…to clean out his fridge, because he left ofr the weekend, the plug came loose in the socket, and now everything is rotted. :mad:
I found out when I opened the door for two seconds to grab a soda, as I did, I thought to myself,
“Hmmm…the lightbulp didn’t go on, why’s that…the soda is warm…why? Ahhhhhh!! gurgle gurlge”
The smell was almost vomit inducing. It happened almost half an hour ago and some of the stench still lingers in the apartment (of course, I didn’t bother to open a window, cause a) I thought it would go away sooner, and b) it’s cold out!)
So now I am faced with the challenge of having to clean it, knowing that in doing so, I risk my very life. I must prepare myself, and my enviroment. Unfortunately, being that it’s already 8:20, I can’t get a nice mask-thingy at a hardware store like I would prefer, but I do have a surgical mask in my car I can use, better than nothing. I might also have a hankerchief I can add. Latex gloves are in my possesion and will be utilized in the double-layer fashion for added security. I will open the windows in my kitchen and bedroom, with a fan in the kitchn window sucking out the air. I have a can of air freshener, that I actually don’t like the smell of (so it’s near full) but it a metric ass-ton better than the smell of rotting meat, cheese, milk, etc…
Well, I ventured in, wearing the forementioned surgical mask, gloves, and a pillow case instead of the hankerchief. I threw most everything out. My vegetable drawer had brown liquid in it. :eek: It leaked onto my floor! I had to emergency mop.
Here is a list of things I kept in there, tell me if you think I should toss them:
(FTR, the longest the fridge could have been without power was…54 hours.)
pickles
jar of miracle whip (it’s opened…I don’t want to throw it out cause I’ve used for, like, two sandwiches)
soda
beer (probably skunned, but drinkable, in theory.)
ketchup
hot sauce
BBQ sauce
italian salad dressing (unopened, should be fine)
mustard
Drat…I figured it might be gone, since it’s basically mayo. The pickles have been opened…but their pickles, there floating in vinegar, shouldn’t they be fine?
The soda is in cans, so I would normally say they are just fine. But I just started to drink one…and somehow the funk permeated the aluminum can INTO the soda! :eek:
A pound of ground beef
a two pound london broil
a pound of bacon
about two total pounds of cheese (and some of it was really good, expensive cheese)
sour cream
half a gallon of milk
a couple small steaks in the freezer
half a half gallon of ice cream
a bunch of veggies
I feel for ya, bouv. Once our cats unplugged our deep freeze out in the garage and we didn’t notice for a couple of days. This was in August, mind you. In Missouri. And we had about half a metric buttload of beef in that thing.
The way the smell exploded over the neighborhood when we opened up the lid, I was surprised the police didn’t come knocking on my door demanding to be taken to the bodies.
I don’t see why the Miracle Whip wouldn’t be fine, mayo is sold unrefrigerated. Or does something happen to the mayo chemically after you refrigerate it, so you can never go back to the original state?
The rest of the stuff you listed should still be fine.
You probably oughta just rinse off the soda cans - it may be something that just settled on the surface. And I can’t really speak for Miracle Whip as I hate both mayonnaise and its derivatives, but it’s not actually necessary to keep mayonnaise in the fridge, though it’ll separate sooner if you don’t. (No, really. Ann Landers ran a column on it once, and a company spokesperson said so!) It’s vinegary and it only tends to go bad when used in a recipe.
All those things ought to have been ok with a couple days out of the fridge, by my reckoning. But I tend to me devil-may-care about those things. Worst comes to worst, you get a little tummyache and throw the rest of the Miracle Whip out. All those things are routinely kept warm until opening, and the condiments are served warm at restaurants, so I doubt the ketchup or mustard have gone bad. And the pickles oughta be fine, so long as they look and smell okay.
Wouldn’t hurt to toss the Miracle Whip, I guess, but the rest of that stuff really should be fine.
I also borrowed my friend’s country cabin. I took such great care of the place (because I hoped she’s let me stay there again sometime).
I cleaned every day for 30 minutes, washed all the linens in town so they were soft and fluffy, then went out and had fun for the rest of the stay.
I also stocked her fridge and freezer with hamburger patties, excellent cinnamin rolls, gatorade and water bottles, and all kinds of other goodies - I wanted it to be a surprise for her next time she came up!
Then I left and turned off all the power to the cabin.
She went up about 6 weeks later.
Interestingly, she said maggots and flies had eaten all the hamburger. I wonder how they got into the freezer?
I also offered to buy her a new fridge, but she said “no”.
3 years ago, we were lucky enough to be present at a friend’s cabin when it was discovered that the previous people to use it had turned off the power to the kitchen. Yuck.
Bleach, lots of it.
To get rid of the lingering smell in the fridge, find a pet store and buy a container of the charcoal that is used to filter fishtanks. Pour a layer on a plate or a pie tin and put this in the fridge and the freezer, after you clean them. It should help get rid of the lingering smell.
If you can’t find a petstore, get some charcoal brickettes and smash them into small pieces. Be sure to get charcoal that does NOT have lighterfluid already in it.
Had I been your neighbor/friend, I would have happily taken these off your hands, and down to the local shooting range. Think about it, I’d sight in my new rifle with cartons that would give me a ‘positive indicator’ (i.e. going “splat”), while taking care of your problem. And yeah, I could stand the five or ten minutes of smell picking up the empty cartons.
There’s just something cathartic about milk jugs or cartons going “splat”.
Tripler
“Oooh, I winged that one. Better hit 'er again!”
