Stinky Refrigerator Nightmare - Someone PLEASE help!

[HauntedMansionFreak]

Ok....I'm sooo embarrased to put this thread up - but I HAVE to...lol


Me, DH, DS10 and a friend just returned from our 08/12-08/22 trip to WDW. We stayed in Orlando for the first half of the week, survived Hurricane Charley and had a blast - even without electricity for nearly 3 days........ANYWAY......

On our drive home....we were joking about how the house would smell due to the cat litter box.......had a friend come feed the cats but didn't know if they would 'actually' change the litter. We left out 50 lbs of litter just in case (we have 3 cats).

Upon entry of our home my DH grabs his nose and wreaks a scream of stench. My first gut-instinct-of-a-mom thought was "that's not the cats we smell - it's food". Sure enough I was right. In my DH's last few moments of frenzy before leaving - he accidently flipped the circuit breaker to our fridge. I buy in bulk and had about 20 lbs of chicken in my freezer along with assorted other meats and foods. TRUST ME - you can't even imagine the smell that our house smelled like. After hours of cleaning and 2 days of fan's in the house to blow the scent out I thought I had finally got passed this incident - but I haven't.......my fridge STILL smells of that funky (hate to be graphic here) rotted chicken smell. I have taken out every shelf and drawer on three different occasions and cleaned the entire fridge/freezer with ****-n-span, pure bleach and baking soda. You can see your reflection in the dang thing it's so clean - but as soon as you open the door - the SMELL is God-awful.

I don't know what to do. I can't even put food in there yet. Running to the grocery store every day is getting old.

Any suggestions out there from any of you cleaning pro's????? Anyone else have something similar happen??? I find myself laughing about this daily now. Who else could go on vacation and drive into a hurricane, sleep in a sweltering hot house for 3 days, get rained out of the parks, come home to a rot-fest and still consider it a great vacation except me...lol?

BTW - this was DH and DS's first vacation - they aren't too thrilled...lol

Please tell me how to get rid of this scent.......

PS - Why is the Dis filter bleeping out the names of one of the cleaners I mentioned??????

 

[2BigKIdz]

I had a dead mouse in the fan of my car after my Orlando vacation last year. The only thing I found to get rid of the smell was something called Nilotron. I purchased it from a janitorial supply store and it was a "fogger". It is used for ridding those types of smells. I'm not sure if you could use it in the refrigerator but it is sure worth looking into. After months of a stinky car it did get rid of the smell in just 30 minutes.

 

[mickey65]

Maybe vinegar would ease the smell a bit. I have used it for other smells.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Some ideas from MSU...........

http://www.msue.msu.edu/msue/imp/mod02/01500029.html

Filter is there removing a word which is a common, (generally used derogatorily) slang (assuming it is the cleaner I think) for a nationality of people. Taken by itself (as it appears to the filter with using the dash-), it filters it.

 

[disneylizzy]

Oh man, I feel your pain. We live in a two family and our tenant went on vacation for two weeks. After a few days, I kept smelling SOMETHING. Drove me crazy, I would walk all around our apartment sniffing and sniffing, thought maybe it was a dead mouse in the wall somewhere. Well, after 10 days (in August), DH and I went downstairs and WHOA BABY! Their fridge had died and they had the freezer full of meat. DH and I could only go in that apartment holding our breath, it was that bad. We had to put on gloves and old clothes and clean everything out. We did use bowls of vinegar when everything was gone. We hung probably 20 airfreshener trees all over the house. They had to buy a new fridge, though. How new is yours? I hate to say it, but that smell might linger no matter what you do. It's not something easily forgotten. BTW, our tenant knew that her fridge had been acting up before she left, but she left a freezer so full you couldn't have put a hamburger in there. I am so sorry this happened to you, DH and I can laugh about it now (5 years later), but at the time he was ready to.. well, let's just say he was more than ticked off. If you are anything like me, you probably knocked yourself out cleaning before you went away and it is not fair that you have to clean when you get back, too.

 

[Pop Daddy]

get a new frig

 

[C.Ann]

You might try placing some charcoal in there - or washing it out numerous times with straight lemon juice..

I've also heard that kitty litter absorbs odors quite well..

Hope you get the odor out soon!

 

[huey duey & luey]

I have never tried it fo sucha strong smell, but baking soda, is suppossed to absorb odors. Good Luck
Tara

 

[Annette_VA]

Oh, do I feel your pain! We returned from vacation in May to discover that our garage freezer was off. Apparently, it didn't turn back on after a power blip or something.

We ended up putting a bunch of boxes of baking soda in it & leaving the door open for a couple of days. Oh, and DH scrubbed it down w/ some orange cleaner, too.

I hope you get that smell out - it is the absolute worst!

 

[Kallison]

I don't know if this will help but when I burned popcorn in the microwave it stunk of that burnt smell. I crumpled up newspaper and wet it, stuffed it in, in the AM the newspaper would reek and the micro was better. I did this a few times and it got rid of the smell. You could stuff that baby up!

How come the cat person didn't notice the smell?

 

[oogieboogie]

Put fresh coffee grounds in a bowl and leave it in the fridge overnight or for several days. Coffee grounds will absorb the smell.

 

[tidoublegger]

Originally posted by Pop Daddy
get a new frig

If you can afford to, I think I'd consider this!

 

[tkd lisa]

Another vote for coffee. I've hung it in a clean sock safety pinned to the racks. Did this when we moved and put the fridge and freezer in storage for 4 months. It worked great. Just to clarify, it's ground coffee straight out of the can. Used coffee grounds just wouldn't be the same

 

[lucky_bunni]

Maybe some diluted bleach in a sprary bottle and just spray it down heavily and wipe it really good.

BTW - the first part of that cleaner name is also a racial slur, so that's why it's bleeped.

 

[Tinkerbelle739]

Originally posted by Kallison
How come the cat person didn't notice the smell?

My thoughts exactly.

I would boil some water with lemon, place the boiling pot in the unplugged freezer and let it sit for a few hours. It may actually make the smell worse temporarily. Remove the pot and then wipe down the surface with dry paper towels. Wipe the entire freezer with a bleach mixture and let sit for about an hour before wiping it clean. I had to do this once with a VERY mildewy refrigerator that had that musty smell, and it worked. Good luck!!

 

[wdwfam]

I did the same thing years ago with my parent's fridge. Unfortunately, the funky chicken smell never went away. Without getting really graphic, liquids drain in the back and behind the walls of the fridge to places you can't get to.

I think about the best solution is as some mentioned, "Buy a fridge".

 

[ahutton]

We did the clean sock deal, filled with activated charcoal which we purchased in a bag at Petsmart in the fish supply area. That is what the fish filter uses... It worked but took some time. You might also see if you can flush out the drip pan, clean the fan - any little piece that may have absorbed the smell and be recirculating it. So sorry you had such a sad end to a vacation!

 

[HauntedMansionFreak]

<i>How come the cat person didn't notice the smell?</i>


We questioned the 'cat person'....our neighbor's kid and he said he didn't know what it was and that as long as the cats were ok that he didn't want to 'look for the smell'. Makes me wonder just how many times he actually came over to check on the cats. Good thing that with all that litter we also left out 30 lbs of dry cat food. I told my DH that next time we will consider taking them to pet lodging.

The only family member we had was away the same week we were (getting married) so we were kind of stuck finding a neighborhood kid. Hind-sight is 20-20.......


The newspaper idea is a strange one.......but I like it...lol. I'm gonna try the coffee grounds first though.


To the poster who mentioned the 'juices draining....' - you're exactly right. They had drained out all over the floor. I'm sure they are in some nook & cranny that I can't get too. Gosh - I don't want to face buying another one.....it's a side-by-side....but I can't become the stinky chicken lady either........lol

 

[DopeyRN]

When we were building our new house, we stayed with my mom. Our refrigerator was in her garage, turned off. Well we move ourselves into the new house...and as the fridge is coming in on the handtruck there is a foul and ugly trail being left behind. I start screaming STOP...oh my...my new floors. Have mercy...what IS that smell??? Rotten veggies..onions and who knows what else. 6 New Orleans summer months in a garage. Where's my new house smell now?

I feel (and smell) your pain.

 

[aimee11621]

A good strong old fashioned cleaner is COAL TAR cleaners (REX) is the manufacturer.

They were used in the olden days for cleaning a home after a funeral. Its good for any nasty smell eg... trash cans, pets quarters, something really stinky.

Its the best! We use it in the garage and trash cans. Cleaning the terrace after the dogs have been there. Kills ANY smell. Try a local hardware store.

Use rubber gloves of course or your hands will smell for days of the cleaner. Two or three capfulls works well in a bucket of water.

It's an old cuban/caribbean way to clean up a really stinky mess.