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<\/p>\nThe \u201cSwabian housewife\u201d has traditionally been regarded as such a paragon of thrift in Germany that the former chancellor Angela Merkel once held her up as a model for the nation\u2019s finances.<\/p>\n
Folklore has it that mothers from this southwestern region used to test their sons\u2019 prospective brides by asking them to pare the rind from a block of cheese: if she cut away too much, she was dismissed as wasteful; too little and she was thought slovenly.<\/p>\n
Even by these standards, though, an unnamed 51-year-old woman from the small Swabian town of Spaichingen has pushed parsimony to a fresh extreme.<\/p>\n
Police in the nearby city of Konstanz have opened a criminal investigation into the woman on suspicion of stealing \u20ac0.15 worth of rainwater from her neighbour in the early hours.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The town in the southwest of Germany<\/p>\n
SILAS STEIN\/ALAMY<\/p>\n
According to the local constabulary, at 4am on July 25 she crossed the street carrying two large watering cans and filled them from the neighbour\u2019s water butt. She then allegedly made a second trip to the scene of the crime, hiding behind a rubbish bin in an apparent attempt to elude detection by a passing car.<\/p>\n
The police force said that even though the value of the 40 litres of stolen water was negligible, it was the principle that mattered.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking another person\u2019s property fulfils the criteria for the offence of theft,\u201d it said. \u201cOnce it is in the barrel, [the water] no longer belongs to the heavens, but to the [barrel\u2019s] owner. The woman must now be held answerable for the theft of low-value items.\u201d<\/p>\n
Unlike in the UK, where there is significant public dissatisfaction at the police\u2019s apparent neglect of shoplifting<\/a> and other petty theft, such cases are often taken seriously in Germany.<\/p>\n