Richard Larkey was one of three Fadden residents who spoke this week on his frustrations with the pungent odour, which he said had arrived at his home in the north of the suburb on average every second day for the last month.

"We can't make any plans, we can't invite friends and relatives," he said.

"It's a beautiful, quiet little area, and the blot on the landscape is the thing you can't see, but you can smell it."

A resident of the suburb for 22 years, he said the worst smells came between 7.30am and 9am and then late at night, and he criticised the methods used at the tip to test for odour.

But the ACT government said investigations by ACT NOWaste and the Environment Protection Authority in response to a Fadden resident's complaints in recent months had indicated the odour was not coming from the Mugga Lane tip site.

"The odour has been described by the Mugga Lane tip workers as 'a sewerage smell', consequently, the matter has also been referred to Icon Water for further investigation," a government spokesman said.

The EPA would continue to investigate, but – aside from Mr Larkey's repeated grievances – the government said they had received no complaints about the tip's odour since March, suggesting it was "perhaps a localised problem".

Mr Larkey rejected the idea the smell near his home was of a sewerage type and said he was certain the tip was to blame for the "rotting vegetable" style smell which arrived in his street – located about 2.5 kilometres west of the landfill site – as it was the same stink which had troubled residents of Fadden and Macarthur for three months until February this year, drawing 76 complaints.

The government acknowledged the odour during that period was from the decapping of covered rubbish as part of a promised "one-off" re-profiling of the site.

Mr Larkey, 69, said the environmental impact statement lodged with the active development application to build three new cells at the tip supported his view.

"There are no major odour generating industries in the general vicinity of the site," the statement said. "Odour from the resource management centre is the only potential source of significant odour in the area."

Indhi Emmanuel, Mr Larkey's neighbour, said his wife had noticed the odour on her daily walks at least once a week since September but this had worsened to become a problem almost every morning in the last fortnight. He said he had originally thought it was due to a fertiliser used by a neighbour but now believed it came from the tip.

The government spokesman said the contractors managing the tip gauged odour levels with "a scientific method and it is in effect a 'sniff' test".

"The method involves forming an odour panel which consists of a panel of people sniffing an odour at different concentration levels," he said.

Odour levels were mainly managed by covering the waste with soil and treating the leachate and landfill gases, he said.

Tuggeranong Community Council president Glenys Patulny said the issue of odour from the tip had not been raised with her in recent months.

Another Fadden resident said the stink was "intermittent" but embarrassing when guests were visiting.