i let my upstairs neighbor's own cigarette butts get him fined
i live on the second floor of one of those apartment buildings with stacked balconies and this guy above me kept flicking cigarette butts onto my balcony
at first i cleaned them up, then one left a burn mark on my outdoor rug, so i went upstairs and told him
the dude looked at me, shrugged, and said
m a y b e t h e y b l o w o v e r s o m e t i m e s
cool. if that's how you wanna play - then it's how we are going to play,
after that, i stopped picking them up. started dropping the m into an old pasta sauce jar instead. took a few photos too, just in case he tried acting stupid later.
then the building sent out an email saying they were doing balcony inspections that friday because of fire hazard complaints. perfect.
so i left everything exactly where it was. ash on the floor. burn mark on the rug. jar of nasty little filters on the table.
when the property manager came by, i showed her the rug, the photos and the beautiful butt-filled jar. she stared at it for a second, looked up at me, and just went wow. then she went upstairs.
about 15 minutes later i heard his balcony door slam hard enough to shake mine.
later that evening, i saw him outside with one of those little metal ashtray cans clipped to his balcony railing.
turns out he did know where the cigarette buns were supposed to go, he just needed a fine to help him remember.
my balcony stayed clean after that.