Screenwriting (5) - Treatment

The Context:

My story is exploring communal habitats and the interaction and behaviour of neighbours. How do conflict situations arise and in what way are they being solved.

The Content:

To the growing annoyance of the inhabitants of a hallway with two flats of an apartment block, there is a bin bag lying in the middle of the hall. Jack thinks it belongs to his neighbour on the opposite side of the hall, Julie - who he hasn't met and vice-versa.
After some impersonal quarrel over whose bin bag it is and who should take it away, both Jack and Julie are caught in the middle of a fight by a volunteer of the local charity shop taking the bin bag out, leaving them standing in an awkward realisation that both have donated to said charity and are responsible for the bags whereabouts.

The Concept:

With this story I am trying to investigate how people react in and solve conflict situations where the origin of the conflict is uncertain. All of us have been in the same or similar situation with another neighbour, flatmate or family member. One has left something in a communal area that he or she thinks should be put away by another member of that communal area and vice-versa. If two like-minded stubborn personalities collide and no party is willing to budge, the situation starts to heat up until the boiling point. If in that situation the conflict turns out to be a joint mistake or responsibility that both parties were trying to lay on the other, an awkward and in most cases amusing finale closes the act.