Jump to content

Vandalized Cache, And I Know Who Did It..


ohgr

Recommended Posts

Bear with the first part of the story as it all relates.....

 

Ok, so I go into my favorite down the street greasy hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and I'm waiting for my take out order. I look up to see the cash register wishing me

"Good Afternoon!" ?? Nobody said good afternoon when I walked in, so I'm going to assume that the world has become so busy that we've now tasked machines to greet people for us.

 

One of my geocaches was vandalized in a pretty nasty way over the last couple months. I just found out about it yesterday when I went up the mountain to check on it. As it hasn't been found in quite some time. The vandals used the camera in the cache to take pictures of themselves, both at the cache site and at home. They went so far as to take the cache box down the mountain to their house, take pictures of themselves, vandalize the box, and return it to exactly the same spot where they found it including the now full camera. This is no small hike, it's almost 2 miles one way, and it's not flat ground, it's steep. So they walked almost 8 miles for their fun. The other thing I don't understand is how they found it in the first place. It's way the hell out there, and their first log said they found it at approx. 9:45PM. I almost didn't find it myself in the daylight, and I'm the person who hid it!

 

How do I know all of this. I now have pictures of all of them. I have a picture of their house, including address, and they logged their adventures in the cache's log book, and to top it all off, one of them left a school picture in the cache with a note on it stating that if any hot chicks found his picture in the cache they should call him, and he left his phone number. How stupid are kids nowadays? I now have pictures, an address, and phone number. Oh, also when they signed the log book, the used their first and last names.

 

And now it get's weird.

 

So after being greeted with the "Good Afternoon" from the cash register above, I decide to run across the parking lot instead of sitting to wait for my food, as this place usually takes 10 or 15 minutes to get it ready. I walk into the 7-11 for a Gatorade, There are 3 customers in the store including me. One customer was a good sized older man, and the other customer (besides me) was a kid who looked VERY familiar, being as I had just spent the previous day looking at his pictures he took with MY camera, from MY cache box. I really just wanted to wring his neck, but for one, I'm not fond of jail, and for two, I suspected that the older guy was his father. I just let it go and walked back over to the restaurant. As I sat waiting for my food, I could see the front of the 7-11 through the window, I watched as the kid came out and climbed on his bicycle and rode up the street to where I assume he lives as evidence seen in the pictures. My chance to at least hassle this kid had ridden away.

 

I'm open to suggestions as to what I should do about this. Should I talk to the parents, assuming I can find the house? Should I blow it off to kids having a little fun? Should I leave a burning cache container on their front lawn with a note?

 

Ohgr

Link to comment

They left a sealed box in the cache, sealed really well with lots of tape, with a note in the log that stated the box was one item, and if anybody wanted to trade for it, they should take the entire sealed box, and not open it til' they got home. Log also stated that they filled the box with a whole load of *hit.......

 

I'll assume they knew the rules of trading from the GC info sheet I left in the cache, which they had also taped to the top of their box.

 

Being the concerned cacher I am, I needed to know what was in the cache box in order to keep everyone safe, so I cut open the sealed box, and what I found inside the cigar box sixed box was litteraly a whole load of *hit whipped onto some boxers.

 

I didn't know if they'd come back or not so I disabled it, rather than have some poor guy and his kids show up to a cache that would ruin their caching experience.

 

Ohgr

Link to comment

OK, I'll say that's pretty sick icon8.gif I'd re-hide the box someplace nearby and re-enable it. Don't put it back in the same place because the pranksters would just find it again and repeat their shenanigans.

 

Edit to add that you should re-tape up the box and leave it on the kid's doorstep.

Edited by Hemlock
Link to comment

tough call. how much hassle do you want? easy life? then just walk away and replace somewhere else.

 

you could always just phone them and speak to the parents to see what reaction you get, then decide whether it's worth meeting them. depends on whether you can keep your cool. no point blowing your top over. it is just a cache at the end of the day. however annoying and disgusting it is. is it worth the time and effort?

 

ofcourse you could just get someone with a suitably sexy voice to arrange to meet him somewhere really annoying on the pretext of a date. something that's going to cost him, at cinema or in resturant etc pref somewhere he'll be embarrest. then ofcourse no show, he's left looking like an idiot at hopefully his expense. :ninja:

Link to comment

I have all the cache pictures, not including the Nastiness.... I didn't want to post them here as they all look about 14 yrs old or so.

 

If by chance they found the cache by looking here and printing a map, I thought about rehiding 100 yards. but making it a multi, with the first being a micro with only the coordinates in a micro and the second cache being the actual cache box. as I doubt they are GPSr enabled. The multi would allow me to hide the location of the actual box from anyone without a GPS. And if they found the micro they couldn't do much damage.

 

Ohgr

Link to comment

You could probably get in trouble sending the nasty parts of that through the mail, but otherwise I think it's a great idea. Include a picture of the contents of their trade goods, and perhaps a printout of the original cache listing along with a short note, like "Just wanted you to be aware."

Link to comment

Yup. Have to agree. Send the incriminating evidence to the parents with a note describing what has happened. I wouldn't bother sending the offending box, hold that back in case you need to show the evidence to either parents or law enforcement.

 

As a parent, I would be rather be made aware of what my kids were up to at this stage, rather than discover their transgressions later, when they will probably become more daring, more obscene or more dangerous because they think they have got away with it.

 

I strongly feel that the parents should be made aware of their kids' actions.

Link to comment

They're about 14 years old? Yeah, go directly to their parents. They don't need to get into trouble with the cops for it, and you don't need to involve the school, but those kids need to be grounded. If the parents handle it right, the kids will have to somehow repay you for the damage caused to your cache, and they'll learn that valuable "actions have consequences" lesson. If the parents blow it off, well, there's not much you can do except wait for them to shoot up their school....

Link to comment

Well that really sucks, but at leat the little miscreants got some exercise. B)

Just wondering, from the tone of the OP I was guessing correctly what the vandalization was before you sp**lled it out in the second post. So why did you have to open up the box; couldn't you smell it? :(

 

Since you have the address of the little brats, I would drive over there with the box, light it on fire, put it on the stoop, ring the doorbell and run. :mad:

 

No, just kidding. I would send a note to the parents, with the pictures and the logbook page. I would also enclose one of Cybret's Geocacher-U brochures to help explain this sport to them, and rehide the sanitized cache a few hundred yards away hidden well. No need to involve the police unless you live in such a small town that they don't have more important crimes to worry about.

Link to comment
Well if you could find the name of the kids parents you couild repack it real well an mail it to them. With the photos.

Sounds like fun: You know who they are >> they don't. Might be freaking scary if you let them know that you know ...

Link to comment

I'd avoid all the 'teach them a lesson' impulses. I wouldn't bother going to the parents, it just feels to me like you could open up a real can of worms (or a real box of doot, in this case). Remember, they can get a hold of a picture of you, too (I assume that is your picture shown on the cache site).

 

I think you need to decide if there is a good chance they read the site listing. If so, attempts to replace the cache in a slightly different spot will probably result in the same thing happening again, or worse. You could, however, make it an MOC, and then rehide it. But you'd have to become a PM first.

 

Edit: spelling

Edited by cache_test_dummies
Link to comment
kids will be kids

 

whoever here didn't do worse things than that, probably needs more excitement in their lives

 

I wouldn't make much of an issue of it.

 

Well I would! In some ways this is a problem that can be landed squarely at the parents' door. It tells of a serious lack of parental influence in being able to distinguish right from wrong. It's not only the kids who need a wake-up call, but the parents as well. IMHO

Link to comment

I am sorry your cache was hit, I can share your pain someone keeps taking one of my container with NO evidence of who. But then again it was kids think of what you did when you were 14ish. I know everyone was a saint, even chior boys dirnk the wine, LOL. If your totally distraut talk to the parents but then again rmember it is only a game and no one was hurt and really no harm done. Atleast they just didnt go in the cache container.

Talk to the parnets if you must.

cheers

Link to comment

Talk to the parents. Don't be rude to them or give them the box in a huff since they probably have no clue what happened and i doubt they would condone this. I know as a parent i wouldn't tolerate this from my kids, but at the same time i do not want someone approaching me in a way that i was guilty of it also. Tact will win this one and i am sure this kid will learn more from his parents getting on his case about it than letting it ride. This i would think would only lead to more vandalism. He is old enough to be held accountable for his actions, if only with his parents. Who knows, the parents might be cachers and thats how he knew where it was. If thats the case i am sure the parents will not be happy with junior.

Link to comment

I'm thinking the mailing of a note, with a copy of the pictures, and the cache log pages is going to be enough to satisfy my need for revenge.

 

I would love to pound them all into a pulp, but in reality it's not going to help anything.

 

I'll just replace the cache in a different area of the same valley and move on.

 

Thanks for all the well wishing, and guidance, being as this was one of only two caches I had hid, it hit me kinda hard to see something bad happen to it.

 

Thanks Again!

 

Ohgr

Link to comment
As the mother of 2 -kids- I would want to know. It could be a good 'teaching' moment. Be nice to the parents though, if you get angry with them they will get defencive with you.

I have to agree with thumperness that I would want to know if my kids were up to something like this (although, I would hope that by "14-or-so" they would know better than to do something like that. I guess I'm one of the ones who needs more excitement in their lives, according to a previous poster, since this is something that I would never even have conceived of!)...

 

While you don't know how the parents are going to respond, and they may be short with you out of embarrassment, they do need to be aware. If they don't use the opportunity to teach their kids, there was really nothing that you could change about thier attitude anyway, but I think that most parents will want to know. In short, since you asked for advice, if I was in that situation, I would contact the parents.

 

MaisOui

:0)

Link to comment

You know it just occured to me. The comment about the problems you might have sending something like that through the mail got me thinking I wonder if you could be charged or something having photos like that developed? It would never stick, but I wonder if the folks at the photo place saw the pictures...

Link to comment

As a parent, I would definitely want to know. Not only to hold them responsible for their misbehavior, but also to teach them NEVER to put their photos along with their names and addresses somewhere where you don't know how they will be used. Lucky for those boys you're a sane and reasonable good citizen; what if you were a psycho? I've always taught my kids: no identifying information on the internet or any other public place.

Link to comment

Hey, come on. Would you rather find a box of dooky in your cache or a McToy. At least you can use the former in your garden! And which of us hasn't left at least a small container of our own effluence in a cache. There isn't anything in the guidlines is there? And another thing, i want a blue 5-speed diesel LandCruiser without much rust on the body and none on the frame.

Link to comment

After seeing the cache I will admit I was very curious as to what was on the film in the camera, and was even more nervous about having it developed. There were no "Bad" photos on the film.

 

I uploaded one of the Funny shots they took while they had the cache at their house.

 

Cache Gallery Page

 

I covererd the kids face, to protect his privacy :D and to keep myself out of trouble.

 

Ohgr

Link to comment

Just a word of advice based on my own experience. When you find a case of a kid with a really bad attitude, there is a 90% chance that at least one of his parents has a screw loose. And even if one of the parents has all screws in place, they will often defend their wacky kid and wacky spouse. Proceed with caution.

Link to comment

I would send a letter along with evidence to the parents. I agree that kids will be kids, but in this case the kids left evidence of who they are and where they live. Sounds like a cry for help/attention to me.

 

A friend of the family was a captain in the Sherriff dept. He said long ago that the majority of people who commit crimes actually, on some level, want to be caught. He based this belief on the observation that so many who commit crimes leave evidence behind that would have been easy to not leave.

 

I would probably make the letter light hearted and just sort of an FYI type of thing.

 

Besides, the kids in the photos might not be the actual culprits. Could be some kid took silly photos of a 'friend' and are setting him up.

 

Who knows?

 

What I would not do is get terribly upset over it. I would view this as payback for the crap you did (presumably) as a kid. At least they put everything back.

Link to comment
I would send a letter along with evidence to the parents

I would contact local police to cover your own a##.

i agree write to the parents.

Whats wrong??? :D Just move the cache and forget about is. Just kids having you on! OR don't you have fun in the USA anymore ??? :D You make it sound like the kids were going to blow up the whitehouse! :D

Below is the correct attitude

What I would not do is get terribly upset over it. I would view this as payback for the crap you did (presumably) as a kid. At least they put everything back.
Link to comment
I would send a letter along with evidence to the parents

I would contact local police to cover your own a##.

i agree write to the parents.

Whats wrong??? :D Just move the cache and forget about is. Just kids having you on! OR don't you have fun in the USA anymore ??? :D You make it sound like the kids were going to blow up the whitehouse! :D

Below is the correct attitude

What I would not do is get terribly upset over it. I would view this as payback for the crap you did (presumably) as a kid. At least they put everything back.

Glad to know that defacating on private property is considered acceptable elsewhere.

 

:D

 

sd

Link to comment
I would send a letter along with evidence to the parents. I agree that kids will be kids, but in this case the kids left evidence of who they are and where they live. Sounds like a cry for help/attention to me.

 

A friend of the family was a captain in the Sherriff dept. He said long ago that the majority of people who commit crimes actually, on some level, want to be caught. He based this belief on the observation that so many who commit crimes leave evidence behind that would have been easy to not leave.

 

I would probably make the letter light hearted and just sort of an FYI type of thing.

 

Besides, the kids in the photos might not be the actual culprits. Could be some kid took silly photos of a 'friend' and are setting him up.

 

Who knows?

 

What I would not do is get terribly upset over it. I would view this as payback for the crap you did (presumably) as a kid. At least they put everything back.

One I think it was KIDS they thought it was cute, funny etc.... what ever they did.

Two people that commit crimes are not the smartest in the world. They just don't think.

 

Atleast you got you container back.

 

cheers

Link to comment
Glad to know that defacating on private property is considered acceptable elsewhere.

No it is not, but we do not cut our wrist, or jump over a cliff just because some kids s&*%£%t in our caches. :D

I don't think either of those things have been suggested.

 

Clearly the proper thing to do here is to contact the parents.

 

southdeltan

Link to comment
Just a word of advice based on my own experience. When you find a case of a kid with a really bad attitude, there is a 90% chance that at least one of his parents has a screw loose. And even if one of the parents has all screws in place, they will often defend their wacky kid and wacky spouse. Proceed with caution.

Well... sometimes. But sometimes, oftentimes, kids will feed into each other's negative impulses. I know that I was an absolute monster at one point, largely because a friend of mine and I just brought out the worst in each other. I did things when I was with her that I would never have done by myself or with my saner friends. Had my mother found out about some of the crap I did, she would have set me straight and reminded me of who I really was, and I think MOST parents would, too.

 

Yeah, it's possible that one of the parents is screwy. It's also possible that these kids are 14 years old and being jerky and need to learn from their parents that there are consequences for those actions.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...