I brought a yellow bin and pumpkin to the entrance to the Cthulhu "dungeon", I was standing on the grass, before the stairs. Was trying to position the pumpkin in a way that would illuminate the bin. I was just rotating it peacefully, when suddenly it and the bin disappeared, with purple sparks flying around. WHO DID THAT? Was that you, crack in time and space? Not nice!

the sniffer tells me food cans count FYI

The wood totem thingies are also considered as junk and I think garbage cans? The sniffer get higher when I walk near the garbage cans.
Also why does the fragile boxes sometimes move by themselves when stacked? That's so annoying....

With regards to your tip: "Don't break any glasses, vases or plates, it's decreasing your score."

If you check the patch notes here: https://sp.zhabite.com/gid/103582791435381218/announcements/detail/82552315212024354

You'll notice it says: "Added broken pieces for glassware, vases and ceramics. You are now punished for leaving these lying around instead of for just breaking things."

Additionally if you check the script in Viscera\UDKGame\Script\VisceraHorror.u, and check the VCPunchoutHandler_Horror function, you'll notice the section about vases, glassware, and ceramics is commented out.

This means you should be able to break/destroy vases, glasses, and plates without it decreasing your score, as long as you make sure to pick up the fragments and get rid of them.

You still have the fireplace in the cabin....

how do you get rid of used buckets? The woodchipper just causes the contents to spill out.

Don't break any glasses, vases or plates, it's decreasing your score.

Here is a tip, you can use the upstairs toilet as a source of water, you can also flush it to get clean water.

When you say cans, do you mean the garbage cans or the cans of food?

Do items thrown into the chipper and items thrown into the portal count as incineration?