Hey everyone! Once again, thanks so much for all the advice! This is why I bring these questions here!
So there was a very interesting development in this, and I wanted to give everyone an update as it seems I got to the bottom of my stink mystery. As I had stated before, I managed this compost pile for years and never had any problems. Nothing had really changed over time, and this spring I was able to dig into the pile and get plenty of compost for my gardens. (FYI- This is a lazy man's compost pile in the corner of the yard, the chickens do all the turning and the worms take care of the rest).
Drum-roll please..............
So it turns out that my neighbor (the same one who contacted me about the smell) had a water line break in his yard over a year ago. It was in front of the meter, so he wasn't being charged for it and assumed the city would take care of it. However, nobody took care of it. Since then, it has been gushing millions and millions of gallons of water into the ground. About a month ago, my basement flooded. I'm a renter, and I called the landlord. Through a long couple of days of trying to figure out where the water was coming from, it was finally discovered that it was boiling up from the ground like a spring due to the newly established man-made aquifer thanks to the neighbor's broken water line. The ground had gotten so saturated that it made it all of the way to my property and began boiling up from below. He has fixed the water line, and over the past few weeks the ground has been drying out. You know what? The smell went away!
So yes, the problem was indeed that my compost was far too wet. The culprit, however, was boiling up from below my feet. Go figure
Things are getting very cold up here now, and the ground will be frozen pretty soon. Glad we found that leak before the freeze set in! Anyway, that's my story. Thanks again for all the helpful advice. I'm sure it will improve my manure management skills well into the future!!
