Has the center recently changed lane cleaner? Have they changed the cleaner to water ratio if it's a water based cleaner? Have they changed the pattern?

Have they missed any sort of "scheduled" preventative maintenance on the lane machine? Changed cleaner cloth?

There are so many various reasons for this sort of thing it's sometimes hard to track down.  Changes in humidity can play havoc in many areas of a center... including how pins react...

For the past couple of months everybody in league has been experiencing an abnormally high number of pins moving horizontally across the pin deck but not falling.  4 pins might become almost 5 pins.  8 pins become almost 9 pins.  The pins move so far off spot that the rack won't pick them up or it knocks them down and they have to be reset.  I've been keeping track the last couple of weeks -- our four-person squad gets at least 1 or 2 of these per game.  We've talked to management at the center and they claim nothing has changed, but everyone seems to be noticing it too.  Is it the pins, or the decks, or something else?

For the first time since I have bowled at a local house (25 +) years, we are seeing the same type of movement. Last week, a 4 pin moved so far left that it became double wood in front of the 7 pin. That was just one of several instances of pins sliding an entire spot on the deck without falling.

I have no gripe because the condition (whatever it is) is the same for everyone. But I am going to ask management if there has been a change in the way that the lanes are oiled or cleaned. I will post any developments.

Few things it could be:

Lane machine not stripping decks
Lack of mechanics cleaning decks
Too much oil carrying down
Pins not being changed out or are in need of sanding
Oil change which could be affecting the lanes

At the house I work at, we clean 10and decks a night plus day shift cleans 1-30 on Monday and 31-60I on Tuesday so we get a full house cleaned twice a week. Even this we still see out of ranges due to having to put extra oil on the heads (17 year old lanes on their last leg) plus having a bad set of pins which are oil soaked on the bottom and slide more. We are going to start using tac spray plus sand pin bottoms to try and fix some of it.