During one summer, someone was throwing mysterious packages on the ground next to my garbage cans located at the rear of my home. The alley runs behind my house where the garbage cans are. These packages consisted of anywhere from seven to nine cigarette butts arranged in rows and carefully wrapped in a white paper towel "burrito style" and secured with a piece of masking tape. Every couple of days, I would find another one of these identical packages (always in a white paper towel of the same quality) thrown on the ground. There were so many them put there that I finally called the police and asked them about it. It was obvious someone was doing this deliberately for a purpose. They told me that the only thing they could do is charge the person for harrassment IF that person could be caught doing it. But I never saw it happen. I could park back there, go into the house, and by the time I got through eating lunch and went back to the car, another package could be lying on the ground. This went on for months. Then suddenly, it stopped.

Does anyone know of any significance of wrapping cigarette butts up like this and putting them on someone's property?

Hi Salacia, there's possibly a number of reasons for someone doing this kind of thing, it could be just a 'long winded' prank, or maybe someone with a mental disability. There's even the possibility that someone is 'attempting' there own form of (Dark)magic, eg..cigerettes=Cancer=illness(thrown outside the victims home at certain times, for a specific number of days). But i'm only guessing here, i'm probably way off mark, only time will (probably)tell (or someone with any knowledge of this specific ritual )

kraken

Well salacia, i did some research on your problem, and i found nothing about witchcraft involving that kind of ritual or even ciggaretts.

So my guess is that it was a prank of someone who would like to scare you, and then simply get bored of doing it maybe? dunno.
Nevertheless it was not common witchcraft, but it can be the like homemade witchcraft that means nothing to anyone but the person who made it. I'll give you an example: a person who don't like you(i'm guessing of course ) made this thing with the intent to hurt you, even through that ritual does not channel any kind of energy or anything else, but the person who made it put their intention to hurt/scare you in that, so it's like the person who did this was waiting for something to happen to you, but like the ritual do nothing(because i think this was made with any knowledge on the subject) that person simply quit making it.

Other possibility is what kraken already mention about the number of days this person put it in your proprety. But i too have lack of knwoledge on the subject.

That's what i think, it's only my opinion and i'm based only in the little thing i know about the subject.
Shouldn't be a problem, and it problably did nothing to you but scare you

By the way, if you could be more specific about the number of days or months it lasted long, perhaps that could help to see if it was a random stop or not. Also the precise day it ended would be nice. But i don't understand anything about witchcraft, but that way i could do some more research on the subject.

A perfectionist (or possibly someone with OCD) could have been secretely smoking cigarettes so that one or more loved ones would not find out. He or she may have smoked the cigarettes at a hidden location or while the other person or persons were gone. In order to conceal the evidence, the butts were rolled up inside a paper towel, taped and deposited at your garbage pick up area. The perfectionist may have kicked the habit, was caught, or decided to deposit the packages elsewhere.

Yeah that does sound like someone with O.C.D or someone with a mental disability like others have said. Do you smoke thou cause i know some desperate smokers will empty butts and re roll them into cigarettes, maybe this person thought you were desperate for a smoke and thought they were doing you a favor. Don't know its a pretty thin idea but possible.