I do not have this problem any more, following updates installed on March 27, see my post of March 28 on this bug discussion. Since then my trash has been behaving normally.
However others apparently are still experiencing the problem, as recently as May 8: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=142600&page=4 -- gnome Trash reflects status of .Trash on usb stick https://launchpad.net/bugs/35834 -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs
