The first email this morning I ignored, figuring the moment would pass:

Here's a scoop for you: the entire city of Beverly Hills smells like garbage this morning. My house, my alley, my street, my office, the street outside Pavillions, EVERYWHERE.

Hearing nothing else, I forgot about it. Then tonight I got an email from another correspondent:

Several friends and neighbors were noticing a stench in the air last night and today, observed from at least the area of Santa Monica Blvd/Westwood Blvd to Wilshire Blvd/Barrington Blvd. Have you heard about anything that would cause this smelling condition? One particular neighbor commented to me that several women who work at her company and live at various points in the above area each got up in the middle of the night to close their bedroom window to reduce the smell coming into their home.

Anybody know what's going on? Nothing on the Beverly Hills website or the city of Los Angeles website, though the latter is almost impenetrable if you're not looking for information on the mayor or the city council.

* Update: It's officially a trend now:

I live a little northwest of Wilshire and Barrington and work (as you may tell from my e-mail address) at UCLA. I noticed nothing this morning on my drive to work but a co-worker who lives in the Carthay Circle area, mentioned noticing a bad smell in the morning. When I went outside my UCLA office about 10 a.m. for a short walk, I noticed a vaguely unpleasant, but not overpowering, smell but I figured that it had something to with the rain. I’ve sent this item to a few dozen people who live on the Westside (as I’m sure many of your readers have).

And this:

How very odd...I live in West Hollywood, and ever since this afternoon, I've been noticing a peculiarly odd, moldy stench in the air...I don't have a particularly good sense of smell, and this isn't something I would normally notice or comment on. I was downtown this evening and didn't notice it there, but as soon as I came back home the stench was very noticeable. And then I happened to notice a link to your blog entry on the Earthlink home page, which I guess leads me to believe that I'm not the only person experiencing this. What the heck is going on?

About 12:30 Wednesday morning:

Not to pile on, but I experienced it, too. I live in Miracle Mile (La Brea and 6th, roughly) and had an evening meeting at Pico and Beverly. Taking Pico west, the odd smell got pretty bad the closer I got to Beverly and remained there an hour later on my return trip.

** Updates and reported detections from Santa Monica to Koreatown to Monterey Park here.