Why do refrigerators smell

These microbes thrive off organic matter and moisture, both of which are plentiful inside your fridge and freezer. Refrigeration delays bacterial growth and associated food spoilage , but food still breaks down over time and becomes a breeding ground for airborne bacteria, yeast, and mold.

Taking steps to reduce bacteria growth and following a proper cleaning routine can erase past odors and minimize future scents. For a persistent odor, you will have to do a thorough purge of potential bacteria-laden foods. First, turn off your fridge by unplugging it, or flipping the switch at the circuit breaker or fuse box. Start with the more likely suspects—leftovers, cooked food, milk, seafood, meat, and moldy or overripe produce hiding in crisper drawers—when looking for what to compost or toss.

You could use sell-by or use-by dates to guide food disposal, but know that there are no federal regulations on date labeling—instead, companies do their own testing and make the best guess based on peak food quality and taste. Grains, dried beans, and canned foods can last well past their expiration date , while the same may not be true of milk products and eggs.

Use your nose and eyes as guides. Sourness, pungent smells, changes in texture, and visible mold are all signs of spoilage. Dish soap often has a fragrance that will mask, rather than eliminate, food odors. Got a couple of newspapers hanging out around your home? Then you can use them to remove odors from your fridge. Wipe down all the plastic with white vinegar. If you had a spill or rotten food in your fridge, that's one thing, but if your fridge stinks without rotten food, then you need to get more creative.

There are all kinds of places that bacteria and mold can hang out, creating that horrible smell. While you might have thrown out old fruit and veggies, they can still leave behind juice and bacteria that can rot.

Try pulling out the bins and scrubbing them out along with scrubbing underneath of them with straight white vinegar or peroxide. Many of us know there is a drip tray under our fridge but forget to clean it. That little tray can fill with stagnant water and other bacteria. Using your user's manual, pull out your drip tray and clean it with soapy water. For particularly nasty trays, consider adding a cup of hydrogen peroxide to the dishwater.

If you've tried everything inside of your fridge and are still getting a smell, then it might not be inside of your fridge that is the problem. It could be food that rolled underneath your fridge and rotted, or you had a spill of your drip pan.

When your fridge starts smelling like chemicals and not the cleaning kind, you could have a big problem on your hands that requires a professional. However, before you panic, there are still a few things you can try. If the smell in and around your fridge is sulfury and you have a water dispenser, then it could be your water filter. In that case, you want to replace the water filter in your fridge. You can also clean around the area to ensure there isn't anything else going on with the water filtration system.

You might also want to discard the ice cubes. Refrigerator coils can get caked with dust and other grime and cause a smell. Solution: Fill a bucket with a gallon of warm water and a quarter cup of bleach.

Remove the vegetables bins and clean out the area underneath with the bleach solution and a dish cloth. After it is all clean, wipe down the area with a clean damp cloth to remove any bleach smell. Problem: Some refrigerators have pans that collect condensation produced by the unit while it cools.

These pans need to be emptied from time to time and cleaned, or else they smell awful and may even overflow. Solution: First, you need to find out if your fridge has a drip pan. Take a look at the maintenance part of your owner's manual to find out. If you don't have the manual any more, many are online. Just search the brand and model number for your fridge. If your fridge does have a drip pan, unplug your fridge, take out all of the food and follow the manual's instructions for removing the pan.

Then, clean it with warm water and dish soap and reinstall it. Solution: The smell may not be your fridge at all, but what's under it. If you can't get it to switch on, you will probably need to replace it. You can also check the thermostat by testing it for continuity when on or off using a multimeter in ohmmeter mode.

If a refrigerator is not properly defrosted, the accumulated frost can impair its operation: the temperature inside the appliance is no longer even and consistent, which means the cold chain is no longer being maintained. Check that the layer of frost on your fridge's evaporator is no more than 2 mm thick and is homogeneously distributed across the interior back wall of the appliance.

If this is not the case, either your thermostat is set too high or the door seal is not sitting tightly and evenly in place when the door is closed. Also check that the light is not staying on when the door is closed: the light gives off enough heat to cause temperature problems such as making the fridge too cold or causing excess frost to build up.

To check whether the light is going out properly, one thing you can do is place a smartphone inside the fridge with its camcorder filming and close the door. Can you smell a musty odour throughout your house? Check the drain pan that sits just above the motor compressor on the back of your appliance. It serves to collect the water that results from the defrosting process.

If the condensation dripping into it is full of bacteria the foods in your fridge produce bacteria , particularly the kinds that come from meats, the drain pan will give off a very pungent, powerful odour. Is your refrigerator giving off a burnt or hot smell? It's possible the compressor motor is not working properly.