This is slightly embarrassing, but I have a confession to make… You guys know I’m all about saving time and money, right? And I’ve shared before how a clean refrigerator can help save both.
Well, the truth is I honestly cannot remember the last time I’ve deep cleaned my refrigerator. I can’t even begin to describe the terrible state it had reached, so I’ll show you a photo:
Everything stuffed in haphazardly, crumbs, stickiness — who knows what’s lurking in the back?!? But the worst of it wasn’t even revealed until I removed the long snack drawer on the bottom…
Apparently at some point several months ago (at least), my kids spilled a significant amount of milk inside the fridge. While they must have thought they wiped up the mess, they clearly did not realize that most of it ran down under the snack drawer. I’m gagging just thinking about it. I will have nightmares about scrubbing that funk out for the next year!
It took a good 45 minutes and a lot of elbow grease, but I turned on some music and started scrubbing. Several Viva Towels later I had this:
Much better, isn’t it?!? I took everything out, checking expiration dates as I went and tossing anything that was past its prime. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much to get rid of — I mostly just needed to organize everything better.
After pulling it all out, I was easily able to pull out the drawers (this is when I discovered the milk, blech), which made wiping the shelves and drawers down an easy task. Putting everything back into the fridge in an organized manner was much easier since I had a clean slate to work with.
Now the trick is to maintain it! Since we receive our weekly produce bins on Fridays, I’m pencilling in a quick once-over for Friday mornings with a deep-cleaning once a month.
Are You Ready To Take The Clean Refrigerator Challenge?
Now it’s your turn — I’m challenging you to whip your refrigerator into tip-top shape at some point over the next week. What’s the oldest item you had to toss or the worst mess you had to clean up in your refrigerator? Share in the comments and you could win a Viva Towels prize package valued at $50!
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This post is brought to you by Kimberly-Clark. All opinions are 100% mine.
Mary Happymommy
We went on vacation and when we returned I had to throw out some turkey that had turned green.
Marcie
Old bbq sauce
MB
Yogurt that looked like cottage cheese
Samina
Juice from defrosting chicken that leaked onto the shelves below. Nasty. I’ve never put a package of meat in the fridge to defrost without putting it in another container again.
Jenna
Right now, I have old chicken juice that leaked from the packaging. Gross!
Carol W
Meat, milk and veggies. A family feud between my Mother-in-law and her sister-in-law resulted in the refrigerator being unplugged (after the passing of my husband Granny) at the granny’s vacant house. We returned about a week later to a fridge full of rotten food. The worst thing I have ever smelled and seen. The fridge had to be tossed.
Dina S.
My husband spills or drips everything he pulls in and out of the fridge…. he’s always cleaning up something
Jessie C.
A bottle of Sriracha Mayo for over two years.
YVONNE LOPEZ
nASTY FRUIT AND THE BOTTOM OF THE TRAY. YUCK..
Sandra U.
EVERYTHING in my fridge when I lost power, was a big soggy mess in the bottom. The oldest was my stored breast milk in the freezer….sadness!
Carey
Tomato
Rosie
Frozen honey dew melon 2 years old, that I had put through the food processor to make smoothies – I found it yesterday and had no idea what it was, had to taste it.
Marie R
One time I had to cleaned a dry meat juice. It was horrible.
Lisa
Ugh, we once had a frozen can of Coke explode in our fridge…every time I thought I’d gotten the last drip and was prepared to put everything back, I’d find more under a shelf. Did I mention I had a newborn at home at the time and I discovered this in the middle of the night right after a feeding, when all I wanted was to go back to sleep?
Michelle
Broken eggs
Jane
Spilled a glass of pop
Sophie
blood from leaky meat packaging
Norb
Spilled a pitcher of juice
Scott
The plastic wrap didn’t stick so well and a plate of leftovers went all over the place.
Kim
Spilled a can of pop
Summer
Yes, I too had the horrible experience of removing the drawer. Except my yuck looked like some sort of old honey. NO idea to this day what it was!
Brandy Monday
leftover thanksgiving dinner
Teresa Thompson
I forgot tuna salad in the fridge for about 2 weeks. It was a horrible mess.
Serena S.
had to clean up spoiled milk that spilled everywhere
Connie C.
Dh’s blue cheese that went bad – nasty!!!!!
Kathy L.
There was some stench in my 20-year-old fridge that kept getting worse. It was lunch meat WELL past its prime. Unfortunately, I could NOT get the smell out (scrubbing the fridge and freezer with baking soda paste, baking soda in the fridge and freezer, etc.). The GOOD news is that my new fridge is being delivered tomorrow. It’s an Energy Star and I’ll be able to submit for a $35 rebate and a $50 recycling rebate from the electric company. It’s also smaller inside, so I hopefully won’t keep as much unused food in there.
sara haaf
I recently threw out a bunch of condiments that’s use by date were in 2008.
Gina M (Wild Orchid)
The worst mess I found was from old, raw meat juices that leaked from the package. Yuck!
Entered the rafflecopter form as “Wild Orchid”
Thanks for the chance to win!
wildorchid985 at gmail dot com
Kristy
When I was in college, we threw out the Easter ham…in June…yikes!!!
Lynne
I don’t know what it was. It was green with mold all over it. It was way in the back of the veggie container. So it could of been in there for months. when I pick it up it was limp and stunk.