After Hurricane Ivan, power was off for 8 days, lost every thing in the freezer. I could not get home for a while, now the freezer has a horrible smell and I can't get it out. Tried bleaching the entire inside and still nothing. Also have baking soda inside.
Try using charcoal in the freezer. I have heard it works for those experiencing odor problems. I would also consider leaving the freezer door open as I was told a non-working freezer with closed doors will result in smells. Finally, my mom always recommends vinegar for everything. It is worth a try.
Turn the freezer off, open the lid and let it warm up.
Cleaners are not effective at freezing temperature. Use a sponge mop and scrub it out with an ammonia cleaner, but never mix it with bleach. That produces poison gas.
If that does not do the trick, then the cause of the smell is from the insulation or the mechanical compartment.
Do not use straight ammonia or strong solvents, because they make the plastic freezer liner brittle or damage it.
I had the same problem with my freezer after Ivan. I had lots of fish and shrimp in mine. What a stench!!
After emptying the contents, I turned off the power and used a strong solution of white vinegar and "mountain fresh" scented Clorox bleach in water. I wiped down everything, including the racks, and in the grooves of the door gasket.
After everything had dried, I placed some of the same scented Clorox into a glass dish and set it on a middle shelf. I turned the freezer onto the lowest setting and left it for 24 hours. It still had some lingering odor, so I left it one more day. Perfect! It's just like a brand new freezer!!
I used this same thing on my garage refrigerator with success, and my house refrigerator as well. It takes about a day for the bleach smell to dissipate, then you are back to normal!
Charcoal works great for getting rid of odors. Take regular charcoal, not briquettes, and put some in the freezer along with some crumpled up newspapers. Leave the door closed for a couple of days.
Clean the freezer with a paste made of baking soda and Lemon juice. rinse it thoroughly. After cleaning, put some large dishpans filled with charcoal briquets in and allow to sit for a couple of days. This should eliminate your odors
Charcoal does work well but make sure you DON'T use the self starting kind, just use the plain old briquets.
- Susan
I read somewhere just today that someone had a similar problem and what he/she did was to wipe out the inside with vanilla extract.
You might try an old pair of knee high socks, fill them with fresh dry ground coffee. Put the filled socks in the freezer with the door closed for several days...should do the trick!
Several years ago we had a power outage while we were out of town. When we got back our freezer was filled with rotten meat. We tried everything, and I do mean everything!! Nothing worked until we put saucers filled with cat litter on every shelf. We closed it up and did not open the door for about 3 or 4 days. When we did open it the rotten smell was gone. We wiped it down to get the cat litter smell out and then left the door open for a couple of days. Viola'! The freezer was good as new.
I noticed several people mentioning "charcoal" in this thread. Exactly, what *kind* of charcoal should be used for this purpose, and where does one get it?
Thanks for clarifying!
Are you supposed to leave the fridge on and running or off?
I had the same problem after Frances. The inside of our fridge is clean but the tile floor around it smells rotten. It seems to get worse when the fridge turns on and off. Any tips?
The charcoal will work---you can get the regular Kingsford or even the cheaper store brands. No self lighting though
I had the same problem after cleaning out my freezer. TERRIBLE FISH ODOR! We tried the newspaper, coffee grinds, vanilla, bleach and baking soda. Nothing worked. I was ready to bring this 2 year old freezer to the dump just to get the smell out of my basement when i decided to give it one last try. I sprayed about 1/2 bottle of lysol mold and mildew spay all over the racks and coils, especially the tubes running down the back side.
We had our freezer go blink also, we have removed everything even the freezer, the house still smell bad, how do I get rid of the smell in the basement and the lingering and coming upstairs??
please help!
I have tried bleach water, vinegar water, pure vinegar, three different ordor sprays, baking soda & water which worked the best. I thought next trip the dump when my son and one other person told me about charcoal. I just happened to have a new bag. I filled a baking dish and closed it up. At first i thought i wanted the smell to be gone after spending days and days trying everything people told or gave me. But honestly the charcoal worked!!
Wash with club soada
I use vanilla extract. Use natural as opposed to artificial extract. Pour it from the top edges to coat the sides and then the bottom. Let this dry, then rinse with water. If needed, wash all surfaces again with a baking soda/water paste and rinse again. Voila!
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How do you get rid of bad smell from a freezer. I had a vacation for six weeks, when I came back my freezer had stopped working. There was some meat in there which was rotten and I can't get rid of the smell. It smells like dead carion.
I have used all the suggested things (e.g.) bicarbonate of soda, I have steamed it with boiling hot water, and left it outside with the door open. If anyone has a another solution, I would be happy to try it.My niece had the same problem. She scrubbed with bleach, aired it out, filled it with newspapers, put pans of baking soda, pans of cat litter. What FINALLY worked for her was to place a large container of fresh ground coffee beans on the bottom, close the door and let it sit for a week, closed up. You need to use fresh, dry, unused coffee grounds, not the wet grounds left after you brew coffee!
I made the mistake of plugging my freezer into a GFCI outlet. The outlet tripped and it was about a week before I noticed. Needless to say everything in the freezer had to go. The smell was over-powering. I took everything out of the freezer. There was blood and water at the bottom. I poured baking soda, lots of it and used a scented cat litter. I let it sit for a couple of days. Cleaned it up and it was smelling good too. This did the trick for me.
I had a similar situation with a chest freezer of mine. I moved out of an apartment that I was sharing with two other guys and I decided to be nice and let them borrow it (since it was full of frozen food that would never fit in their smaller freezer). A fuse went out one day and the freezer lost power. They didn't notice until WAY later. The smell was horrid. I tried using hot water and soap, Comet with Bleach, and a bunch of orange scented surface wipes. The smell seemed to be gone but it quickly returned the next day. So, I had just now tried the following:
- One bowl of water and charcoal
- One bowl of cat litter
- One open box of Arm and Hammer baking soda
- One glass full of unused coffee grounds
and last but not least...
- One peach scented car air freshener
I've also heard to use pure vanilla extract but I didn't have any. I will report my results tomorrow.
Eons ago I was a refrigerator/freezer service technician. If liquids like blood leaked into the insulation you have two options: pull the liner out of the freezer and replace the insulation, which takes two people who really know what they are doing, or replace the freezer. If you pay to replace the insulation the cost will equal or exceed the cost of a new freezer.
How do you know if the blood is in the insulation?
I am sharing a house with randoms at the moment, and I had been away for a week and got back to find a horrid smell as soon as I walked in the house. They said the smell was the bin then I opened the freezer to get food out and the smell knocked me over. They turned off the freezer at the wall and all my food was brown and soggy.
I cleaned out all the food and blood then used hot soapy water. Then drained that out and let it air out for a couple of days outside and it still stinks. So I poured in a bottle of white vinegar and it still smells. How can I get rid of the smell?
Charcoal let set for 24 hours door closed an done smell gone
OK Nobody here is specific about their freezer. A 'chest' freezer typically has a single plastic 'tub' inserted into the cabinet and unless it is cracked or punctured, cannot leak blood or other fluids into the insulation. Warm it up, use chems and should be OK. If you have an upright freezer, everything goes to the bottom, where there may or may not be a plug and drain tube, depending on the mfg. So, just as a chest freezer, there is a solid 'tub' that encompasses the back, sides, top, and bottom, with a few small openings for Freon tubes to enter the tub. BUT..... and this is a big BUT.... most units have separate pieces all around the opening that 'finish' the areas around the door opening. This could be one single piece (unusual) or separate top bottom and side pieces. These have no visible fasteners, clips screws, etc, and simply 'snap' into place. Under the bottom piece is where you'll find the smelly saturated fiberglass insulation. If you look at the components, they are oriented like roof shingles, where the side pieces overlap the up-turned flanges of the bottom piece. After the plastic is at least 'room temp' (use a hair dryer if necessary - NOT a heat gun, which could deform the plastic) simply insert a flat screw driver under the side piece near the bottom, working from the inside out, and pull or pry until your fingers fit under it , then pull gently and slide screwdriver upwards until the clips release. You only need to loosen enough to allow removal of the bottom piece, but once started they come out easily. I removed both entire side pieces. Do this to both sides, paying attention to any light switches etc and corresponding wires. Pop out the bottom piece and there's the mess. Remove all the wet stuff, dab all dry with paper towels and hair dryer, replace it with new insulation which is very cheap, then snap-in panels in the reverse order of removal, pounding them into place with the back of your hand. The back of your hand won't crack plastic like a mallet or other 'beater', and is more than enough to re-seat the pieces. Close the door, come back in a few hours, and if odor-free, you're good to go.
OK Nobody here is specific about their freezer. A 'chest' freezer typically has a single plastic 'tub' inserted into the cabinet and unless it is cracked or punctured, cannot leak blood or other fluids into the insulation. Warm it up, use chems and should be OK. If you have an upright freezer, everything goes to the bottom, where there may or may not be a plug and drain tube, depending on the mfg. So, just as a chest freezer, there is a solid 'tub' that encompasses the back, sides, top, and bottom, with a few small openings for Freon tubes to enter the tub. BUT..... and this is a big BUT.... most units have separate pieces all around the opening that 'finish' the areas around the door opening. This could be one single piece (unusual) or separate top bottom and side pieces. These have no visible fasteners, clips screws, etc, and simply 'snap' into place. Under the bottom piece is where you'll find the smelly saturated fiberglass insulation. If you look at the components, they are oriented like roof shingles, where the side pieces overlap the up-turned flanges of the bottom piece. After the plastic is at least 'room temp' (use a hair dryer if necessary - NOT a heat gun, which could deform the plastic) simply insert a flat screw driver under the side piece near the bottom, working from the inside out, and pull or pry until your fingers fit under it , then pull gently and slide screwdriver upwards until the clips release. You only need to loosen enough to allow removal of the bottom piece, but once started they come out easily. I removed both entire side pieces. Do this to both sides, paying attention to any light switches etc and corresponding wires. Pop out the bottom piece and there's the mess. Remove all the wet stuff, dab all dry with paper towels and hair dryer, replace it with new insulation which is very cheap, then snap-in panels in the reverse order of removal, pounding them into place with the back of your hand. The back of your hand won't crack plastic like a mallet or other 'beater', and is more than enough to re-seat the pieces. Close the door, come back in a few hours, and if odor-free, you're good to go.
I've already disposed of the rotten meat from broken freezer, there is about 4" of bloody water standing in bottom of freezer. I'm going to dispose of the freezer, but how do I dispose of the bloody water first? The smell is unbearable!
By Deborah
Yuck, what a horrible task you have in front of you. If it was me I think I'd open all the windows and use the wet/dry shop vac to suck up the mess as quickly as possible, remembering to breathe through my mouth & not my nose. Then I'd immediately get both the freezer and the shop vac out of the house. The shop vac could be cleaned out with the garden hose.
I put lots of Vicks on my nose to get me through this horrible job. I didn't want the bloody black water to goi down the drain hole or into shop vac so, using a square plastic and practically standing on my head, I scooped as much out as I could into a bucket. Then I threw old towels into the bottom to absorb any remaining water. I threw away the towels and the bucket as I never wanted to use them again
how do I get ri of the smell after dead meat has unfrozen in my freezer seems to have got into the plastic drawers it has been there for 15 days
Use Odo Ban and spray inside of freezer. Will remove odor. Then clean probably with Pine Oil, hot water, vinegar and baking soda,
and a detergent. Use Odo Ban again as it also disinfects. Good luck
You can get OdoBan from Walmart or Home Depot. I've used it before. It smells great.
I had a power outage, that ruined the food in my freezer. I threw everything away. Then using a bucket, and old towels cleaned up the blood. Dispose of the bucket and towels. Then i sprinkled a light dose of baking soda over the entire inside of the freezer, and let it set for 30 minutes, and then wiped it out. Then I sprayed vinegar liberally over the entire inside of the freezer, and let it set for 30 minutes, and then wiped it out. Then I dusted the inside of the freezer with baking soda again, let it set for 30 minutes, and wiped it out. There was no smell left.
If the freezer still works, turn it on and freeze the water, the remove it in pieces.
This is late but might help someone: I put kitty litter in the freezer drawer to absorb the rancid water.
NJ had that bad winter last year. We never got around to cleaning the freezer out after it failed somewhere around Christmas. After a while we just forgot about it. So now, July 1st, the freezer stinks and we won't forget that. Are the fumes going to be toxic to breath in?
By HELPme911
Our daughter's small chest type freezer was off for about 3 weeks and she did not know it. She did not have much meat in it but had a lot of frozen tomatoes. It was full of food and it smelled rotten. We took it out on the deck, scooped out the liquid mess and put it in 5 gallon buckets and poured it out in the woods. The smell about got us.
After getting it cleaned out, we scrubbed it with Clorox water and that did not get rid of the odor. Then we tried white vinegar and still it smelled bad. We also cleaned with lemon juice and soda. It still smelled bad so we let it sit outside in the hot sun with the top open for a couple of days. It still had the odor in it and I thought she would have to junk it but we took it back inside and plugged it up and let it run.
She put a bag of charcoal in it and gradually filled it with jugs of water so it would be full. After a few months, the odor was gone and the freezer was fine. No odor at all.
Please remember when the electricity is off inside of your home because of ice storm or snow it will be at or below freezing outside your home. I usually clean my freezor in winter by loading all the food in ice chests or boxes and set them in my car. With temperatures around the freezing mark I have plenty of time to clean it throughly. So the next time your power is out take the food outside of your home stored in protected containers and either place in a vehicle on the north side of your home or put in protective containers to keep the vermits out and save your hard work. I have done this in the winter when the power is out and have never lost anything yet. As for the smell, I like to use natural products and would probable make a paste of vinegar and baking sode and clean throughtly and leave in the sun for a few days to air out.
My freezer went out. I threw everything away, but didn't clean it. It needs to be wiped out. The smell is gone, however I had to put a bag of meat in the freezer.
Will it ruin it till I can get to it? It is really cold out, but won't be in a couple of days. Can I wait?Freezer temperatures need to be 0 degrees F. If you are not going to have that for the entire time you will be away then discard the meat. Clean the freezer well before you put anything else in.
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