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A Smoking Rant

July 29th, 2012 at 01:04 am

As I've mentioned before, we are in Illinois and in a severe drought. Our yards are crispy, and things are dry. DH has been watering his garden and a couple of trees that aren't super old.

Today he came in hot under the collar. Seems he found a cigarette butt in the corner of his garden near the front of the house.

Neither of us smoke. The butt wasn't smushed like it had been stubbed out. So, apparently it had been flicked over.

I truly do not understand why some smokers (not all, but some) feel it is someone else's responsibility to pick up their cigarette butts because they are done and throw them wherever. That's bad enough. But, it is dangerous in this situation with the dry grass. If it had hit the dry grass, we could have had a fire in our yard.

We think it came from our neighbor and her kids. They were out in the yard the other day. The reason they were in the yard?

Well, a few months ago she had a fire in her house. Her garage caught fire and did major damage to her garage, her vehicle, and the contents of the garage. Smoke infilterated her home.

The cause of the fire? She put the remnants of her ashtray into the garbage can and apparently they weren't all out. It smoldered all night and when she opened the door between the house and garage it created a backdraft and the place caught fire.

So, she has been out of house for the past 4 months as she fought insurance and got folks to in to fix things and clean up.


We haven't seen any butts in the yard recently because no one has been at the house. But, now that they are helping her move back in, the family is back and in the yard smoking.

One would think after that little experience, everyone involved would be more careful.

4 Responses to “A Smoking Rant”

  1. North Georgia Gal Says:
    1343521574

    As a smoker it really makes me mad that people do that. If I don't have someplace for my butt I don't smoke. I never just flick it.

  2. baselle Says:
    1343524572

    Preaching to the choir here out west - inevitably some wildfire or another out in the west is caused by the most mundane of things. Yes, dear smoker, you have every freedom to abuse your lungs, but we all have every right to make you pay as soon as the abuse goes public.

  3. Thrifty Ray Says:
    1343530811

    Ugh. I am astounded by the number of butts we find in our flower beds at work. I have never understood why some smokers think its ok to litter when they finish a smoke...even though we have several recepticals around to use specifically for that purpose. Pet peeve for me for sure. SO glad someones neglegence didnt do damage in those draught conditions!

  4. PatientSaver Says:
    1343577850

    I especially hate it when i see a driver flick their trash, aka cigarette butt, out the window. I have even seen smokers empty the entire contents of their ashtray on a road. Like, you don't want to deal with your mess, so dump it on the general public. Thanks.

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