I really messed up!

[bnardini]

I left my TT in storage for a few days which turned into three weeks. I left some food in the fridge with the fridge running on propane and the TT got moved, the fridge shut off and when I got back the food was rotten and really stinky! The wife and I cleaned it as best we could but if the stink does not go away I am looking at a new stink-free fridge. Any suggestions on how to get rid of the stink? I will try anything once. Thanks for your help. HELP!

[anaro]

Clean the fridge out good with bleach and leave it open. You can put some baking soda in there too. Air the trailer out well. If that doesn't work then I highly recommend Zeolite. It works wonders with odors of all kinds.

[doxiluvr]

All are good suggestions for cleaning and another one is after the initial cleaning, use fresh lemon juice and baking soda and also scrub with it and then rinse it with a wet towel and dry. Then leave open until it is thoroughly dry. We close up our trailer for about 7 months out of the year and that is my final step after cleaning and wiping down and I prop the door open a few inches while it is in storage, plus I put a box of baking soda in it. Could be overkill, but for 8 years now we have not had a problem. But do have a nice, clean, fresh smelling fridge.

[bnardini]

Thanks everybody for all the tips. Have gotten rid of a lot of the stink already. Will keep on trying some of the tips I haven't used yet.

[Stars101]

Ozium air sanitizer is great for the rest of the trailer. This stuff works!

I have also sprayed it on the crumpled newspaper and then shut it into the fridge for 24 hr. Then prop open and air out.

[Stars101]

Time, time, and more time.

It will eventually go away with all the good suggestions on here, but it does take weeks/months to fade completely.

We forgot a Halloween pumpkin in the back of the quad cab pick-up. And it rotted/melted into the carpet. OMG - the stench was unbelievable. I thought I'd have to have a forensic cleaning service come in.... all b/c of a pumpkin! but after using the regular tips/tricks it just took time to air out.

I second using crumpled newspaper inside when it's not in use and also prop door open.

[Hitch_Pin]

If you can find a spray called Odor Ban it will kill the odor, I got a gal. jug at Sam's

[mdamerell]

ADK Camper wrote:

colliehauler wrote:

mdamerell wrote:

bnardini wrote:
I left my TT in storage for a few days which turned into three weeks. I left some food in the fridge with the fridge running on propane and the TT got moved, the fridge shut off

Unless there's a charger on the battery most OEM 12 vdc systems are dead in a couple of days due to parasitic loads. Even with fridge on propane it needs 12 vdc control power to operate. Was it plugged in while in storage? Do you have solar or extra batteries? Just curious.

X 2 but it takes a week or two with a new battery before it's dead. Clorex cleanup in a spray bottle works well as well.

Your battery might discharge in a lot less than 2 weeks. Some refrigerators have a heater in the door to prevent condensation in humid weather, and on some models this heater cannot be turned off. The heater runs constantly and depletes a battery quickly. I cut the wire that powers the heater and installed a switch - made a hugh difference in battery life.

We installed a battery disconnect, otherwise we had a dead battery in 5 days due to parasite loads. I did not find anything else left on.

We had some mold once when the door clip came loose and the door shut in storage. Clorox wipes did the trick for us.

[ADK_Camper]

colliehauler wrote:

mdamerell wrote:

bnardini wrote:
I left my TT in storage for a few days which turned into three weeks. I left some food in the fridge with the fridge running on propane and the TT got moved, the fridge shut off

Unless there's a charger on the battery most OEM 12 vdc systems are dead in a couple of days due to parasitic loads. Even with fridge on propane it needs 12 vdc control power to operate. Was it plugged in while in storage? Do you have solar or extra batteries? Just curious.

X 2 but it takes a week or two with a new battery before it's dead. Clorex cleanup in a spray bottle works well as well.

Your battery might discharge in a lot less than 2 weeks. Some refrigerators have a heater in the door to prevent condensation in humid weather, and on some models this heater cannot be turned off. The heater runs constantly and depletes a battery quickly. I cut the wire that powers the heater and installed a switch - made a hugh difference in battery life.

[cyntdon2010]

Boy, oh BOY!
I did the same thing, never again.

the vinegar works, But it takes time.. hang in there..

[amandasgramma]

HGL wrote:
Put a bowl of distilled white vinegar inside the fridge and another in the trailer itself for the night. This will even get cigarette smoke out of the air.

Exactly what I was going to recommend. A friend did this when he made the same boo-boo. Got rid of the stink within a week or two.

[penguin747]

I did this once with fish sticks in freezer. Hit me like a ton of bricks one night while I was sleeping. It took a lot of cleaning, bleach. Good luck

[RoyB]

We ended up with two turkeys one Thanksgiving so one went in the parked RV for a Christmas dinner.

Needless to say a few weeks later we had a multiple day county wide outage and I forgot all about the Turkey in the fridge.

I used my 2KW generator to keep the house fridge going just fine and survived the power outage just fine running the generator a coupe of hours a day.

Then I was working out near the parked trailer which is next to the woods and started looking for the dead deer or some large animal in the woods. Finally stuck my head in the trailer and that is when the light went off in my head...

This was a 14-lb turkey...

I disassembled what I could on the fridge and opened up the doors after cleaning up all I could find. I tried several things local folks told to try (pure vinegar worked the best) and got rid of the smell pretty good but when you closed it up and opened the door a couple of days later the smell was still there to some degree.. Getting behind the panels on the inside of the fridge is where my smells was coming from... I even had an open bowl of WD40 sitting in there - would rather smell that than turkey hehe...

The I heard about coffee grounds and had a open container of this sitting in both areas of the fridge. I also kept newspapers wadded up all over the inside of the fridge. I changed out the newspapers and coffee grounds once a week. The newspaper trick really absorbs the smells great.

We are back to using the fridge now but still get a whiff of something when we first open the door. I imagine some of that is expecting to smell something hehe...

My problem was that the melted away 14lb turkey also ran down the front door and onto the floor. I had lots of areas to cleanup...

I guess running the fridge again with it getting cold again helped alot as well...

What a mess - geesch....

Check on-line google for what others have tried.. Lots of info there...

Roy Ken

[Opie431]

Wash all of the insides with vinegar, it may not be enough to just sit bowls of vinegar inside.

[colliehauler]

mdamerell wrote:

bnardini wrote:
I left my TT in storage for a few days which turned into three weeks. I left some food in the fridge with the fridge running on propane and the TT got moved, the fridge shut off

Unless there's a charger on the battery most OEM 12 vdc systems are dead in a couple of days due to parasitic loads. Even with fridge on propane it needs 12 vdc control power to operate. Was it plugged in while in storage? Do you have solar or extra batteries? Just curious.

X 2 but it takes a week or two with a new battery before it's dead. Clorex cleanup in a spray bottle works well as well.