Is This a Rulesy Thing, or a Property "Rights" Obsession Thing?

I live upstairs to a Crazy...which would be fine--I have empathy and try to be nice to Crazies-but lately I've come to see that Crazy doesn't equal Nice. I've been meeting a lot of people with mental illness issues, and though some are super nice and fun to talk to, some (like my downstairs neighbor) are really bitter, cruel a-holes that aren't to be trusted, quite frankly. That's unfortunate, since bitter begets bitter, and I want to be nice to people and make them feel valuable, but sometimes it's hard to find something valuable *in* certain people.

I was coming back from walking Lord Sirius when she came flying out of the building (she seems to do that whenever I'm coming or going--perhaps she's trying to make a connection with me? Alas, I is anti-social. And have Arrested Development/X Files awaiting my return) with a water pitcher and began watering something...something I *thought* was a plant, but which turned out to be the cigarette butt pail we have on both sides of the building. She explains, "There's this guy who lives across the street and up the road a ways that has been taking our cigarette butts and smoking them at night. So I'm going to drown all the butts in water so he can't anymore." Then she proceeded to do as she promised, all the while yelling across the street at the phantom manthief that may or may not exist. I thought that was...well, pretty fucking insane. For multiple reasons. But not that uncommon, I suspect. While I may hear that story and think, "Wow...that is really sad and depressing that this addicted man is so poor/desperate for a nic hit he'll smoke your germy butts to get something in his system," she just seems to see it as theft...or something akin to theft...

...of her garbage.


This isn't new. When I lived with Sarah in the dorms she was throwing away her broken-down futon. She was on her way to the dumpster with it when she mentioned she didn't want it anymore and was throwing it out and would I want it? I said, "Sure--I could use that bitch." She immediately countered with, "I'll sell it to you for 15 bucks." Which is insane--why would I *buy* something you're throwing in the garbage? Do you think I'd also pay for a half-eaten Big Mac from a NYC dumpster, were I to be hungry and poor enough to dive for it? Something about someone else desiring one's garbage makes people find value in it that isn't there--as in, "I never thought this was worth jackshit until you eyed it up." Or, worse but possibly true, "My garbage is somehow more valuable than someone else's garbage and, to some extent--YOU--so I charge for it."

Which leads me to the neighbor. It seemed really callous and psychotic to hear that this woman would go out of her way to drown her cigarette butts just to prevent someone else from somehow getting away with something on her dime. As in, "I'd rather see you dead than in someone else's mouth..." Or something. But as I talked to her some more, she eventually told me (without my asking) that she was going to head over to the grocery store to use her food stamps to buy some stuff. SO--not only does she want to prevent Anyone Ever from getting away with something, as gross and sad as that something may be, she herself is on the government dole--as in, someone else's dime. Once again, the adage is true--"Gimme, and Fuckyou."

I'd also like to note, that not ALL of those cigarette butts are hers. Parker's brother is a smoker, and when he visits he goes outside and contributes to the butt pile. So...in a fucked up way, those were not her butts to drown. It was not solely her spite to claim.