I've been asked the same question on another forum. I'm not all that far from Cranbourne but unfortunately didn't smell a thing. I'd have to agree with Pauly about the heat. I can't imagine the culprit is very popular with the neighbours now....
I recon there is silly buggers going on, Like making mace.
I dry T Scorps, D Nagas, Bih Jolokias etc with a sunbeam food drier in my washhouse.
When I walk through it, the smell is sweet and just a bit nasaly, It dosnt make my young kids fall over in pain and no complaints from the wife.
I have a large BBQ smoker in my front yard and last year I decided to use that to dry out my peppers instead of my small dehydrator that takes a day or longer. I had about 100 peppers haved on about 6 racks. Only a small amount of heat in the firebox so they would dry nice and slow. After a few hours I opened to lid to check on them and the rush of fumes knocked me to the ground where I crawled around eyes burning until I found the hose to rinse off with.
I think the person may have had a lot superhots drying at one time to generate that many fumes.
I was trying to find it but a few years ago in London (I think)...there was a restaurant that was cooking down chilies and they had a "terrorist alert"...found it...here is the link...this killed me....they BROKE down the door....
I evacuate the other inhabitants before I "work" with the superhot's, a little coughing and air borne "contact heat" doesn't bother me , but not everyone appreciates the sweet smell of dehydrating Trinidad Scorpions like the members on this forum I do find that freezing the pods first makes them dehydrate faster and cuts back on the air borne
cap.