Residents have complained about the smell coming from Exeter's sewage treatment works over recent weeks.
And they even claim it has affected pupils at a city primary school.
Residents in Countess Wear have long complained about the smell from South West Water's sewage treatment
Robert Myers, Wear Barton Road, has children Matilda and Joseph at the school. He said: "It's not the first time the smell has been noticed at the school, but it has been particularly bad."
He said parents and staff at the school were not happy about the situation at the nearby sewage works.
Mr Myers has lived in Countess Wear for around 10 years and said it has been bad on and off during that time. But he claimed the problem had got worse since nearby housing developments were constructed a few years ago.
Said he has mentioned it regularly to the water company and the council, and the complaints are logged but nothing seems to happen about it.
"It is lovely living here, but the smell is a problem," he said.
"If it was traffic or noise pollution they would do something about it. But because it's a smell that is the issue it just doesn't get dealt with. It is awful - it is vile."
A spokeswoman for South West Water said: "We would like to apologise to any residents who may have experienced odours from Countess Wear Sewage Treatment Works recently.
"There have been a couple of minor issues at the works which may have resulted in an increase in odour, including draining and flushing one of the primary settlement tanks following the failure of a scraper bridge. The scraper bridge has been temporarily repaired and a permanent repair will be completed shortly."
After numerous complaints about the smell from the site last summer, South West Water announced it would pay compensation to residents.
Community group Wear United was chosen by the company to administer the £5,000 compensation being given to residents to try to make up for problems.
The spokeswoman added: "These issues are not related to the problems at the site last year, following which we commissioned Cornwall College to carry out an odour survey on site and in the surrounding area.
"The data that is being produced is being processed and analysed and we have introduced chemical dosing to control odour where a particular risk area has been highlighted."
