How To Clean A Refrigerator

I clean my refrigerator as little as I can get away with. If I can close a door on a mess, I am fine with that. (I wonder what a therapist would do with that little tidbit of information).I love having junk drawers in my kitchen or even my bedroom for that matter. I have this little cranny in my pantry filled with plastic grocery bags. When I open the pantry door, the bags fall out. It never occurs to me to bring them to recycling, I just keep shoving them back in. You get the message, out of sight, out of mind. The mold in my refrigerator is an excellent source for penicillin. When my grandsons get a little older, a fun project would be to look at all the thing growing in my refrigerator, under a microscope.

Most people have frost free refrigerators which makes cleaning the freezer a piece of cake. I clean it with 409 or Fantastic, a plastic scrubby and a sponge. It comes out really beautiful. When I am finished, I neatly stack the frozen food, determined that I will keep the freezer neat and orderly. That resolution lasts about a week.

I take everything out of the refrigerator, including the vegetable drawers. The amount of possible science projects under those drawers is astounding. I then start on the top shelf and work my way down. As I said I use fantastic or 409 most of the time, but hot sudsy water works just as well. I usually spray the whole refrigerator before I start just to loosen stubborn messes. Don’t forget to clean the gasket on the inside of the door. The gasket seals the door when it is shut to keep cold air from escaping. The next step is to clean the vegetable bins. I usually put paper towel in the draws when I am finished. It looks neat and catches small bits of food. When it gets dirty I throw it out and put clean towels in. Underneath the refrigerator is a tray. This tray catches liquid and food particles. If this tray gets really plugged up, you may find water on your kitchen floor. The first time I saw water on the floor, I thought my refrigerator was broken. My husband showed me how to pull the tray out, empty it, clean it and put it back in. There is condenser coil near the tray in the bottom of the refrigerator that has a fan blowing on it that is usually clogged with dust. This needs to be cleaned as well. There are special brushes that you can buy designed to clean the coils.

Cleaning a freezer without the frost free feature is a difficult. The best way to do that is to put pans of hot water in it to begin to melt the ice. A hair dryer works well too. Then it will take a lot of elbow grease to chip away at the ice. Don’t use anything too sharp to chip at the ice. You don’t want to puncture the refrigeration coils. It is best to not let the ice in the freezer build up. Not only is it hard to clean, but the freezer will not be working to its full potential. I love the way my refrigerator looks when it is clean. I vow to keep it clean and orderly. As I said, that resolution lasts about a week.