Cleaning the Fridge Is Cleansing For The Soul

Good Morning! Yesterday, I spent the entire day cleaning my fridge. Well, that's not entirely true, I did get a couple of hours of office work done, but the refrigerator took the entire rest of the day, Tom had to even help me finish up when he got home. So, this has prompted me to add this chore to my seasonal list of house chores. I have a mental list of things I should do with each time change (If you live in AZ, lucky you!), including things like:

• Replace batteries in smoke detectors. As you know I feel quite strongly about not wasting anything, but this is one case where I make exception (we had a fire in our house when I was a kid, so I am very fire leery), replace the batteries whether you think they need it or not. I also make sure that our renters have new batteries for their detectors as well.


• Double check our carbon monoxide detector, ours has a battery back up, but is plugged into the wall, so I might only replace that battery once a year, depends.


• Change or clean out our furnace filter.


• Change out our water filter.


• Double check the temp that the hot water heater is on, and really clean the space around it.


• Change any timers that we have been using over the summer, with the shortening of the days, you might need whatever it is controlling on (for me, that is a lamp, a chicken light, a water trough heater, etc.) for a longer period of time. Also check them for any signs of wear. I know these units are UL tested, but they are a fire hazard if not used properly.


• And, now, last but not least, I am adding cleaning the fridge to this list.

Back to my disgusting refrigerator. We are not a family to let food sit in the fridge, as it all gets eaten; my family is great about leftovers and taking them for lunches. So, the fridge very rarely needs cleaning out, which is my excuse for letting it get so gross. I started by unplugging it (if your lucky your husband will have a beer fridge like mine to keep stuff cold, but if not a cooler would work great) and letting it just warm up for about an hour. During this time, remove all drawers and shelves and get those soaking in the sink, or if you have a small kitchen (again, like me) use up all of your counter space! Letting the fridge come to room temperature made the scrubbing much easier.

I then went to move the fridge to clean behind it, that is when all hell broke loose! The stuff that was underneath was unbelievable!!! The kids must've spilled something at some point and didn't tell me that it had gone under the fridge, so I had sticky, yucky, hairy (I'm not sure how it got so hairy with only a million pets in the house-ha!) goop accumulating under my fridge. Not only that, but the coils were practically invisible with all of the dust that had collected there. I got the floor taken care of, but Tom had to help with cleaning the coils. We could practically hear the fridge sigh with relief, it could finally breathe!

So, now my refrigerator is singing a different tune (literally), and I'm sure it is running much more efficiently too. I also think all that gunk under there could have been a fire hazard as well. It really was cleansing for my soul, and having a clean fridge is rewarding because it is one job that sees immediate results!

Make a miracle today!