Caches in residental neighborhoods

[jseymour84]

What bugs me more than residential neighborhood caches are caches placed in the parking lot of a business, and the cache description encouraging cachers to check out the main product that business is marketing.

I put that cache on my ignore list, but not really sure if I should mention it to a reviewer or someone like that because the CO may think he is being clever with a play of on words and its not really a commercial cache, but to me it feels hugely commercial.

[Muggle B]

At least he knows the cache is there, and is encouraging the public to be there, these poor people have all these strangers hanging out in front of their house and have no clue why they are there.

I really feel bad for them, and the best I can do is just ignore those caches, one less person they have to worry about.

[CodeJunkie]

Unfortunately if we all just turn a blind eye and “ignore” these caches, that doesn’t help the sport as a whole.

He’s the scenario I can see coming. Property owners start filing complaints with the city about these “transients” in front of their house. The police investigate and spend a bunch of taxpayer dollars, but hopefully don’t actually call in the bomb squad. The municipality passes legislation on geocaching which then ripples to the neighboring communities.

Obviously these passed the reviewers so we can only assume they’re OK with it from a “technicality” standpoint (assuming personal opinion is set aside in their roles as reviewers and they stick to the “rules”). I feel for the reviewers because they may not have many options other than approving these.

[jseymour84]

Is there a way to petition for a cache’s archival? Once reviewers approve it there doesn’t seem to be anything that can be done to “de-list” a cache. I would really hate to see the scenario that CJ describes come to pass but if there are not a lot of quality geocaches being setup and maintained then the reviewers really do not have much of a choice but to publish these “inferior” caches.

The only options I can think of now are A) lobby the reviewers to remove the listing, B) lobby the reviewers to force the CO to modify the description to prove landowner permission, C) setup plenty of quality geocaches on DNR land, parks and other friendly locations so the reviewers have the option to reject lesser quality caches.

I’m working hard on option C, having setup 5 geocaches last week and planning a few more for this weekend. 🙂

[Crow-T-Robot]

@jseymour84 wrote:

Is there a way to petition for a cache’s archival? Once reviewers approve it there doesn’t seem to be anything that can be done to “de-list” a cache. I would really hate to see the scenario that CJ describes come to pass but if there are not a lot of quality geocaches being setup and maintained then the reviewers really do not have much of a choice but to publish these “inferior” caches.

The only options I can think of now are A) lobby the reviewers to remove the listing, B) lobby the reviewers to force the CO to modify the description to prove landowner permission, C) setup plenty of quality geocaches on DNR land, parks and other friendly locations so the reviewers have the option to reject lesser quality caches.

That’s not true. A reviewer could get two new cache submissions to review. One is the most incredible cache ever conceived, hidden in an awesome spot that few know about. The other is the lamest turkey you could imagine, hidden behind a smelly dumpster. If both meet the hiding guidelines, they’ll both be published. Quality (and safety) are not requirements for caches to be published and caches are not denied publication because they are deemed “uninteresting”.

The onus is not on the reviewer here…the onus is on us to ignore these caches.

[Team Deejay]

The problem is that, from a guidelines perspective, there really isn’t a permission issue involved. Assuming the cache is very close to a sidewalk or roadway, it is either on public land or on an area with a presumption of public access. Ignoring the problem caches won’t solve the problem. (Didn’t your mother tell you that?) What we need is for the more experienced folks in the area to try to guide the new hider into “better behavior”. Might not work, but it is about the only option we have.

For those who don’t know what this is really all about, there have been quite a number of new hides in the Appleton area (mostly Appleton, Kimberly, and Combined Locks) which are placed in residential neighborhoods between the sidewalk and the street. These are not like the roadside hides you find in more rural parts of the state, but right by someone’s house. We tend to see 20 to 30 of these submitted at a time, many of which are not publishable for a variety of reasons, but some do make it through. These are extremely annoying for us to review, as we are really dependent on the accuracy of online mapping calibration, and a coordinate error of 0.003 can put the location on someone’s front porch. I don’t like it, but I can’t do anything about it officially.

I should note that we are starting to see a few problems with roadside caches in general (signs, guardrails, culverts, roadside trees, etc.) Often, a person’s property line extends right to the roadway, so the stop sign or culvert you are using for a hide is actually on their property. This situation happens when a road is widened after the easements and property lines are set. And even if it is not their property, many property owners react as if it is. As always, it is important to know who’s property you are placing a cache on and to have permission for finders to be there. If you encounter angry property owners or land managers when finding caches, please be polite, leave as soon as possible, and let a reviewer know so that we can shutdown the cache. If the property owner wants to confiscate the container, please let them, but explain that a missing container will probably cause additional damage, and it would be better to leave it in place until it is officially shutdown.

As far as parking lot caches promoting businesses, either we just missed it, or the owner changed the listing after we published it. Feel free to send me the GC code of the cache you feel is commercial and I will handle the problem. Note that just being in a parking lot doesn’t make it commercial (according to the guidelines), but extolling the virtues of local merchants is not permitted without formal permission from Groundspeak. That said, they don’t have this rule to protect you from ads. They just want to get paid if people want to advertise on their site!

[isjustus4]

I just got a notification log of archive on one of the hiders caches that was archived by a Groundspeak Lackey themselves.

The archive log states “The adjacent property owners are being disturbed by this cache and ask that it be removed. The local police are now involved. Sorry, but I have to archive this cache. Thank you for your understanding.”

On another note, I saw a log from the offending cacher/hider about a cache that I went to FTF and ran into two other cachers at, that was IN a PARK. The log from them(copy and pasted a portion) says “The Muggle next door didn’t like the previous finders invading her familys privacy and wondered if they were doing drugs. I explained what was going on. They asked that they get reprimanded for rudeness “. I saw 1 person, a male, when walking up to the FTFr’s to sign my name to the log.

I mean, c’mon, isn’t that what 90% of their own hides are doing, being on a boulevard? I’ve driven past 1 of the boulevard caches when on a FTF run, because it’s not my type of cache.

[fdlseeker]

I was finding a dead end cache a few weeks back and they the next day took a disabled friend to that same cache I almost go beat up but I guy cause I geuss their truck has been broken it to before and he didn’t know why we were looking around my his property. We were not on his property but he was still very concerned so we talked to him about Geocacheing and we all walked away with out anyone getting hurt. In fact he said he might even check into seeking them too. I believe every cache should be known about to the houses they maybe right near so the people there don’t think other things are happening cause this is not the first time a concerned adult has come out of their home to ask what I am doing. Someone eventually will get hurt if it continues like this. This is just my view and I know I’m new to this whole thing , but I don’t want to be hurt over a log book or kids toy.

[Mister Greenthumb]

@fdlseeker wrote:

I was finding a dead end cache a few weeks back and they the next day took a disabled friend to that same cache I almost go beat up but I guy cause I geuss their truck has been broken it to before and he didn’t know why we were looking around my his property. We were not on his property but he was still very concerned so we talked to him about Geocacheing and we all walked away with out anyone getting hurt. In fact he said he might even check into seeking them too. I believe every cache should be known about to the houses they maybe right near so the people there don’t think other things are happening cause this is not the first time a concerned adult has come out of their home to ask what I am doing. Someone eventually will get hurt if it continues like this. This is just my view and I know I’m new to this whole thing , but I don’t want to be hurt over a log book or kids toy.

The solution for you on this subject is simple fdlseeker. There are something like 14,000 geocaches hidden in Wisconsin. I might be off by 1K, but there are a lot. Stop looking for these urban caches and get out in the woods where goecaching belongs. Personally I have no sympathy for cachers who get into situations like you did with the abundance of caches that there are to choose from. I may be a little harsh, but every time this topic comes up it’s the same whining over and over again. I’m not critcizing Muggle B for bringing up the subject, but everyone just move on to the next cache.

[HOT TROT]

Well said.

[Walkingadventure]

I saw attempt at discussion of a new trend and not whining but it could easily go that route. Thanks for your opinion, too.

I have heard this hider has a disability which may have spurred his urban P&Gs. How many of us go out of our way to think of caches the disabled can access? I know I seldom think that way and have only twice published 1T caches.

Following the signals from space.

[Mister Greenthumb]

@Walkingadventure wrote:

I saw attempt at discussion of a new trend and not whining but it could easily go that route. Thanks for your opinion, too.

I have heard this hider has a disability which may have spurred his urban P&Gs. How many of us go out of our way to think of caches the disabled can access? I know I seldom think that way and have only twice published 1T caches.

If so I apologize, but that would have been something helpful to know ahead of time as it could be a whole different topic from a different point of view. I have been on the trail with wheelchair cachers and even a blind cacher and the thrill of the find is just as high for them, but in different ways.

[gotta run]

What’s the over/under on how long this game lasts???

On the Left Side of the Road...

[fdlseeker]

Yes my geofriend and I are both disabled so we can not do the long hikes like we wish we could. We both would rather be in woods rather than in town. It would be nice if cachers thought of the disabled every once in a while. I’m not whining just merly asking or suggesting. Buy the way we both are farly new to this whole game and very new to these forums.

[amita17]

Regarding Muggle B’s specifically mentioned caches, does anyone know the owner and would talk to him/her/them personally? Is it a new cacher/hider? Maybe they just don’t realize the trouble these caches can cause. Sometimes going directly to a CO may not be the best solution, but has anyone tried?

[Author]

Posts