A 60 lb chunk of (blue) shark meat in a 4' x 4' bin. Don't try that at home, at least not as a single piece.

Mine is a fish story as well, or a shellfish story. We got a pickup truckload of crab waste from the fish plant - the discarded bodies and thin legs, run through a crusher - and layered it with plenty of carbons, in pallet bins, during an August heat wave. The stink washed over our neighbours' place for days, while they were having a family reunion. They never complained, just smiled longsufferingly...

According to my neighbors, my worst endeavor was 1992, The Year of the Fish Bin. It was comprised, 100%, of fish racks, tails and heads. A raccoon tried, unsuccessfully, to pull the parts out of the wire bin and I shrieked in horror the next time I passed the bin and found about 50 Haddock heads, glazed eyes, snout facing out, stuck in the mesh of the bin. Grisly display.

Marge T. told me that I should provide nose plugging clothespins to pedestrians to assist in walking past my place.

My second worst disaster was also fish related. I filled my compost bin with dead pogies. A few days later when the bin started oozing fish goo, our dog discovered it and spent every waking moment walking round and round and round the bin, leaning against it, rubbing the goo all over his neck, as he is fond of doing with stench.

When I was 24, I moved into a rental house and started a strictly green pile at the head of the driveway from the massive amounts of eggshells, coffee grounds, lettuce leaves, and a whole garbage bag of onion peels that I brought home every day from the restaurant I worked at. My landlord thought I was dumping my trash in the yard (can you imagine?) and spoke to me about it. He was all right when I explained. He and I shared a garden until he saw me laying down my hay mulch, at which time, he rototilled me my own separate plot.

I wasn't able to compost for a few years that was my worst disaster(:

Dumping an entire garbage bag of shredded paper into my compost barrel. UGH!

EG

Putting my two bins right next to my house. I now have mice living in the bins and of course also in my house.

nothing major. Just a few too many crass clippings and not enough saw dust. A day where anyone within 10' got a nice whiff of putrid grass; which is pretty awful, but was easily ended by adding some sawdust.

Dead even tie for me, too many wood chips or digging into week old compost in July. Eeeew!

The summer the wasps built a nest in the ground right at the edge of the compost pile, unbeknownst to me. It wasn't a problem at first since I wasn't turning the pile, just depositing stuff. We were coexisting nicely, the hidden wasps and I.

Unfortunately, my visiting nephew decided to take some of the compost (without asking me) and he dug right into the nest, arousing the wasps, and then he went home (without telling me about the wasps). A little later I went out to the pile to make a deposit and was attacked and stung repeatedly by some very upset wasps. I had no idea what had happened - a neighbor's dog? Black bear?

Eventually the wasps moved to a safer spot and the pile was usable again, but I walked very carefully for a while there. About a year later my nephew casually mentioned that he'd taken the compost and disturbed the wasps the previous summer.

Claire

There was the year we fed outdated dairy products to the pigs. I told my intern that we could compost the (hundreds) of waxed containers that some of them came in. Oops. That was in the old days. Now they are lined with very thin plastic. I still find those pieces of plastic liners around years later. Then there was the time I accidentally impaled a rat while turning a windrow with a fork...

Not a disaster exactly, but once after a seriously long period of 100+ degree weather and no rain, I dug in to harvest some compost and came up with a shovel of dust. I forgot to water it for months and it just died.

Then there was the time my next door neighbor called the cops because we had just relocated the compost pile too close to her fence. That's when we learned that her fence was 6 inches inside her property line and not actually on the line. It wouldn't have been so frustrating if she had not been out chatting with my husband as he shoveled bushels of compost back into the newly relocated bins, not saying a word about where it was. We were pretty surprised to find the cops at our door later.

Pam

My worst disaster happened after a early snowfall. I ended up raking the leaves with snow mixed in. I stuffed them into this stupid composter I'd bought at a yard sale. It clicked together into a rather tall narrow box. My plan was to use the leaves as I needed them them following spring/summer. When I started to dig into the box, I discovered that I must have made anaerobic compost, because the smell was almost toxic. But being the whacko that I am, I was determined not to lose the whole mess. I furtively spread the putrid mess around and hoped the smell dissipated before the neighbours wondered what had died in my yard. I can only assume that it was a combination of the leaves being wet and packed in too tightly that caused the problem. The box did have air holes. If a newbie had that experience they would given up on composting immediately, lol.

While turning a large windrow of compost with the tractor and the forks, I lifted it up in the air about 12 feet or so and started to dump it.

Should have paid more attention to the wind, a lot of it blew back onto the tractor and me. Note to self, never turn the windrow on a windy day and certainly not facing into the wind!

Close second was building my very first windrow with dry materials and not adding any water as I built it. Took a long time to fix that!

Lloyd

Two worst disasters were when I wanted to make compost quickly. The first time I left grass clippings in a pile too long and they went anaerobic, so I mixed them with wood shavings but didn't use enough shavings so they were still very smelly. Finally got the mix right by adding yet more wood shavings. The second time I added blood meal to the compost pile to "speed things up". Another smelly mess, so more wood shavings added.

I've gone back to slow composting, it's easier and smells better.

Well, my big disaster was losing my MASSIVE Chinese elm tree to Dutch elm disease! (the tree was the reason we bought the property)
When they took out the tree, they also massacred the lawn.
Having to search for stuff now!
One good thing about the sucky economy is that leaves are NOT being picked up or blown away! I get a couple of bags a day!