Cacher possibly moved away or passed away

[+sabinacollins]

hello cachers, i have discovered that some caches near me no longer seem to be being cared for. and it may be because the owner possibly passed. 3 years they have not logged any activity.

some caches are archived (im looking into replacing those) but some are getting DNF's.

id happily take them over...how do i go about this?

any advice is welcomed

thank you kindly

sabinacollins

new cacher

[Keystone]

First and foremost, you should be absolutely certain of the owner's death before taking any action.  A supposition that an owner "possibly passed" is not enough.  Many cache owners lose interest in the hobby and neglect their remaining caches.

 

That said, here is some guidance for situations where the owner of a cache has passed away.

 

Archived caches cannot be unarchived for purposes of facilitating an adoption.  You can place a new cache of your own at the same location, and make it a tribute to the original cache and its deceased owner.

 

Active caches owned by a deceased geocacher can be archived, adopted out or continued as-is, at the discretion of the decedent's legal heirs.  The family would need to write to Geocaching HQ to express their wishes and instructions.  There are no "forced adoptions" without the family's cooperation.

 

"Community maintenance" is another option.  The caches can remain in the account of the deceased geocacher, but are cared for by the local community.  So long as there are no issues with the cache that require actions by an active owner, such caches can live on happily for years.

 

Owners of active caches from the year 2000 were offered a unique opportunity to express their wishes for the cache for when they pass on.  A "geo-will," if you will.  Perhaps in the future this experiment might be extended to other caches and cache owners, but there are no current plans to do so nor any site infrastructure to facilitate larger-scale geo-will efforts.

[+sabinacollins]

thank you

[+Jayeffel]

You can go to each of the caches you are concerned about and see the cache owners (CO) names, beside that is a message to owner option. First, you can click on the owners name and it will then show some information of the owner, how many caches found, hid etc., one of the pieces of info is the last time they were used that page-- only an general idea since it does not show the past time the were on the geocaching website. Second, you can use that message area to send a message to the owner,  but again only a general option. The owner may still, be active and respond, or may not. He or she may not be caching anymore and any response would not be expected.

 

If the owner is still listed as active, he can initiate an adoption of the cache if he desires", guidelines are under "help".

 

Good luck.  

[+Isonzo Karst]

Geocache pages and trackables are transferred to new owners on the adoption page. ONLY the owner of the item can make this transfer. It's easy and automated

 

www.geocaching.com/adopt/

 

See the help center article on this for caches HERE