every time I restart kde the "Recent Documents" list in the kick off and Lancelot menus have the same 4 or 5 files listed even though I've used both menus' option to clear the list as well as bleach bit. I have also erased the '~/kde4/share/apps/RecentDocuments' directory but the same list just reappears at start up.

thanks,

[Resolution] - cleaning functions are only emptying RecentDocuments folder in ~/.kde4 while menus (Kicker and Lancelot) are displaying both .kde4 and .kde RecentDocument folders. Seems .kde4 folder at some point is also being populated from the .kde version - deleting .kde version resolved problem.

maybe you should try

chown USERNAME ~/ -R
chgrp users~/ -R