Help save our fridge!

[modstream]

We did something stupid. We forgot about frozen dough in our freezer after a road trip. It melted, partially rose & then began to rot. The smell of putrid yeast is not coming out of the freezer. We cleaned with vinegar & baking soda. Any ideas? We have the freezer door open in the hopes of airing it out, but the stench lingers. It is a Dometic fridge/freezer.

[Greg@AirLA]

Newsprint is a sterile medium and will absorb odors, stuuf the freezer with the Sunday paper.
Greg

[GeocamperAS]

This sounds strange but you need to trust me. With the freezer off at room temperature, rinse well (any residue from anything else you may have tried) and dry. Take a mint flavored toothpaste and spread thin, let dry an wipe off. Just like waxing a car,(no water). Then run the freezer for a few days. As the mint smell slowly disapates so will any other smells with it.

[Janet H]

There is hope for your fridge but you must be patient (and open the windows for a time).

A few years ago we did something similar but more horribly with a couple of frozen pork chops. Horrible. It smelled like there was a rotten corpse in the trailer. We did all the same things you did and further went and got some of that enzyme stuff that breaks up pet odors - everything helped a little. Be sure to scrub the fridge gaskets.

Truthfully I smelled it for a couple of months although no one else seemed to. Crack open a window or two, light up a lavender or eucalyptus scented candle and wait....

[jm2]

hmm, I like Tiger's idea, but, failing that, try about a half pound of ground coffee inside the freezer case for a couple of days....

[bukib]

Bleach...turn on the fans. open the windows and wipe it down. Clorox, Best Choice...whatever. Bleach is bleach. Forget what has been posted here but this...BLEACH.

[Foiled Again]

All of the above are good, but them thar' yeastie beasties are everywhere in the refrigerator, not just the freezer - water dripped out of the freezer into the refrigerator and onto the cooling unit's fins.

If you have any carpet, protect it or remove it if possible. Get a spray bottle of 50-50 bleach and water and a wet-dry vac. Spray down the inside of the entire refrigerator and freezer and vacuum up the water before it hits the floor of the Airstream. Make sure ALL the ice has melted out of the cooling fins as that can hold a lot of the odor. Wipe the gaskets down by hand. If there's anything paper in the refrigerator like an egg carton - get rid of it.

Oh, and while you're doing this have every window open and the fans running!

Paula

[195Pilot]

There is hope.
My wife and I went to Alaska for a month a couple of years ago. While we were away there was a violent thunderstorm at our home. Lightening knocked out a couple of breakers in our house. The frig was on one.
When we opened the door to our house the smell was terrible. We started cleaning everything and I took the frig down to the last nuts and bolts cleaning with 50/50 clorox and water, reassembled and the smell inside the fridge was still BAD. Found a post on an internet site were same thing happened and the guy put coffee on paper plates inside the freezer and frig, so we gave it a try.
It took a couple of days maybe a week but it worked for us.
Your mileage may vary.

good luck,
Jack