Trespassing Geocachers and How to Check if Youre on Their List | Homestead Security | Forums

Chances are, you may have a Trespassing problem you did not even know about: Geocachers!

Before you dismiss the idea that they are a problem, do yourself a favor and read this in it's entirety.

For those not in the know, Geocaching is a worldwide game of hide and seek. Only instead of finding people, the goal is finding objects called "caches". When found, the "cache" is left where it was for the next person to find. Caches are hidden and then a listing is created on geocaching.com which includes details like size, difficulty level to find, and an approximate GPS location. Geocachers use that listing to "play" their "game". When a cache is found, participants write their name or username on a piece of paper stored inside the cache that functions as a log. Optionally they may also post to the cache's listing online. The idea is to take credit for having found the cache. The official rules specify that trespassing is not permitted; not to hide a cache, and not to find a cache.

And this is where reality steps in: The MAJORITY of Geocachers trespass anyway.

Why? Many of them do not care, and nearly all of them are quite ignorant when it comes to trespassing laws.

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Take for example a rural area on a country backroad surrounded by trees as far as the eye can see. One day a Geocacher is out on a leisure drive following the scenery and driving unfamiliar roads. They come upon a spot that has some feature which catches their attention and so they pull over to have a better look. There is no fence, no signs, and no houses or people in view. They decide it would be a nice spot to hide a Geocache and so they walk 5 or ten feet off the road and find a hiding spot. When they get home, they create a listing for their new hiding spot and then eagerly monitor their listing for activity.

So where is the problem here? In today's world, every bit of land has an owner. Be that owner a government, a company, or a person, everywhere belongs to somebody. In the case of the above example, as soon as the Geocacher stepped off the road, they were trespassing. The act of trespassing does not require ignoring a sign or jumping a fence, and it does not matter if it is a distance of 5 miles or 5 inches. The Geocacher in the example trespassed onto a stranger's property without permission. They not only broke the rules of the game, they broke they law. Sure, that Geocacher could have first gone down to the County courthouse and looked up the owner from public records, then contacted the owner and gotten permission to place a Geocache, but how many Geocachers do you think would do all of that -- how many do you think would even know how to do that -- never mind that the answer would be a resounding "no" most of the time.

But there is more to this seemingly simple example, because a Geocache is never just one trespass by one person. Once a cache location is listed, that location is a potential free-for-all by any Geocacher that decides to find it. Even an isolated cache may have dozens of people seek it out. Less isolated caches could have hundreds of seekers.

Those seeking a cache only know it's approximate location. They may find it, they may not, but the one certainty is that they will trespass one or more properties seeking it out. So now the trespassing occurs not only on the property with a Geocache, but on adjacent properties as well! Not once, but repeatedly and by multiple people.

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To be continued...