Especially when he blatantly disregards the law by putting it out on the wrong day for recyclables.

Most cities in Japan have a pretty complex trash pickup system. Trucks may come around four or five times a week, with different days designated for burnable trash and different classes of recyclables, such as plastic, paper, and metal garbage.

Most people are pretty good about following the rules, but on occasion someone will put their junk out on the curb on the wrong day, either by accident or because they can’t be bothered to wait until the proper one. In that case, the collection crew puts a warning sticker on the bag or item and leaves it there until its appropriate pickup day rolls around. That’s about the extent of the punishment, though, and as long as the incidents don’t occur with glaring frequency, the authorities don’t usually investigate who’s responsible.

In this case, though, maybe they should.

https://twitter.com/jiny3jiny34643/status/775257940622139392

“I’m thinking there’s a much more serious infraction behind this than just ignoring the trash rules,” commented Japanese Twitter user @jiny3jiny34643, who snapped this picture in Tokyo’s Chiyoda Ward, and we’re tempted to agree. Yes, the sticker does clearly state that this was put out on the wrong day for metal trash, but the bigger issue is that someone casually threw out a safe that’s clearly been broken into.

Now we suppose it’s possible that the owner/thrower out of the safe isn’t the same person who drilled about a dozen holes into the door, and smashed it up pretty well too, in getting it open. It’s also possible that the owner simply forget the combination, and instead of going to a professional locksmith decided to save a few bucks by forcing it open himself.

At the same time, though, this is pretty much exactly what you’d expect a safe to look like after a thief carted it back to his lair, then grabbed some tools to bust it open and pilfer the valuables inside.

But even in industrious, hard-working Japan, burglary investigations are a little above the pay grade of trash collectors, and so the pickup crew just slapped the standard sticker on the safe, explaining that it’s in violation of the rules and asking whoever placed it there to retrieve it and put it out again on the correct date. Whether the garbage collectors also put in a call to the cops remains unknown.

Source: Hamster Sokuho, Twitter/@jiny3jiny34643