While I was waiting, I decided to try a couple more things to try and see if anything I'd done on my end was causing the issue.
So, this time i didn't use mod launcher to set up a new copy of the game. i just used my default vanilla install of 7d2d.
I manually installed the sealed meat mod, and started my game. I generated a new small world with all of the settings at default *except* that persistant profiles was set to "on".
started the game and ran to the first garbage bag i saw, which apparently was being protected by a dog, and managed to open it and see 25 plastic wrap before being killed by the dog ;(
deleted the save and shut down the game.
deleted the sealed meat mod from the mod folder.
downloaded and extracted a fresh copy of the dye station mod, and moved it to the mods folder.
Started the game, created a new game using the world i'd previously generated.
being killed instantly by the dog left me too depressed to generate a completely new world lol
loaded in and ran to the first loot container i saw. (can't remember what type it was, some kind of trash on the ground.)
in contained 1 each of the special items for the mod. paint and dye or something?
ran to a fruit stand, opened everything there that i could, i can't remember exactly what was there, but the 2 or 3 things (one was a cash register) that were lootable, all just contained normal loot.
then i ran a little further and opened some kind of trash type loot container. it contained a couple of pieces of normal loot, and 2 each of the same special items from the mod that i'd picked up before. paint and dye or whatever.
Sooo, i dunno. I eliminated the chance that it was something to do with using mod launcher for the creating my 7 days install. seemingly eliminated the chance that it was caused by any custom settings (except for persistant profiles i guess). seemingly elimitanted the chance that it was caused by applying a mod *after* the world was generated. (at least with in the first case. second mod was tested with the same world generated while using the first mod).
So I'm completely out of ideas as to anything I could do to fix things on my end.
Also, my friend who was also testing, was on a completely different computer, and running off of his own single player game, and he had the same issue.
Other posts that I've seen on the forum didn't seem to be having the same problem we were having, but all the posts i looked at were from a while back, so it made me wonder if something was changed with the game itself, some update or something, that triggered a problem with mods made for a previous version.
That's the only idea my brain has been able to come up with.