Dear LPG,

I wonder if there is room in the LPG for the answer to a practical problem that I may have found at least one solution to.  I think that it is relevant regardless of age really.

I know that it has happened to most of us at some time in our lives; I am talking about the day that you wake up and there is a hint of a not-so-nice smell in the kitchen and you cannot pin point where it is coming from until you have made your morning cup of tea and gone to the fridge for the milk.  In my case it was as the door opened that I realised that my fridge was no longer doing the job that I expected of it.

I called the insurance company but it would be a couple of days before they were able to take a look and in the meantime the smell had to go, which meant that I spent the morning emptying the contents.  I had one of those ‘one on top of the other fridge freezers and so it was a bigger job than I first thought it would be. 

In spite of all the insurances I found myself with two problems really.  The first was what I was going to do with all the food that had gone off and the other was what to do about the smell which had really got worse once the doors had been opened.

This happened to me in the hottest part of our unusually hot summer, which did not really help, and with two days to go before the bins were to be collected, but I did phone the council and found out that the only way to get rid of the food that has gone off is to wait for the next scheduled collection or take the defrosted food to your nearest tip.

Then there was the smell and all the washing I tried did not really help. You Tube offered me many, solutions and I found that Bicarbonate of soda worked best for me, and while I was there I also found the solution to another problem.  I just know that I am not the only one who suffers from a fridge which always seems to be wet below the salad draws.  I am hoping that the video clips and other information I have written will help someone else who wakes up to a bad kitchen smell.

GE, Catford

LPG will try to find a more official answer to the question of what one is expected to do with the defrosted food from a failed freezer or fridge to minimise any potentially unhealthy consequences of trying to keep it for up to a week.  

GE offered us some of the following information and we also found some tips on minimising fridge odours even when the appliances are working.

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