I have a spare freezer in my basement. I keep food in there but I don’t use it on a regular basis. Today I found out that it has died. And I know it has died because when I opened it up it smelled like death. Bad bad death. I have about fifty pounds of spoiled food in there.
Obviously I’m going to have to clean it out. But the couple of seconds I had it open were overwhelming. There’s no way I’ll be able to clear it out with multiple vomiting. Plus it’ll stink up the entire house.
Anyone have any helpful advice on something that might mask the stench long enough for me to clear out all that rotten garbage? Or, alternately, something that will kill my sense of smell for a couple of hours?
Can you get it outside or at least to a garage where at least you can let it air out?
You’d still have to get the food out beforehand to avoid animals or a maggot swarm
Otherwise, I’ve heard to take a basic disposable dust mask and swab it liberally with Vick’s Vap-o-Rub. Or even directly under the nose. Never tried it myself.
See if you can get a couple of people and drag it outside (while it’s still full) and take care of it out there. Barring that, I’d get big garbage bucket. The kind you would typically keep outside. This will allow you to just sort of close your eyes and shovel everything into it. It also let you get it outside without the stench being quite as concentrated.
Once it’s empty I would drag it near a floor drain and hose it out, even if that means running your garden hose down to the basement. Wipe it down with bleach and hose it out again.
No matter how you do this, short of having someone else do it for you, it’s going to suck. Doing it as fast as possible might make it suck less.
Duct tape the door shut, and get it out of the house. You have to dispose of it. Once you’ve smelled that smell, you’ll never want to go near it again.
Stick a towel under the door to the rest of the house.
Put your most powerful fan in the closest window in the basement blowing out.
Prepare double bags, enough to hold the entire contents.
Get one box of baking soda for each bag full.
Do not do this alone; have a friend at the other end of the basement with a phone to call 911 in case you collapse.
Smear Vicks-Vaporub all around your nostils; don a cheap dust mask. Wear gloves - dishwashing gloves should be fine.
Work fast. Fill the bags and dump a box of baking soda on top of each.
Put another bag over the top of each bundle. Or maybe two.
If the freezer is working at all, let it run long enough to chill the contents, but not enough to freeze it back in there.
Coming from someone who spent a lot of time doing things that emitted a smell while in a dorm room, I can tell you that putting a towel under a door, while tempting will actually backfire. You need replacement air, otherwise the fan is just spinning but not really moving any air. Keep the door closed, but get rid of the towel and all the [del]smoke[/del] smell will go right out the window.
We found out that some contractors working in our basement had unplugged our freezer to use the outlet for their power tools.
Unfortunately, we found this a few days after they had done so. Bad smells ensued.
First off: if there’s any way to get it going again for a few days, do that. It’s a lot easier to pick up and toss frozen decayed stuff, than soupy decaying stuff. We were able to do this when our freezer was cut off by those contractors, and another time, when a certain family member me but I’ll deny it to the grave left the door ajar. This might not be an option for you, obviously, depending on what caused the demise. Ours was on a ground fault circuit that would trip occasionally, could that be what caused yours?
Anyway - if you can make yourself get it outdoors and emptied out (don’t do that until the night before trash pickup) then leave it outdoors to air out - preferably where it’ll get some sunshine.
OP: if the freezer is dead, why would you still want to keep it? I can’t see any reason to clean it besides wanting to keep it so o … o … o … I’d go with TriPolar’s suggestion re: duct tape.
