Manure and organic waste excrete hydrogen sulfide while they are being digested. The rotten egg smell you speak of is the hydrogen sulfide and it is toxic. And one of the major symptoms of H2S poisoning is migraines, coughing, shortness of breath.

So your neighbors were completely inline with feeling the way the do.

BTW, I went to school next to a mushroom farm. A big warehouse with giant mounds of manure. And yeah we felt all of that too during the warmest times of the school year. The school administrator and most parents tried to convince the students it was all in their head.

This is new info for me. Thank you for explaining it. I'll do some research and think about changing my position on this.

I don't find the idea that cloth could be smelly from smelly air crazy. When you have cloth in smelly air, in fact they do smell after. Likewise, migraines does not sound like crazy symptoms, whether they are ultimately tied to compost. Migraines are something that happen when you don't breath well.

I've never noticed our clothes smelling from the dryer. No one dries on the line here because of all the silt in the air. I am reconsidering my position on the headaches based on another comment. I might be in the wrong there.

> "The stress of not getting thier way immediately leads them to these other health issues in my opinion. And it takes thier argument up a notch (prove they don't have a headache)."

so kinda like the fervent supporters (most news outlets included) of lockdowns, pervasive mask-wearing, and long-covid (as if post-infection complications are something new and unique)? or the opposite faction defiantly anti-mask and anti-vaccine?

people exaggerate and then fall into a hole of argumentative sunk cost, where they then view their own reputation being on the line, so they double-down rather than back down. in the moment, we don't realize that it's actually not that costly to concede to exaggeration, that a matter of degree almost never bolsters an argument.

the curious part is not that, but that we've yet to solve this collecctive dilemma (reason vs. dignity) that's seemingly been with us since the dawn of time. in a private conversation, it's possible to recognize the dilemma and redirect the conversation to a more productive line of reasoning by just asking questions and unraveling contradictions with the respondent. 'giving face' is somewhat related, but isn't necessarily concerned with veracity and reason, only dignity, especially for the (perceived) higher class person. i've always liked the 'wisdom of crowds' concept because it could be exactly this collective dignity-preserving redirection, but it defies power and expertise, so doesn't get enough merit and employment.