How to get rid of odors in the fridge?

If you are among the lucky ones who have never faced this problem, try to remember how it smells from a fridge that has been unplugged for a long time and stood with the door closed. The most precise definition of such an odor is “musty.

Why does he smell??

When you leave your fridge at the cottage or when you leave it running, leave it ajar, but keep the door ajar to avoid draftiness.

If you have an unpleasant smell even when the appliance is plugged in, you need to look for and eliminate its cause.

Experience has shown that the unpleasant smell in the refrigerator compartment is most often caused by negligent operation and poor maintenance of the refrigerator.

After all, before we had appliances with automatic defrosting system, people used to defrost the fridge at least once every two months. And if you defrosted it means that you also washed it, or at least wiped the inside with a wet rag.

Now this is no longer necessary, in principle, the refrigerator can work all year round without defrosting. The trouble is they don’t wash it either, which is unhygienic and even harmful.

And yet the instructions for use that come with every appliance say that the refrigerator should be cleaned and cleaned at least two or three times a year.

Who, pardon me, foul the air??

Unpleasant odor in the fridge is often caused by a piece of cheese or sausage left on one of the shelves, not eaten in time, and it starts to spoil. It only takes one rotten egg to ruin the atmosphere inside.

So the universal advice is to check the content of your fridge more often.

The undesirable odor can be also caused by wrong food placement inside the fridge. For example, milk, cream, butter, dairy products, very easily perceive foreign pungent odors. So they should keep away from cheese, herring, raw fish, smoked meats and marinades.

By the way, it should be noted that for new refrigerators the specific smell is quite normal. Smell is emitted by the plastic parts the inner cupboard, the barriers on the fridge compartment door, the various containers used to store food, etc. and can be absorbed by the plastic parts. p. .

Almost all plastics give off odors – that’s their specialty. How strongly plastic smells depends on the type of materials used by the particular manufacturer. And as the fridge on its way from the manufacturing plant to the kitchen is in the original packing with the doors closed, the concentration of the specific smell in the new fridge is increased, and quite often it frightens the owner and as a result causes the disappointment in the purchase. But the longer your refrigerator is running, the less of this unpleasant odor you notice, and over time it disappears altogether.

And to get rid of the smell in the first hours will help recommendations from the manual: wash your refrigerator and accessories with a warm solution of water and baking soda, then rinse with clean water dry it with a soft cloth and air it thoroughly for two or three hours.

How to know whether to “cure” or not to “cure?

If you are not very sensitive to smells, there are two easy ways to check if it’s time for a wash. Cut two pieces of fresh butter, put one unwrapped in the refrigerator compartment while the other – the control – is carefully wrapped or put in a buttered jar.

After a day, compare both pieces to taste. An unpleasant aftertaste in an open piece of oil is not a good sign.

The second method is to do a similar test using distilled water which is poured into an open china or glass dish which has been carefully washed and wiped clean. If the water from the opened dish has unpleasant taste – the fridge should be “treated”.

Did you wash it??

Before you start looking for internal imperfections, the most obvious cause of an unpleasant odor should be eliminated: dirt on the inside of the refrigerator.

Thoroughly inspect and wipe all the corners of the appliance with a damp cloth. Remove, wash, and wipe dry all glass shelves and plastic bump stops.

When wiping the inside of the door, do not forget to pull the door gasket slightly and check for any food residue or stagnant water that may have seeped in during the previous cleaning. An unpleasant smell is caused by the multiplication of microorganisms and bacteria inside, for which stale water is a very favorable environment. If the seal on the doors has lost its elasticity, you can put boiling water on it, then it is more likely to regain its original characteristics.

An excellent prophylaxis against unpleasant odors is to grease all metal parts inside the refrigerator compartment with vegetable oil, then turn the refrigerator on and after 4-6 hours of operation without food thoroughly wash and dry all the greased parts again. Another unusual but effective method is to Dollars garlic or onions on the inside walls of the fridge and leave them for 10-14 hours, then wipe them with a damp cloth, then a dry one, and air the fridge well.

On the Internet forums it is often advised to wipe the inside of the fridge with a weak solution of any dishwashing liquid.

You should clean the fridge inside with a cloth or sponge moistened with warm water of course, the device should be unplugged beforehand .

Very dirty places can be wiped with a mild solution of baking soda or a solution obtained by diluting a tablespoon of vinegar or ammonia in water. However, specialists warn against using vinegar in modern refrigerators – it is best for cleaning the old Soviet appliances.

All chemical solvents and abrasive cleaning agents are categorically unacceptable, because after rinsing with chemicals in the fridge it can leave a foreign smell, which the food will quickly disappear.

Whatever you use, after you wash your fridge it needs to be thoroughly dried and aired out, and the doors need to be kept open.

Catching smells on the absorber

To combat unpleasant odors, special adsorbents – “odor traps” or “odor absorbers” made with charcoal – can help. These can be purchased at hardware stores. The average cost of such an adsorbent – from 120 to 190 Dollars.

Exactly the same adsorptive absorbent effect has a crushed activated carbon, preheated in the oven at about 180 ° C. And the burning of charcoal should be repeated regularly, at least several times a week – then its properties to eliminate unpleasant odor will remain for a long time.

If you do not want to spend money, experienced housewives know many clever tricks to combat unpleasant odor improvised means.

Little tricks

• place small slices or crusts of black bread on the shelves Borodino bread, which itself has a strong odor, is especially good
• Place on one of the central shelves a halved head of onion, a raw potato, or half an apple
• Place a lemon or orange peel inside, or a lemon on a saucer, cut into slices
• Put a bowl of rice kernels in the refrigerator
• Place coffee beans inside the fridge
• Place inside a dish with some spices – for example, basil, cinnamon, cloves, cinnamon or thyme
• put an open packet of soda or a glass of soda diluted in water inside
• put a dish of salt or sugar inside – they are also good at absorbing unpleasant odors
• for the extreme and those who don’t always have normal food in the house, place a dish of cat litter on the inside of the fridge.

Of course, putting one of the above products in once will not solve the problem. First of all, an apple or chopped onion will also begin to spoil and smell over time. So “food” absorbents have to be changed at least once every three or four days. We recommend that you change the soda solution or soda container every two to three months.

A combination of household chemicals and foodstuffs can be used for cleaning the inside of the refrigerator. To do this, cut the lemon in half, remove the pulp, put baking soda in each half, and place it in the refrigerator. Keep in the refrigerator for a few days no more than a week , then throw away.

When you can’t do it without a handyman

If all means have been tried, and the unpleasant smell persists, it is necessary to turn to the help of professionals. A possible cause of bad odor could be, for example, a blocked drain for melt water condensing on the walls when the compressor stops, an essential attribute of an automatic defrosting system.

A clogged evaporator tube can be cleaned with a juice pipe or a long pasta and then rinsed with water, adding a drop of soda detergent or lemon juice to the solution.

An extremely unpleasant case is the contamination of the heat-insulation system of the fridge: when the glass fiber laid between the parts of the fridge cabinet gets inside, for example, the juice of the meat that thawed out during the forced stop of the fridge.

The only way to get rid of the “cadaveric” smell in this case is to replace the insulation, which is a rather time-consuming and costly operation.