they dislike other people having hobbies.

 

However, who are the muggles who physically remove a cache rather than just throw the log on the ground or whatever?

 

What possesses people to remove a game piece but leave the McDonalds cup or crisp packet a few centimetres away?

 

I know some are genuinely picked up on litter picks, but this must surely be a minority.

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2 minutes ago, BethDaddyKaty said:

I've always been curious about this.

 

I understand there are spiteful people who will vandalise things because they dislike other people having hobbies.

 

However, who are the muggles who physically remove a cache rather than just throw the log on the ground or whatever?

 

What possesses people to remove a game piece but leave the McDonalds cup or crisp packet a few centimetres away?

 

I know some are genuinely picked up on litter picks, but this must surely be a minority.

 

I think they just love spoiling other people's fun. There's a cache in a very remote spot that I attempted a few years back, but the cache had gone and right next to its hiding place the muggle had painted graffiti on the rock. I also found the mandatory chip packets and drink containers on the ground nearby.

 

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One of my hides in a suburban park was repeatedly muggled during school holidays. The first time they took the logbook and pencil but left the container and swag sitting just outside the hiding place. The second time, they took the container but returned the original logbook. The third time they took everything, at which point I archived it and created a new one with a similar theme in a more secluded spot.

 

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12 hours ago, BethDaddyKaty said:

However, who are the muggles who physically remove a cache rather than just throw the log on the ground or whatever?

 

What possesses people to remove a game piece but leave the McDonalds cup or crisp packet a few centimetres away?

 

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14 hours ago, BethDaddyKaty said:

I've always been curious about this.

I understand there are spiteful people who will vandalise things because they dislike other people having hobbies.

However, who are the muggles who physically remove a cache rather than just throw the log on the ground or whatever?

What possesses people to remove a game piece but leave the McDonalds cup or crisp packet a few centimetres away?

I know some are genuinely picked up on litter picks, but this must surely be a minority.

 

We had four college football players destroy local Christmas decorations in a town nearby.   This behavior isn't anything new.  :)

 

We know of a few areas that though allowed,  if I placed a cache there it'd be gone in no time. 

One is a huge cliff used by climbers.  I guess they feel we're infringing on their hobby.   I pre-tested two different containers and both went bye-bye.

We see that in some game lands too.  Hunters licenses pay for game lands property here.  Cachers thinking they have a "right" to be there walk right under a hunters stand.  He's been out there since 0500, and now you're interrupting, scaring everything within earshot of your "I found it !!".

 

But most "muggled" caches we've seen were simply because of poor placement (or replacement by a finder).

We see a lot grabbed by kids.  What kid doesn't wander ?     "Mom, look what I found !"

Kids don't understand that a box full of toys is something that should be left alone, and mom n dad often never notice they even have it.

Sometimes someone sitting on a bench, or a neighbor looking out the window notices that people keep going to that spot, "wonder what's going on over there… ". 

Maybe they feel that they don't want people gathering there and pitch it in the garbage at home.

Some of the containers out lately are simply picked up as litter. 

I unknowingly picked up most of a roadside series on a CITO road cleanup once.  They were all 20oz crushed soda bottles ...

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15 hours ago, BethDaddyKaty said:

who are the muggles who physically remove a cache rather than just throw the log on the ground or whatever?

 

My caches have been found by unattended small children, cache opened and contents and container thrown around.  But most often, it's landscapers who either remove the container, or remove an entire tree along with the container.  

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23 hours ago, kunarion said:

 

My caches have been found by unattended small children, cache opened and contents and container thrown around.  But most often, it's landscapers who either remove the container, or remove an entire tree along with the container.  

 

I contend that if landscapers are finding your cache then you might be doing it wrong. LOL.

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2 hours ago, HunterandSamuel said:

 

We were fortunate that a tree company left our cache there when they removed a tree we had hidden at the base. It was labeled as a Geocache. Very nice of them.

So far, four(!) of my hides started with the hint "At the base of a tree", which I later had to change to "At the base of a stump". Apart from that change in wording, no further maintenance was needed. The loggers had cut down the tree, but left the cache in place :).

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Speaking of this (before I posted the topic) I've had to disable one of my caches with 75% FP because (after a bit of enquiry down the pub) the person living opposite has taken exception to it and keeps destroying the log, and has now destroyed the cache container.

 

Makes me sad that other people get so angry about a relatively impact free hobby.

 

I will have to find a new cache container of the same type and move it somewhere else. In the meantime will replace it with a better hidden cache not in direct line of sight if only as a f-you to the person for destroying my cache.

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Property use concerns are a big one. The first cache I ever found was near the property of a friend. She lived directly adjacent to a popular park. Evidently, she had been having trouble with cachers taking the wrong route through the woods and winding up in her backyard. I know these concerns aren't always legitimate, but in my experience, explicit permission is a rarity, and even when it is granted, not everyone is aware, so I can understand the frustration with strangers apparently heedlessly tromping about what one would consider to be private property. Employees can remove caches from commercial property, and park officials can remove them from public property for these same reasons. Weather is also a factor, and can knock these things free, after which they get scooped up as trash, or animals get into them and carry them away. I think the spiteful muggle is probably the minority here. 

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2 hours ago, BethDaddyKaty said:

Speaking of this (before I posted the topic) I've had to disable one of my caches with 75% FP because (after a bit of enquiry down the pub) the person living opposite has taken exception to it and keeps destroying the log, and has now destroyed the cache container.

 

Makes me sad that other people get so angry about a relatively impact free hobby.

 

I will have to find a new cache container of the same type and move it somewhere else. In the meantime will replace it with a better hidden cache not in direct line of sight if only as a f-you to the person for destroying my cache.

If you do archive it still replace it with a container full of live ants, spiders or big green slugs.:ph34r:

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13 hours ago, baer2006 said:

So far, four(!) of my hides started with the hint "At the base of a tree", which I later had to change to "At the base of a stump". Apart from that change in wording, no further maintenance was needed. The loggers had cut down the tree, but left the cache in place :).

 

That made me chuckle out loud!  What a good tip...changing it to "at the base of a stump". 

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13 hours ago, BethDaddyKaty said:

I will have to find a new cache container of the same type and move it somewhere else. In the meantime will replace it with a better hidden cache not in direct line of sight if only as a f-you to the person for destroying my cache.

 

Keep us updated! lol One of my caches that was muggled, I replaced about 19 feet East from the original location and added that to my description. For some reason, we can't edit coordinates. 

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11 hours ago, TheLimeCat said:

Property use concerns are a big one. The first cache I ever found was near the property of a friend. She lived directly adjacent to a popular park. Evidently, she had been having trouble with cachers taking the wrong route through the woods and winding up in her backyard. I know these concerns aren't always legitimate, but in my experience, explicit permission is a rarity, and even when it is granted, not everyone is aware, so I can understand the frustration with strangers apparently heedlessly tromping about what one would consider to be private property.

 

I wouldn't want cachers coming into my backyard either. One cache that we found was in front of a house. The CO lived there. But he had to get permission from all his neighbors before it was published and can only be found after daylight and before sun down. 

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1 hour ago, Oxford Stone said:

Re Cerberus infringing on hobies - yes, a couple of my riverside ones were spots anglers might occasionally use (they obviously weren't when I placed the caches though...) - Daddybeth you might have the same problem further down the Thames...

 

Another similar,  we noticed that a few cache placements at disc-golf courses here see issues.

We were maintaining one of our caches once, and saw two cachers walk in the path of a drop zone as the disc was landing.

I can picture someone ticked-off about that.  I feel sometimes cachers with no common sense create these issues. 

 -  Blaming the  result instead of their actions...

When we do series in those areas, we simply take discs with us and play too.    :) 

 

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I think in most cases when a muggle takes a geocache, they have no idea what it is. They think it's either trash or something misplaced. They aren't geocachers, so they have no idea that this stray box in an odd location is actually where it's supposed to be and that someone will come looking for it later. They figure if they leave it there, it will just be lost to the world forever.

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7 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

 

Another similar,  we noticed that a few cache placements at disc-golf courses here see issues.

We were maintaining one of our caches once, and saw two cachers walk in the path of a drop zone as the disc was landing.

I can picture someone ticked-off about that.  I feel sometimes cachers with no common sense create these issues. 

 -  Blaming the  result instead of their actions...

When we do series in those areas, we simply take discs with us and play too.    :) 

 

 

I had a cache that was near, but not on a disc golf course.  It was along a trail beyond the course where there was little chance of having a disc land near GZ.  It was called "Out of Bounds".

 

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29 minutes ago, dprovan said:

I think in most cases when a muggle takes a geocache, they have no idea what it is. They think it's either trash or something misplaced. They aren't geocachers, so they have no idea that this stray box in an odd location is actually where it's supposed to be and that someone will come looking for it later. They figure if they leave it there, it will just be lost to the world forever.

 

When the cache is clearly labeled Official Geocache - Do Not Remove and they still take it, smash it or empty its contents over the ground and throw the container over the cliff, that's got to be malicious. Some people really need to learn to mind their own business and not interfere with things that don't concern them.

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16 hours ago, cerberus1 said:

 

Another similar,  we noticed that a few cache placements at disc-golf courses here see issues.

We were maintaining one of our caches once, and saw two cachers walk in the path of a drop zone as the disc was landing.

I can picture someone ticked-off about that.  I feel sometimes cachers with no common sense create these issues. 

 -  Blaming the  result instead of their actions...

When we do series in those areas, we simply take discs with us and play too.    :) 

 

Only 2 days ago I found a cache on the edge of a golf course. I was amused to read a log where a finder's dog decided that golf was a rather fun looking game and ran off with a ball...

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To the OP, because people tend to anticipate the worst from things they don't understand. See it from a muggle perspective. You go into your back yard and see someone wandering aimlessly in the public park across the fence. The next day someone else is doing the same thing. Perhaps you see them reaching under the bottom rail, or trying to remove the post cap. What would you think? Add to that someone that is trying to be stealthy. Perhaps they frequently look over their shoulder.

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On 1/20/2020 at 8:47 AM, cerberus1 said:

Another similar,  we noticed that a few cache placements at disc-golf courses here see issues.

We were maintaining one of our caches once, and saw two cachers walk in the path of a drop zone as the disc was landing.

Obviously a valid point that I don't mean to minimize, but I have to admit, I've found caches on several disc golf courses where I felt more likely to run into a fellow cacher than a disc golf player. I can definitely sympathize with a geocacher that's walked all the way across an overgrown, apparently abandoned disc golf course without seeing a soul only to be surprised by the first player the course has seen in weeks teeing off on the first hole. That wouldn't excuse me getting in their way, and I'd certainly apologize, but I wouldn't embarrassed about it.

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36 minutes ago, ras_oscar said:

To the OP, because people tend to anticipate the worst from things they don't understand. See it from a muggle perspective. You go into your back yard and see someone wandering aimlessly in the public park across the fence. The next day someone else is doing the same thing. Perhaps you see them reaching under the bottom rail, or trying to remove the post cap. What would you think? Add to that someone that is trying to be stealthy. Perhaps they frequently look over their shoulder.

All valid, but, in addition, once they find it, they have no way of knowing that it should be left in place. We know caches are permanent. We know there's a back channel of communication about the cache status. We know they can be found again and again over the years. They have no way of knowing any of that. For all they know, it's some weekend game and the players forgot to pick up their game piece when they were done, so they're just doing someone a favor by cleaning it up. I think too many people assume that any muggle taking a geocache is being mean, but I think in most cases, they're trying to be nice.

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8 minutes ago, dprovan said:

Obviously a valid point that I don't mean to minimize, but I have to admit, I've found caches on several disc golf courses where I felt more likely to run into a fellow cacher than a disc golf player.

I can definitely sympathize with a geocacher that's walked all the way across an overgrown, apparently abandoned disc golf course without seeing a soul only to be surprised by the first player the course has seen in weeks teeing off on the first hole.

That wouldn't excuse me getting in their way, and I'd certainly apologize, but I wouldn't embarrassed about it.

 

These were cachers crossing the road, and entering the disc-golf courses from mid-course.

Odd,  rare to see no cars at parking on any disc course we've been to.  Must simply  be different in your area...

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