Three Western Cape High Court judges have told mushroom farmer Johannes Jacobs he can no longer make his own compost at his De Doorns farm, after a decade of complaints from his neighbours about sinus attacks and nausea because of the smell.

According to a Times Select report, neighbours launched their first application in June 2016, saying since 2010 they had been experiencing offensive odours that at times were ‘virtually unbearable’.

‘These occasions were characterised by a highly offensive and invasive smell like rotten eggs and an offensive smell like very potent urine with a burning sensation inside one’s nose. The smells were accompanied by plagues of flies,’ said Judge Owen Rogers’ ruling.

The neighbours eventually hired an engineering firm to quantify the level of smell, and in its report, said the smell ‘could be considered as offensive as, and at times worse than, those experienced within waste transfer stations containing raw waste’.

While the Western Cape High Court initially ordered in 2018 that Jacobs stop producing compost on the farm, he launched the appeal proceedings, heard by Rogers and two other judges.

Rogers ruled that the evidence produced by the neighbours and their experts had proven the smell emanating from the farm was affecting the quality of life of those living nearby.

‘An environment will, in my view, be "harmful" to a person’s "well-being" if it is repulsive to the senses of an ordinary person,’ he said.

Rogers dismissed the appeal and insisted all compost creation activities stop with immediate effect.

Full Times Select report