Funny story. On friday i noticed that the ice cubes in the refridgerator weren’t melted, and that the ice cream was leaking. i thought nothing of it and threw the ice cream out, then set the freezer on high, after all i was leaving for the weekend with my brother, who lives with me.
When we get back an hour ago the refridgerator is giving off arguably the worst smell i have ever smelled. Fucking horrible. I honestly don’t know if anything is worse than that smell. This must have been a warning built into our primevil brains saying ‘smell that, don’t eat that’. After running in & out of the kitchen while holding my breath i & my brother managed to empty it out, mildly clean the insides with ammonia, and set up about 5 or 6 dishes of ammonia inside the refridgerator & kitchen. We also opened the window next to the kitchen and set a fan up to blow air out.
My brother just told me on thursday night he was worried about the fridge. he noticed the same thing, ice cream was melting and whatnot.
i find it funny this happened on the same 3 day period that we are not here. We go home every other weekend, so that was pretty damn coincidental.
I think i washed my hands 12 times today, after every run i’d rewash. Then i washed my glasses & my watch, they are currently soaking in a pool of hot soapwater in the bathroom sink, just in case any residual germs are on them. I hope to fuck i don’t get food poisoning from this incident. Goddammit.
It is a refrigerator because it refrigerates the food that needs refrigeration but when it ceases to refrigerate, strictly speaking, it can no longer be called a refrigerator so I am guessing a “refridgerator” is a refrigerator which has stopped working.
sailor, you are mistaken. It’s an acronym for “Really Evil Fucking Rotten Incredibly Disgusting Gaseous Emissions Requiring Ammonia To Optimally Relieve.”
Three days? And you think that smelt awful? We came back after four weeks to discover that my last action before we went on holiday was that I had accidentally switched off the electricyt to the fridge. Which was full. In the freezer. With fish.:smack:
When my neighbor brought his RV out of storage this month he noticed a dreadful odor as he approached it. It seems that they forgot to empty the fridge last summer after their holidays. The food was in a non-functioning fridge for almost 11 months. I don’t know if they were able to get the smell out. I’ll have to ask them.
Could be worse. Could have been a squid. Could have been left in an unplugged fridge for two weeks by someone moving out of the apartment.
At least the maintenace guy thought it was a squid. When I looked at the apartment before moving in, they were waiting for the new fridge to be delivered.
Before you toss the fridge, check the defrost timer. That little guy keeps ice from building up on the coils via periodic shutdown and heating. If he gets in a bad mood and stays in defrost mode-everything goes to an evil place of decomposition and stinkage.
Replacing that timer is a whole lot cheaper than a new fridge.
BTW-in your OP you said you noticed: “that the ice cubes in the refridgerator weren’t melted, and that the ice cream was leaking.”
UMM, those cannot be coexistent events, IMHO. Physics and Science give two thumbs down.
on the bright side, the refriGerator no longer smells like rotten meat (there was 10 lbs of chicken, 1/2 lb of catfish & 1 lb of shrimp in there), now it smells like lemon bleach. hell, i can have the door open and be a foot away and not smell anything like rotten meat. Now all i have to do is wait for the bleach to clear out, then i can bleach it again.
after bleaching and disinfecting said fridge you might want to rub vanilla on the walls. Wax on wax off type thing yanno. Makes the fridge smell sooooo nice
Take several large boxes of baking soda. Dump them into containers and set them around inside the fridge.
Also wash down every surface in the fridge with baking soda and water, and dump hot water with baking soda in it into the drain of the fridge, as any melted icky stuff has gone down that drain and icked its nasty way into the drainpan. And wash the drainpan with any and everything as well.
For the smelly hands, a paste of lemon juice and baking soda, allowed to sit for a couple of minutes before you put it on your hands, then allowed to dry on them, will get that smell out fairly well.
Thanks for the advice but my brother put about 3 bowls of ammonia in the refriGerator and about 3 outside on sunday night, the ammonia (which has a pH of about 12) took care of most of the odor by monday. But i still plan to wash it down a few more times.
Umm-maybe I’ve missed something. All of the wonderful cleaning advice and safety tips are great.
Has the cause of the improper compartment temperature been determined and corrected?
Another appliance related possibility: if the compartment fan has failed, the evaporator tubing will build ice shortly after the unit has been started, leading to a marginal freezer, and dead refrigerator.
While doing all the good cleaning stuff, make sure you remove all of the dust rhinos from the condensing coils on the bottom or back of the unit, as well as the coil fan blade, if so equipped. Dirt buildup on this part of the unit impedes ability to blow off the heat it’s trying to remove from inside.
Thanks DWC, but i have a new refriGerator now. Management gave us a new one last Tuesday (6-24) and took the old one away. probably so they could repair it and put it in some other apartment where its sordid history will be hidden from the new tenants.
