Can't Empty Trash: WTD?

I've run out of space on my external harddrive where I keep my backups (using CrashPlan) so I located the backups on the drive and deleted some old backups. I hoped to do so at least. I can't so right now they are just lying around in the trash can. They can't be deleted and I can't move them back to their orignial folder either.

Some of the backups got deleted in the process but there are still six packages left. When trying to empty the trash can, I just get an error message saying: "The action cannot be done since "Applications is still in use" (freely translated from Danish).

What can I do now?

 

It didn't work

 

Wow, that sounds like a lot of work

Luckily, my issue solved itself somehow. All of a sudden, I was able to empty the trash. Weird.

 

Darrrrrrn! The problem didn't solve itself. The thrash just vanished since I disconnected the external harddrive. Whenever I plug it in, the undeletable trash comes back. Sigh.

 

Nope, but that might be the way to go. I'm trying that. Thanks.

 

- UPDATE -

I tried everything. Every silly solution. Without any luck. I even had a long correspondence with the CrashPlan support crew but all they fired at me was useless in my case apparently So I ended up copying all my other files onto another external harddrive so that I could wipe the one with the corrupted files clean. Not that it came as a surprise, but that did the job Finally!