Questionable Locations?

[+FishPOET]

How does the non-caching world view us?

 

It's Saturday morning and you are working in your garage. You see a car pull up to the house across the street and a middle age man gets out and starts looking for something in your neighbors ivy.

 

You are a soccer mom and you are at the neighborhood park with your 2.5 children. A middle age man walks up alone and starts exploring the underside of the playground equipment.

 

You are a teacher at the local middle school and you notice a middle age man looking around in the bushes near the school sign.

 

You are at the train station and you notice a middle age man looking under all the newspaper racks.

 

You are at the local Police Department. You notice a middle age man looking for something in the landscaping near the front entrance.

 

What would the logs read? Great hide? Enjoyed the cache? Thanks for bringing me here?

 

Could some cache locations affect the game in an adverse way? And what can/should we do?

[+briansnat]

Caches like that are potential problems. I'm not sure what we can do besides complaining about them in our logs.

[+AuntieWeasel]

Me, I just don't do those. If I drive by a location and it looks too neighborhood-y, I'm outta there. Small urban parks...eh. Maybe.

 

What I really want is a nice, long walk in the woods anyway. So, until I cache all those out in a radius around home, I can afford to be choosy.

[+BlueDeuce]

We have one at a central firestation. They get a kick watching people trying to find it.

[dead_white_man]

Me, I just don't do those. If I drive by a location and it looks too neighborhood-y, I'm outta there. Small urban parks...eh. Maybe.

 

What I really want is a nice, long walk in the woods anyway. So, until I cache all those out in a radius around home, I can afford to be choosy.

I agree with your thinking, but I am not able to just leave and forget it. I am compulsive I guess.. The only ones I can leave alone are those annoying ones that say "worlds smallest micro" (edit spelling)

Edited February 11, 2005 by dead_white_man

[+AtoZ]

I think about the potential for noncachers to see suppecious activity when ever I place a cache. So no school ground, try to avoid parks. I mean part of it is when I am placing a cache I probable look pretty suppicious. Poking around bushes and trees for that wonder spot to hid a cache. So I try for kind of out of a way places, even in urban hides.

cheers

[+Greymane]

As a "middle-aged man", I take offense to the OP. What if this middle-aged man were an Arab man? They would probably call the police immediately. If it were a group of Goth kids, they would probably assume they were looking for their drugs and go about their business.

 

I have been in places where I may have looked out of place. I have even been questioned about what I was doing. (Not by the usual people in the area, but a worker who was doing rehab on the building.) But, when the cache is properly placed and the people in the area are aware of the placement, this generally removes most of these issues.

 

Should we only place caches in isolated, rural areas? Say "Goodbye" to the throngs of urban cachers out there. What about handi-capable cachers? Well, I guess you are out of luck. If you can't get your wheelchair through the brush, find another hobby. Is that the message we want to send?

 

We certainly have to be careful about placement. We must strive to present a good image for the game (which includes informing non-cachers about what is going on in their "front yard"). This is one of the BEST ways to get new people into the game.

 

As for the old man/woman with the telephoto lens who sits on his front porch and calls the police eight times a day.....he is not my concern. (Yes, I had one of those in my home town.) I didn't let them rule my actions then and I don't now. I play by the rules and don't do anything that would tarnish the game. Beyond that, I can't worry about what people think. (Because some people think some VERY odd things!)

[+Metaphor]

I don't do caches like these. If an area looks potentially risky, I avoid it. If I want to get hassled or arrested, I'll choose a stronger cause than my right to search for tupperware in the 'burbs.

 

I agree with our Auntie Weasle, a good walk in the woods is better than crawling around a hedge in someone's neighborhood...

[+Renegade Knight]

First I reallly don't care one way or the other if someone looks funny in a park, train station, bus depot or at home in his white T-shirt with a beer perched on his belly. That's a moot point as people can look strange anywhere at any time for any reason they dadgum well want.

 

However the location of a cache itself can be a concern. Schools for reasons of having the cache reported as a bomb and school being closed and all that.

 

As for the newspaper rack...if those are not a problme why would a magnetic cache attached to the underside be a problem?

 

In the end it's going to depend on the individual cache.

[+mrmnjewel]

We have one at a central firestation. They get a kick watching people trying to find it.

That's the thing. They know it's there and they understand the game (more or less). That makes all the difference. If they understand what's going on, it probably is a great spectator sport for the firefighters, police officers, or whatever...

[+sbell111]

I hate that I'm responding to this thread since its just a poorly disguised 'lame' thread, but here goes...

 

Yes, sometimes we look strange when we are hunting caches. The only things we can do are 1) try to act as if we belong and 2) do not hunt a cache if our searching for it is going to expose it to muggles.

 

I've been hanging out in the forums for years and this has never changed. Would you prefer it if caches were only hidden in places that no normal person would want to go? This would help ensure that no one saw us looking strange.

 

edited to fix yet another grammatical error.

Edited February 11, 2005 by sbell111