Took me 11 days to figure out why my compost bin smelled like death in the Denver summer heat
Everyone on here keeps pushing those fancy tumbler bins, but I'm here to say the plain wire pile is the reason I finally fixed this. Back in July I noticed a nasty smell coming from my backyard bin in the Highland neighborhood, and I spent 11 days dumping it out, hosing it down, and adding bags of browns before I figured out the real issue. Turns out the thing was sitting in full afternoon sun against a south facing fence, and the temp inside hit 140 degrees, which cooked all the greens into sludge. I moved it 6 feet into the shade and added a layer of shredded cardboard and the smell was gone in 3 days. Everyone says you need a sealed bin to keep it clean, but honestly the airflow on the open pile is what saved it. Curious if anyone else has fought the sun issue or if I'm just the last person in Denver to learn this.