Nice new community smells like cow manure in St. Cloud (Miami: houses, buying)

[eo1288]

Greetings Floridians,

We were totally excited about a new sub division located south of Lake Nona in St. Cloud by KB Homes. The houses are the perfect square footage and price totally right, and when we say right, they are priced starting under $200s! However, my hubby and I drove by a few times, inquired about and decided to take the plunge.

Now, when we go back to sign the contract we encounter that there is a strong smell of cow manure. We realize the community is in a rural setting. What we don't understand, how come there was no smell in our previous two visits and now it's been smelling bad for the past couple of days.

The developer is as surprised as we are, they were aware of the cow field but never stunk so bad. Is there's an office or agency we can inquiry about the environmental controls in the area? With so much development in the area, we would like to know if the cow manure smell is something temporary or this is going to be an issue in the future.

If anyone has been in that situation before and can shed some light as to what options if any we have, we'll appreciate it. We really like the area.

Thanks!

[connor35]

I grew up about 5 miles from a paper mill.

Some days you could smell it, some days you couldn't. Just depended upon the wind.

Also, driving by places around Lake Nona it seems like ranchers rotate cows around, so they may not have been in the nearby fields your first few visits and are now.

But my guess is that those cow pastures will be homes eventually too and the smell will go away.

[chopchop0]

What do you expect? Lake nona, st cloud and Osceola county in general used to be full of cows before it was razed for homes and suburbia.

Kissimmee used to be called "Cow town"

[doom1001]

Are they planting anything in fields nearby?I live in the western suburbs in Miami and there's a bunch of fields right by us and many times especially at night you can smell the fertilizer they use on the fields.It seems to be random,sometimes you smell it sometimes you don't,but like I said the majority of the time it's at night when you smell it.

[eo1288]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I had a talk with the construction manager and he told me that he've never smelled anything like it did for the past two days. It really stunk. He even told me that his workers complained of nausea and headaches. Maybe we are dealing with something other than regular cow field. He also told me he saw the people from the cow field spraying the soil with what it look like liquified cow manure. Maybe we'll have to reconsider. I bet many of the other people that are buying homes in that community are going to have an issue with the overpowering smell.

[LuvOrlando]

I grew up near farms and the smell of poop was always very strong when they spread the manure. One time the smell was particularly pungent and people were rolling through the stop sign as fast as we could check that nobody was coming around the bent fork, because the smell made us cough and gag that one time. Our eyes were watering. The farmer said he got a bad batch and didn't even use it, but they had to find a place to go dump it, so it stunk for about 20 hours and then it was over.

If the weather was right, you'd smell manure while driving past any old time...not uncommon, but not a daily thing.

Having grown up with it, it never bugged me and to this day, when I go somewhere that I smell it - doesn't bother me a bit. I suppose if you grew up where you never smelled that, it could seem odd or disgusting, though.

We'd also smell poop when they gave us new mulch every year. For maybe two or three days, I'd come home and think, "Yuck." Then the smell went away and it was just pretty, new mulch.

I live in St. Cloud and never, ever smell poop. I don't live near anywhere that would have manure close by, though. The worst smells I get are from fires...but you can get that all over central Florida. But be sure before you buy...especially if it would bother you.

Talk to people who live around there! Ask at the police station. You can get a lot of info by just stopping your car and explaining to a mom out with her kids that you're considering moving there and ask if she likes it. I did!! Then follow up with the poop question.