Cahe was vandalized

[+mohrunits2]

So I got an email that someone was having trouble finding my geocache. I decided to go look for it. It was there, but someone had changed the container from an ammo box to a smaller, blue plastic box, and left it in plane sight. I read the log book, to find a note saying "Lunchbox took this sh*t. N*gga. hail satan 666." I took it home, and temporarily disabled it. Has anyone else found a note in a muggled cache?

[+bittsen]

So I got an email that someone was having trouble finding my geocache. I decided to go look for it. It was there, but someone had changed the container from an ammo box to a smaller, blue plastic box, and left it in plane sight. I read the log book, to find a note saying "Lunchbox took this sh*t. N*gga. hail satan 666." I took it home, and temporarily disabled it. Has anyone else found a note in a muggled cache?

 

It happens.

Some will tell you to hide better. Others will chastise you saying its your fault it was muggled.

 

I feel your pain. There isn't a lot you can do, legally, about people who steal ammo boxes. There are ner-do-well people all over in the world.

[+mchaos]

I had a recent cache stolen. It was a lamp post hide, but not the usual. It was a electrical box cover plate with magnets stuck to it.

 

I got a few odd comments and when I got to GZ, On the post where it was hidden was written in sharpie, "Sorry I took your geocache thing." In really sloppy handwriting.

 

Now, I can see some one taking an ammo can, but what could he possibly have planed for the plate? Maybe he is behind in some electrician work?? LoL.

 

Never the less, some people have no shame, even after reading the cache note. However there are a lot of good people out there who stumble onto them. For instance, I was talking to another manager at work about geocaching, and he had said that his father in law found one once. He said it was sitting in a tree and didn't look right so he took it home. He checked it out and read the cache note. The next day he put it back.

 

I could only wish that would happen every time.

[+mrbort]

Now, I can see some one taking an ammo can, but what could he possibly have planed for the plate? Maybe he is behind in some electrician work?? LoL.

 

I wonder if this occasionally happens where some other cacher wants an ammo can for their hide? I would assume that cachers have an ethical cross section that includes in the hyper-minority extreme those who would steal the cache container (yet replace with a crappy lunchbox) to create their own.... Regardless of the reason, to the OP: that's a bummer and I really hope that it doesn't become an epidemic... good luck with future hides!

[+wimseyguy]

It happens. If it's a spot worth bringing people to then place another container 100-200' from this location. If it's an average or below average location, call it a learning experience, archive it and find a new home for your next hide.

 

My first cache went missing after less than a month, and was replaced by a note from some knucklehead calling themselves geogod. They even took the time to create it in ransom font. (each letter cut from a magazine). It turned up in another cache a few days later, and a geo-angel replaced it in the original location for me.

[+mchaos]

 

I wonder if this occasionally happens where some other cacher wants an ammo can for their hide? I would assume that cachers have an ethical cross section that includes in the hyper-minority extreme those who would steal the cache container (yet replace with a crappy lunchbox) to create their own.... Regardless of the reason, to the OP: that's a bummer and I really hope that it doesn't become an epidemic... good luck with future hides!

 

I thought about that. That's just bad form. If some one took an ammo can of mine to make their own, I would just keep looking at caches until I found my ammo can. If I ever found it and could tell it was mine, I would steal it back.

 

I suppose engraving ammo can's isn't a bad idea ....

[+bittsen]

I thought about that. That's just bad form. If some one took an ammo can of mine to make their own, I would just keep looking at caches until I found my ammo can. If I ever found it and could tell it was mine, I would steal it back.

 

I suppose engraving ammo can's isn't a bad idea ....

 

I only placed one ammo can so far and I marked it with 80lbs of concrete inside. If someone stole that one, it would be hard for them to say it wasn't mine.

 

[+Knight2000]

We have all seen our fair share of dirty log books that need edited or removed. Someone found some boxers in one of my caches. It was a secluded area.

[+DragonsWest]

While I admire someone for trying to hide an ammo box in an urban park, I wouldn't do it myself. Ammo boxes I'll place far from civilization.

 

Hiding in a park calls for some ingenuity or acceptance it will be stumbled upon by unsavory people at some point. This is where creating your own fake rock or such comes into play.

[+Unkle Fester]

Now, I can see some one taking an ammo can, but what could he possibly have planed for the plate? Maybe he is behind in some electrician work?? LoL.

 

I wonder if this occasionally happens where some other cacher wants an ammo can for their hide? I would assume that cachers have an ethical cross section that includes in the hyper-minority extreme those who would steal the cache container (yet replace with a crappy lunchbox) to create their own.... Regardless of the reason, to the OP: that's a bummer and I really hope that it doesn't become an epidemic... good luck with future hides!

The funnier one is when people steal bison tubes.

[+WRASTRO]

Now, I can see some one taking an ammo can, but what could he possibly have planed for the plate? Maybe he is behind in some electrician work?? LoL.

 

I wonder if this occasionally happens where some other cacher wants an ammo can for their hide? I would assume that cachers have an ethical cross section that includes in the hyper-minority extreme those who would steal the cache container (yet replace with a crappy lunchbox) to create their own.... Regardless of the reason, to the OP: that's a bummer and I really hope that it doesn't become an epidemic... good luck with future hides!

The funnier one is when people steal bison tubes.

Hey, I don't know where to buy them, ok? Besides, I always leave a couple of used golf balls and a film cannister. Those film cannisters can at least hold some small swag and a short pencil.

[+AstroDav]

Ammo cans are a hot commodity. They aren't JUST good for geo'ing....they are good for ANYTHING. Don't expect anymore than about half of non-geo'ers to walk by a nice can without taking it home. Saddly, people just aren't THAT honest. If it's teenagers, probably closer to 75% would take it. And yes, as with ANY group, all geo'ers aren't honest either.

 

Save your big, pretty, expensive, & favrite containers for those areas that ONLY a geo'er would typically go to....or hide them VERY well. And just make yourself suck it up, take it as a lesson learned, & carry on when a theft or vandalism does occur....because if you hide long enough, it will.

 

What taught me these hard-to-swallow lessons.... first MAKING myself push just a bit deeper into the woods & second FORCING myself to just accept a loss.... was not even geocaching. It was the sport of fur-bearer trapping. Several years ago, for 3-5 years, I would run trap-lines all winter that ranged from 50-125 traps out at any one time. With that many, especially at the upper end of the scale, you almost HAVE to set some of them in easy-to-get-to locations. There's just not enough time in the day to manage that many if they are all set out in the boondocks where no one but a trapper ever goes.

 

Traps aren't cheap. Back then, they were costing me on, depending upon type, about 5-15 $$'s a piece....maybe equal to 8-20 $$'s now. And sometimes, ironically, the VERY most productive places are close to people. Everyone has seen the beaver dam by the hiway, or the nice muddy ditch (raccoon heaven) by the road. It'll almost make you physically sik the first, second, even third time you see that your $20 trap has been heisted. It'll KEEP making you sick EVERY time until you finally accept that if you place things that will be out of your direct vision long enough, a certain amount of them are going to disappear.

 

Gaining experience by this happening taught me to do several things. One of them was to avoid the public places if at all possible. But just like geo'ing sometimes in trapping that perfect spot IS in public. So here I eventually learned to increase my camo'ing efforts, making any sign that I had ever been there practically non-existent. I also increased my sneakiness & stealth, making sure NO ONE ever saw me placing or checking the trap. And I also made myself start using only the cheap traps (think "film cans") in these public areas. The expensive ones (think "ammo cans") were reserved for only those places no one ever went to but if they had an actual purpose to be there.

 

This greatly decreased my trap-stealing incidents & made the ones that still happened much more easier to accept. And that helped to develope my attitude of, "Well, I tried hard, but it still got stolen. So no use to cry about it now. Just move on to the next".

 

Don't get me wrong. I never LIKED for a trap to get stolen, just as I hate for a cache to get trashed. But with the lessons I learned on the trap-line years ago, when the latter happens, I'm at peace knowing that I did all I could do to prevent it from happening, to soften the blow if it did, & that it was just one of those completely unpreventable incidents.

 

Cuss a little, vent your anger, throw a rock at a tree, and go on to the next one. our ulcers won't bother you near as bad if you do it that way.

[+Von-Horst]

So I got an email that someone was having trouble finding my geocache. I decided to go look for it. It was there, but someone had changed the container from an ammo box to a smaller, blue plastic box, and left it in plane sight. I read the log book, to find a note saying "Lunchbox took this sh*t. N*gga. hail satan 666." I took it home, and temporarily disabled it. Has anyone else found a note in a muggled cache?

 

Am I the only one who is amazed that they left another container?

 

Down our way, either someone simply leaves a rude note in the logbook, or else the whole thing just vanishes...

 

Mike

[+power69]

Now, I can see some one taking an ammo can, but what could he possibly have planed for the plate? Maybe he is behind in some electrician work?? LoL.

To save 39 cents? thats what they go for at WM.

[+DragonsWest]

Now, I can see some one taking an ammo can, but what could he possibly have planed for the plate? Maybe he is behind in some electrician work?? LoL.

 

I wonder if this occasionally happens where some other cacher wants an ammo can for their hide? I would assume that cachers have an ethical cross section that includes in the hyper-minority extreme those who would steal the cache container (yet replace with a crappy lunchbox) to create their own.... Regardless of the reason, to the OP: that's a bummer and I really hope that it doesn't become an epidemic... good luck with future hides!

The funnier one is when people steal bison tubes.

Hey, I don't know where to buy them, ok? Besides, I always leave a couple of used golf balls and a film cannister. Those film cannisters can at least hold some small swag and a short pencil.

 

PM your address I'll send you some. I have a couple hundred I bought in jars for $10 a pop.

 

I like these, but tend to still paint them to hide better. I also glue those rare earth magnets in the ends to make them stick under things.

[+WRASTRO]

I really don't take them and would never consider doing so. I actually have a couple of nice silver bison tubes on my desk right now just waiting for me to find them a good home out in the wild.

[+TEAM HARTSOCK]

 

I wonder if this occasionally happens where some other cacher wants an ammo can for their hide? I would assume that cachers have an ethical cross section that includes in the hyper-minority extreme those who would steal the cache container (yet replace with a crappy lunchbox) to create their own.... Regardless of the reason, to the OP: that's a bummer and I really hope that it doesn't become an epidemic... good luck with future hides!

 

I thought about that. That's just bad form. If some one took an ammo can of mine to make their own, I would just keep looking at caches until I found my ammo can. If I ever found it and could tell it was mine, I would steal it back.

 

I suppose engraving ammo can's isn't a bad idea ....

 

Funny thing is, around here, a good plastic container costs about more than an ammo can at the army surplus.

[+mohrunits2]

So I got an email that someone was having trouble finding my geocache. I decided to go look for it. It was there, but someone had changed the container from an ammo box to a smaller, blue plastic box, and left it in plane sight. I read the log book, to find a note saying "Lunchbox took this sh*t. N*gga. hail satan 666." I took it home, and temporarily disabled it. Has anyone else found a note in a muggled cache?

 

Am I the only one who is amazed that they left another container?

 

Down our way, either someone simply leaves a rude note in the logbook, or else the whole thing just vanishes...

 

Mike

I don't know if they replaced the container. The one that was left was a non waterproof, clear, blue plastic pencil holder type thing. I might just replace it with a tupperware, so it isn't interesting.