wow thank you all for your help. i grow at about 75 degrees in my room and outside for miltonias. i have a shaded nook where it never gets above 85F. also ive been looking into it and erwinia should have killed everything else if it was that since it was so close to so many other plants. i took all this advice to heart and have been experimenting for about 3 weeks now. my miltonias are doing ok. they havent declines as fast as the others and have plenty of new growths. ive been keeping them on the dry side watering only when theyre drying out. not the traditional constantly moist i was using before. i think that because i wasnt estimating the correct meaning of moist and was keeping them a bit wetter then i shouldve. the wet plus the cold i think just made them rot. that was prolly the smell. anyways, im keeping my fingers crossed that these two plants will be troopers and add a new genera to my expertise

thanks all