I haven't had a chance to go through this forum looking for relevant posts, so if the info is here, just point me in the right direction.

I was away on vacation for two weeks, and topped up my worm bin with greens and shredded paper. I thought I had enough paper, but it was immediately olfactorily obvious it wasn't enough when we returned.

The inside of the bin had turned into a vile soup of rotting matter, and there were dried corpses of worms that had managed to escape through the firmly-closed lid, only to dehydrate on the floor. There were still a few live ones that had managed to stay on the surface of this scuzzy swill, but my population is massacred. I feel just awful for visiting this armageddon on them.

Now, these are my attempts at remedying the situation:

1. Using a turkey baster dedicated to the worm bin, I drained as much of the liquid as I could. (I wasn't allowed to put drainage holes and a drip tray on the bin because the bin is in the kitchen, and DH can only indulge so much when it comes to my composting habits. This is not going to change. The garage is off-limits as a bin location, too, as that's HIS territory. The bin was fine while I was there to tend it -- it wouldn't have declined if I hadn't been away for so long.) I continue to drain it in this manner every day. The liquid I have simply dumped on the lawn in the snowy back yard.

2. I added half a cup of uncooked rice to help absorb more liquid yesterday, as well as more shredded paper. Every time I drain the bin, I add another shredded section of newspaper to absorb more liquid. The surviving worms are a little more active, and now will shy away from the light when I open the bin, but they won't dig.

3. I have added nothing new to the bin, except the paper and the uncooked rice.

Will my worms recover?

Any suggestions as to how I can bring my bin back to tilth from filth? I don't want to drop a new batch of worms into the witch's brew, and with my composter frozen and full, I can't just dump it and start over. I don't want to throw it in the garbage, either. I also feel somewhat guilty that I killed my little workers, and want to nurse them back to health, if possible. Do you think I have enough worms to maintain a healthy gene pool, too?

Goto www.wormdigest.org. They have a forum that is loaded with good information and very knowledgeable people.

Actually, I'd quite like to come back as an earthworm for a while. Get to see the other perspective, as it were

Elfie, what is your worm bin made out of? I used two rubbermaid containers the same size. The drip tray wasn't so much a tray as a second bin that fit the top bin exactly, leaving just enough room to drain. That should suit yer hubby. Mine never even noticed (the worm bin was my daughters science project...wormyposting...LOL). The worms will recover. In fact we had one minor disaster in which all the worms died off, but their eggs hatched a couple of weeks later and we had baby worms. Can you put a worm bin outdoors? I know not everyone has easy access to an outdoor spot, but my vermipost bin has done much better outdoors than it did indoors. If you cannot put in a drip tray or second bin, try emptying and cleaning the bin, and put a tap in it...you can cut them out of a tide bottle and rinse them really clean, or purchase one...but then install it in your bin near the bottom with a screen on blocks above it to keep it from clogging. Then use that to easily empty the bin into an empty jug or some such. Makes great liquid fertilizer.

I wish I had a picture of your set-up. I can't get it clear in my mind. I tried the rubbermaid with no drain hole. What a disaster!

Actually, that Tide detergent tap idea is excellent! Thanks for the tip. What about just transferring the worms to the Tide bottle, instead of cutting the tap off and creating a new hole in the bin that must be sealed? It'd probably be easier to just enlarge the neck opening for easier access and improvise a lid. I wonder how much I'd have to rinse the jug to get the last of the detergent out, assuming the non-food-grade plastic doesn't do a nasty leach thing to my handful of survivors...

Bin update: The bin is looking a lot better, and the worms are a lot happier now that I've added some potting soil and uncooked quick-oats, and the liquid level has dropped considerably. I'm still skimming about a third of a litre every day, but it's getting better. It now takes the kids about 10 seconds to realize that the worm bin has been opened, as opposed to 2 seconds, and if I forget to open the window before opening the bin, no one falls down choking. ;\

Maybe I'll go the "additional Rubbermaid bin" route and create drainage -- as soon as the weather warms up enough to do the work OUTSIDE, or the bin starts to smell sweeter. I don't want to build a worm bin outside because it will only freeze: my back yard is on the north side of the house, my composter already out there freezes solid in January, and I wanted the worms in the kitchen to afford the possibility of not having to take scraps to the front door, put on my coat and boots, march to the back yard through a metre of snow drifting between my house and the neighbour's, tuck what I can into any corner of space I can find, and then trudge back inside to rinse the bowl and warm up my hands in dishwater. I know the freezing probably won't hurt the worms, but they're of no use to me if they're all balled up in the middle of their own bin, and not eating.

As to the worms recovering: oh, it was BAD. I think I killed all the eggs, too. I'm not kidding when I said the inside was all liquid slime with a few worms clinging to "life rafts", and other little wormies dehydrated on the floor after the escaped the bin. They didn't even flinch when I opened the lid, that's how badly off they were. The contents weren't black, they were snot-green. They looked like the spinach everyone forgot about for a month in the plastic produce bag at the back of the fridge.

The bin isn't all that deep, either, as it has to sit on the floor under a pair of cupboard doors, and I have to get those doors open. If I slide it into another bin, I'll have to find a corner to tuck it in, and move it every time I want to get into my cupboards.

You guys are great for giving ideas. Thanks a lot! I hope I don't have to pony up for a new batch of worms...