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[PatrikLundell]

I decided to spice up the dorfs' quarters to have a masterworks bed, cabinet, and chest. I left the original cabinet and chest in place. Earlier I had noticed that some dorfs stored food in their chests (for quite a few years at that, since River Spirit roasts haven't been made since I disabled that booze abuse). A while after the upgrade a few dorfs' rooms are filled with rotting food, generating miasma in the corridor. It seems having two chests caused them to store the hogged food on the floor rather than in the containers. After punishing the abusers by removing the least valuable chest I've observed one offender collecting the pilfered food and storing it in the remaining chest.
I haven't encountered this with any of the nobles (who require a chest pile), but it seems to affect some 10% of the population.
Does anyone know anything about this?

[Astrid]

Interesting.... i havent encountered that yet. But certainly gonna test it out.

[Larix]

It's a problem with military provisions - military dwarfs with a "carry food" order will claim (as personal belongings) a food item or two. Normally, this food should be carried in a backpack, but if military orders change, if the dwarf decides to get a fancier backpack or if a dwarf keeps putting on and removing a uniform because the overseer foolishly drafted a miner, woodcutter or hunter, the food will be removed from the backpack. At that point, the usual awful "loose belongings must be stored" routine kicks in and dwarfs drag the food to their rooms to let it rot in peace.

Don't draft dwarfs with civilian uniforms, and forbid carrying food in the "m-u" provisions screen.

PS: as far as i can tell, rotting of food that's not in a stockpile doesn't depend on the modalities of storage but on the food type - not every edible item can rot; meat rots, flour doesn't. Consequently, a river spirits roast may last forever, while a cheese biscuit will start to rot and stink up the place after a month in a chest or on a bedroom floor.

[PatrikLundell]

@Astrid:
My layout is a 3*3 room on each side of a horizontal corridor. The original bed was in the center, but the new one at center right. Original cabinet at corridor side left, original chest away from corridor left. The new ones to the right.
h.h
..b
f.f
wdw
...
...
...
wdw
f.f
..b
h.h

using building letters, with w= wall and d=door.

If you try it, you probably need a fair sample of dorfs. I'd snoop in their chests and select the ones who have stored food in them.

@Larix:
Almost all dorfs have uniforms since I want them to carry a short sword, a shield, and leather+bone armor. However, I don't change that around after allocation, and I leave civilian uniform types out. The "civilians" given uniforms are never given any military orders of any kind (Civilian alert burrows is the closest thing). I haven't produced any new backpacks since a fair while before I redecorated so there shouldn't be any upgrades. However, the military provisions system seems a very likely root cause that somehow interacts with the room design. Removing the provisions from the "civilians" sounds like a reasonable move, however, since I don't have any plans to brick them in for any length of time (they are liable to brick themselves in at times, since the stubbornly refuse to use movement cost as advice about which side of the last wall segment to stand on).