We landed in Salt Lake Thursday night about 11:10 and it was after midnight when we finally pulled into our driveway. The landing was one of the scariest I've ever been on even though the pilot did a fantastic job - the weather didn't cooperate.
Anyway - we were home sweet home and as we walked through the door - ugghh - Ed said - didn't we empty the trash before we left and I said I thought we did but as I got closer to the trash can the worse the smell was.
So I grabbed it and took it outside and dumped. The house was cooollllldddd - we had turned the thermostat down to 50 and it felt like it through and through. But the house was still smelly so Ed propped the back door open to hopefully air it out some. I grabbed a cooking pot and filled it halfway with water and put it on to boil and added cinnamon to help things out. I also got out the aerosole spray and sprayed everything down. We got the luggage inside and turned up the heat and brushed out teeth and went to bed hoping the house would smell better in the morning.
It didn't. Ed opened the fridge (that is only six years old) Friday morning and said - eeewwww - you're going to have to throw out some leftovers.... and then he said - OH NO! EVERYTHING is bad!! The power is off - no, the power isn't off but the fridge is warm.....and so is the freezer.
THAT WAS WHAT SMELLED - I bet the fridge had died a day or so after we left and everything in it sat and 'cooked' for a week. Gross!! I hauled four garbage cans full of rotten food scrubbing as I went. I pulled every shelf and drawer out of the fridge and the freezer - of course all the staples, like mayo, mustard and salad dressings got tossed. Even the pickles were bad! The left over chili and beans from the family party that I had put in the freezer - gone. Chicken, pork, hamburger (I had a pound of the pre-packaged hamburger in the freezer - it had literally ballooned out to TWICE the normal size!!)
I called and got a repairman over - Ed and I decided that we would have them give us a bid and if it was $400 or more we would go buy a new refrigerator. I called the place at 9:30 and she said she could get someone there today but wasn't sure how soon . I said give me a half an hour at least so I can run to Wal Mart's and get a gallon of milk so I can eat breakfast. That is exactly what they gave me - the guy was at my door at 10:05!! But I had my milk!! He walked through the door, took one look at my fridge from ACROSS the room and said I know exactly what is wrong with your refrigerator. It is a relay switch in the compressor that has gone bad. Whirlpool had been using the same switch for over 25 years with no problem but all of a sudden about 1999 or 2000 they switched to a different one and that one has given them all sorts of headaches. He told me that he has changed out over 2000 of those himself in the past few years!!! It makes me so angry that Whirlpool would do that and not notify the customers or do a recall ...instead we get the dead appliance and rotten food. It wouldn't have been so bad if we had been home - we wouldn't have lost everything - we would have noticed a problem within 24 hours or so.
About the time the ice cubes started defrosting.
So that was our welcome home. And I can still smell the smell slightly when I open the refrigerator door. I've tried baking soda but it still smells - any ideas out there?
One fun side note - Ed got to bed before I did last night and when I walked into the cold bedroom he's laying there without any covers on. I said "Are you hot? How come you haven't pulled the blankets up over you in this cold house?" He said "Cause the bed is COLD!!!!! This way only ONE side of me is cold - I'm not about to pull those icy blankets over me!!"
I don't think we'll turn the heat down so much next time we leave!!
4 comments:
I used this website as a reference a lot when helping tenants clean up after themselves. There may be some good tips about odor removal.
http://www.mrscleannw.com/tips/deep-refrigerator-cleaning.html
(Click on the non toxic cleaning products link)
http://www.outinternational.com/productline/so_removers.html
OUT, can be found in most pet sections. It uses enzymes to destroy the organic particles that are creating the smell. Just be really liberal with the stuff when you apply it because it has to get into all the cracks.
Hope this helps.
We had problems with the something on the compressor on our Whirlpool fridge too! After that was fixed, the freezer gave us problems that caused water to pool around all our food in the fridge. The guy came and put in a little heater for something in the back that had frozen over (yeah--a heater in the freezer)--apparently that's another big Whirlpool problem. It just stinks we paid a guy to defrost our freezer and put in the heater when we could have done that one ourselves!
Susan I have the answer to your refrigerator smell. Get some of your wonderful clear Mexican vanilla and rub it all over in the refrigerator, leaving some behind. Also pore some vanilla on a few cotton balls and leave in the refrigerator. The smell will be gone. Also works great to freshen up those old smelly camping coolers.
I know this works because we had some meat that got left in our trailor and the odor was horrible. We tried many ways to get the smell out with no success tell we tryed the vanilla.
Good luck!!! Colleen
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