Omg Stinking Awful Mess - Quadruple Blech!!!!
Decorating By berryblondeboys Updated 1 Jun 2007 , 2:25pm by BarbaraK
And no one to blame except for me!!!
Two months ago (yes TWO MONTHS) I decided to purge everything from our house we just didn't need so we could make room for henry (who is now two). He needed a room to play that was just for his stuff. So, the purge began...
There is a charity that comes every month with a big truck, so I got stuff for that ready. I went to the storage room and got EVERYTHING out that we really didn't need. That meant that some boxes were completely gone, but others were only partially emptied. Since that room isn't really "used" I left it until the end because I wanted to get the rest of the closets and house in order and bring anything/eveything to deep storage and THEN organize it.
Well, that day was yesterday. I'm finally to the last area - the storage room. All was going well yesterday and I managed to free up so much space... but then... I bumped into the deep freezer and a stench wafted out... OMG... I opened the lid and quickly closed it again! GAG, GASP, BLEEEECK!!! I checked the back plugs, I checked the wall outlet. It all LOOKED Ok, and then I touched the plug to the wall (barely reachable and behind the big wood shelving unit we have and it wasn't pushed all the way in. It pushed in and I heard the quiet hum of the freezer... It had been off for OVER TWO MONTHS!!
Fortunately, it was mostly empty - which is fortunate and unfortunate. If it had more food, I would have probably gotten to it SOONER, but I hadn't made any big dishes to freeze recently (as I was working on purging, not stocking up! LOL) and I thought we had taken out all frozen meals and had just some frozen BC and some frozen bananas and maybe some frozen veggies... not much.
Well, I went back down this morning (after it all had a chance to freeze a bit and neutralize SOME of the odor) but STILL !!! It took everything in me not to barf and of course there's a lake of rotten liquids at the base!!! It was mostly bananas and veggies, but there was also a pack of chicken thighs and two containers of stuffed sour cabbage (which also has meat) WAH!!!! If I were made of money, I would just throw the whole thing away!! it's a small one and like 11 years old... so tempted to not deal with it...
USUALLY< we are in there every couple weeks, but because of being busy and that room being in upheaval, we weren't.. OMG...
Then there is the associated smell with a memory thing that happened too! When I worked at a college, I was "liason" to the food center. One summer the cafeteria closed down and the students ate at a neighboring facility while our dining area was under construction. Well, VERY CLEAR instructions were given not to turn off the power to the kitchen and especially the walk in freezers as there was stored meats inside. To be sure, the head custodial person (also under my direction) was to check it DAILY. Well, at some point it was discovered the power had been off to the deep freezers for 1-2 weeks. When they opened them up, you could barely keep standing. We had to have the staff get special masks and equipment to carry it out - AWFUL. Since I was "part" of all that, I remember the smell... today I smelled it again on a smaller scale and that memory came FLOODING back! ICk, ICK! ICK!!! Gag! Barf!!!
OK... off to pour some bleach inside... send me smelling salts my way for when I pass out...
Melissa
Oh you poor thing! I am a weak stomach girl soI feel your pain. I probably would have thrown it out...money or no...YUCK!!!
Good luck and hopefully you catch a one day cold.
Julia
Eeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww! Thanks for ruining my lunch lol! Oh, poor you, so easily done. Something had gone bad in my tiny (30 litre), kitchen bin a couple of days ago, heavens knows what, the bag had only been changed the day before - but the smell was baaaaadddd! I can only imagine what your freezer smelt like, no actually, I'd rather not! ((((HUGS)))))
I'm so sorry! Same thing happened to me TWICE. The first time (30 yrs ago) there were frog legs that hubby had caught. EEEEEWWWWW! The second time (like 4 years ago) was a whole freezer of beef! We DID have to get rid of the freezer, because the liquid had gotten into the insulation of the freezer. YUK!
Try putting coffee grounds in the freezer, close it up for a couple of days. Your freezer will THEN smell like coffee, BUT, you can open it at that point without the HORRIBLE STENCH and air it out fully.
GOOD LUCK!!
Beth in KY
OMG a freezer full of beef!! YUCK!!!
I'm almost postive that all the liquid is from rotten bananas (as the meals wer e in plastic sealed containers and maybe a little chicken ick leaked). I had about 2 dozen bananas frozen for making a super yummy banana bread (takes 6 bananas a recipe)
Amazingly, there's no mold anywhere. DH says it's because the bacteria prevailed! ICk! I don't think anything leaked to other parts - it's about a cup or two of "ick" liquid!
thanks for the tip wiht the coffee grounds! I will DEFINITELY get some coffee today!
melissa
I smell your pain, Melissa, but on a much smaller scale. On Tuesday I was coming down my back stairs headed for my car to take the kids to school and I noticed the back windows had been left open from the day before. I got into my car (Honda Odyssey minivan) and thought I could smell something. When the kids got in the car, my son said he smelled something bad. I asked them to look around and make sure that Daddy hadn't left a hotdog in the car. They said there was nothing there. I even asked my son to turn around and check the trunk area. Nothing. The longer we were in the car, the worse it got.
As soon as I got back home (thankfully it's a short ride and I had all the windows open), I began my search. I opened one of the sliding doors and pulled the back of the middle row seat down and saw some stuff on the floor in front of where my soon-to-be 9 year old sits. I threw away the rip-off 'barbie' doll, a teddy bear and finally, a plastic cup and the lid that was no longer on it. I also had to throw away what used to be chocolate milk and was now on the carpet!!! Eewwww! Yuuuuuk!! Bleeeech!!! I don't know how I didn't barf, but with the windows being left open for two days, them smell rapidly dissapated.
Isn't it amazing how PUTRID food starts to smell so fast? We like to eat fish, but we only eat fish the night before garbage night so we don't have to keep the "remains" around. We live in a townhouse and we aren't allowed to take our garbage out except for twice a week for pick up. We "could" take it out back, but that means going down a flight of stairs and through the house and then to take it to the curb, walking through swamp land (for some reason behind our house and neighbors is SUPER Wet, even when everywhere else is dry) and walking around three other homes... not worth it!!
So.... glad I discovered this the night before trash pick up. I got it out this morning and within 20 minutes there was a swarm of flies around the sealed bag! ick!
ETA: I'm cracking up that you were blaming your DH for a hotdog! LOL So, who left that milkshake?
melissa
Melissa, girl am I feeling badly for you! 
I wish you could throw the whole thing out too and just be done with it!
You poor girl! There is little else, if anything, that stinks worse than seriously rotted food!
Let us know how well the coffee works and for your sake I hope it works great!
That stuff happens to us almost all the time. Our freezer turned off on its own and i had to clean it out 'cause me mom has a weak stomach. It made me sad 'cause the fudge bars melted 
. Then last week one of the boys left bait in there. Not just any bait, but stink bait. I almost barfed, and 2 get me 2 barf is an accomplishment. i would write more but i have 2 get 2 class, the 5 minute bell just rang.
reapergrrl
Forgot THIS story. Sugar Plum Fairy reminded me!
A couple of years ago in Nov. I bought turkey breasts on sale. I had purchased about 20 bags of groceries and brought them all in myself, put them all away ( I THOUGHT) and moved on with my business!
A couple of weeks later I began to smell a HORRIBLE SMELL! Because our home is an OLD house, and it was rainy, I figured MOLD, right? Well, after a week of battling the stench (bleach, lysol, pine sol, etc.) Hubby called me at work and said "I found the smell!" I'm figuring a whole FAMILY of dead mice, right? WRONG!!!! Forgot ONE sack of groceries on the back porch......The TURKEY BREASTS!!! YUK! Liquid had run UNDER the freezer! I got some Clorox disinfectant spray (99.9% lethal to salmonella-translated turkey juice!). IT WORKED! Sprayed it under the freezer. Smell GONE! I lucked up on that one! But, it made me a believer in Clorox!
Beth in KY
Edited to say: Before I sprayed with Clorox I DID use bleach water under the freezer...but, didn't get rid of the smell. I figured it had "invaded" the underside of the freezer at that point!
That stuff happens to us almost all the time. Our freezer turned off on its own and i had to clean it out 'cause me mom has a weak stomach. It made me sad 'cause the fudge bars melted
. Then last week one of the boys left bait in there. Not just any bait, but stink bait. I almost barfed, and 2 get me 2 barf is an accomplishment. i would write more but i have 2 get 2 class, the 5 minute bell just rang. reapergrrl
I'm sorry.. that your mom made you clean that up and more than once???!?!?!?!?? IS WRONG!!!!! I had a mom from HE$$, but even she wouldn't have done that to me. yelling, screaming, calling me worthless, kicking me out of the house because I made her mad, yes, but making me clean up a family mess (and if it happens all the time, it's HER problem as a parent to figure out why it happens and FIX IT!).... even she knew that was "her" job (no dad in sight).
melissa
Forgot THIS story. Sugar Plum Fairy reminded me!
A couple of years ago in Nov. I bought turkey breasts on sale. I had purchased about 20 bags of groceries and brought them all in myself, put them all away ( I THOUGHT) and moved on with my business!
A couple of weeks later I began to smell a HORRIBLE SMELL! Because our home is an OLD house, and it was rainy, I figured MOLD, right? Well, after a week of battling the stench (bleach, lysol, pine sol, etc.) Hubby called me at work and said "I found the smell!" I'm figuring a whole FAMILY of dead mice, right? WRONG!!!! Forgot ONE sack of groceries on the back porch......The TURKEY BREASTS!!! YUK! Liquid had run UNDER the freezer! I got some Clorox disinfectant spray (99.9% lethal to salmonella-translated turkey juice!). IT WORKED! Sprayed it under the freezer. Smell GONE! I lucked up on that one! But, it made me a believer in Clorox!
Beth in KY
EW!!!!!!! We've forgotten a bag of groceries in the car overnight, but it was usually just dry goods and the worst was a dozen eggs, but no disasters yet... ICK!!! Turkey stench! BLECK!!
melissa
ETA: I'm cracking up that you were blaming your DH for a hotdog! LOL So, who left that milkshake?melissa
My hubby had taken my son to the Memorial Day parade in our town on Monday and my DH had told me that he brought home an extra hotdog. He also said it was one of the worst 'dogs' he had ever tasted and my son had agreed, so they didn't eat it. With my hubby's track record (bad memory), I was almost sure that he had left it in the car, but my son assured me that Daddy had thrown it away. (Son is 10 yrs old, so somewhat of a reliable witness). 
Of course my daughter will not fess up, but she is the only one who drinks chocolate milk like there's no tomorrow. She hates regular milk and she's known for constantly bringing food/drinks into the car (the living room, her bedroom, her bathroom, etc. and leaving wrappings, cups, etc. all over). By the way, she'll be nine in 13 days (if she doesn't annoy me again this week)
OMG gross!! So sorry that you have to deal with that. One time when I was moving out of my apartment and back in with my dad (after separating from my now ex-husband) we unloaded a bunch of food from the freezer to throw away.. well after a couple weeks wer started smelling something putrid in the yard. Not the trash cans.. not anything we could see.. but the smell was AWFUL.. and worse near the storage tent but not IN the tent.. So after some sniffing we found it.. a 25 pound turkey that must have fallen out of the trash bag and rolled into the woods behind a small wood pile.. OMG.. it smelled like dead people.. Of course I had to go in with trash bags and a shovel to remove the maggot and those beetles who feast on dead things infested piece of meat.. it was all I could do not to heave. And I have an iron stomach. I hope that the smell goes away after a few cleanings.. Clorox Clean Up really does work well like the pp said. Also if you take it outside and let it sit open in direct sunlight it will help some too.
Oh totally gross.the same thing happened to us a little over 2 years ago we bought our house from my husbands parents and due to them trying to move us moving and them trying to move his grandfather in with them (his wife had passed) we told them they could leave the freezer here it wasn't in the way. Well my husband was cleaning out the room it was in and somehow unplugged it and I know the smell you are talking about it was soooooooo grooooossssssssssss.
Here's another stinky story......
A few years ago, my parents had bought their retirement house in Key Largo, but were still living in NY until mom retired. Well, dad and a friend came down to do some work on the new house, and had to leave suddenly because the friend was having heart problems. Dad, who would normally turn off the water to the house, but leave the electric on, turned EVERYthing off because he was just out of it trying to deal with a semi-sick friend that he had to drive back from FL to NY.
Fast forward about a month... hubby and I (live near Tampa)... go down to the parents house because of a hurricane that was threatening. Since we are just a few hours away, we said we would go down amd secure everything... put the shutters up, etc.
Well, it's now August... in Florida, and we get there, and the house is hot and stuffy (of course) and stinking like there's no tomorrow... so we turn on power and start looking for something that might have died. Well, I unpack our cooler to put in the fridge and thought I was going to pass out. Dad left EGGS 
in the fridge, as well as some veggies and beer. The beer looked great.. the veggies were liquified, but the eggs........ it was like a scene from a horror movie.... black, moldy, oozing goo. UGGGGhhhhhhhh. The fridge had those little egg 'inserts' in the door towards the top..... so it was a niiiiice mess to clean up where it ran down from the top of the door to the bottom.
My uncle went to nursing home and about a month later my cousins and I went to clean out his apartment. His fridge/freezer had gotten unplugged. Horrible, horrible stink mess! Just reading your post brought that smell back. That was a few years ago but that smell will not be forgotten. Sorry you or anyone ever has to deal with that yucky smell mess!
OK, ugly, stinky! I delivered a cake, as a gift. The lady was delighted and felt I should have something in return. She gave me a large package of frozen prawns. I stuck them in the back of the SUV and drove home. The next day I looked in the freezer, and remembered the now not so frozen prawns, in the car. The car smelled for several days, I even took it to the detailer for "de-stinking". The stink eventually went away. (I promise to put frozen or fresh, fish up front with me, from now on.)
Well, it seems misery loves company. I guess I'm not alone, which is a little comforting to know I'm not the only idiot, but still... I would have rather avoided this and let me tell you, I will NEVER not check that freezer for more than three days again! LOL
Melissa
SOOOOOO
I have a one year old baby and that week I happened to have a cat that got hit by a car, who is ok.. just in case you want to know
but anyway i'm busy and i'm stressed and i'm trying to go to the store just to pick up a "few things" Milk, bread, eggs, butter diapers you know the basics.
WELL i unload the car, put everything away meanwhile dealing with a cat in a pet taxi who is VERY mad a little girl who is screaming because her kitty is screaming and a new kitten who is trying like mad to get OUT the door as we all come IN.
I finally manage to resolve all the situations get everything put away and just relax.. because as you all know I AM SUPER MOMMY... (so i like to think)
A few days later i go to get the milk out of the fridge as I'm making dinner and I notice that it's almost gone and I think WOW someone was hitting that milk HARD... because usually I end up throwing away the end of a half gallon. I think very little of it, as everyone with a DH and kids knows, things just end up gone sometimes for no reason at all.
About two weeks after that i'm having lunch with a friend who is complaining about a putrid smell in her mini van and i'm thinking ewww.. cuz honestly when I am in her van i'm always thinking ewww it's always half full of garbage and food from her son and just ewww I'm kind of anal about my car, and try to keep it VERY clean. So, at the dinner I say well I keep a bottle of febreeze in my trunk I'll give it to you when we get outside. NO biggie.. right? WRONG I pop my trunk and I am digging for the febreeze in the luggage net.. and what do I find .. the HALF GALLON of MILK! now about THREE weeks old swollen to the size of a very dead very gross beached whale and not quite as wholesome as it once was. I VERY carefully pick it up, because I know at any second.. it's going to explode the lid off and the pure putridness of it is going to make me throw up again and again. I get it out of the car, I get it half way to the trash and BANG! I'm totally covered in rotten ugh.. uck just thinking about it makes me want to throw up all over again
Needless to say my friend with the ALWAYS stinky van is laughing so hard she almost wet her pants and my little girl thought it was funny. Thank god we were next to a car wash and i'd just been to walmart to buy a few new things for summer. I seriously went and hosed myself down... went into the little stall bathroom and changed my clothes. and yes, i threw away the clothes I had on I as afraid the smell would never come out and well I have a really weak stomach.. the idea of opening up that bag and dealing with it all over again... but at least it's easier to throw away a pair of jogging pants and a tshirt then it is a whole car!!
I say ewww to nasty smells and i think sometimes we all need a reminder of exactly what we put where lol... I know I do.. I always check and double check everything now...
gross gross gross... i know the smell of fish.. they is a fish shoppe next to my work and the girls come into to chat and they stink of fish... but anyways heres my lil story fr you. i brought home a creamy dessert for my mom to take to my uncles they next. i told her about it and put it in to highest cupboard we have ( out of sight out of mind right?) well it really was out of mind because we both forgot about it. a month later we noticed these little fly things in out cupboard and had no idea where they were coming from.. they got worse and worse... my mom decided she needed to clean out this cupboard so she did... they still kept coming back... she had enough and wanted to take everything out and sanitize this time... she got to the highest shelf ( we normally keep pretty gift boxed or containers up there nd they was this moldy bug infested rotten cream pie pushed to the back of the cupboard... it didn't smell that great and was covered in nasty bugs....
We had a roommate while in college. One day he said he would help with the dishes while we were gone. I fixed supper that night before we left. Came home later and he had put away all of this dishes. I didn't realize he had a party and quickly threw everything in an unused closet until he had a chance to take care of it. Long story short, he was drunk and forgot about the stuff in the closet. The pan full of food sat in there for over a week (warm summer, no A/C) I found it and thought that some one had died in there - the stink, flies, and maggots were HORRIBLE!.
Nothing worse than Rotten food in a closed in space.
SOOOOOO
I have a one year old baby and that week I happened to have a cat that got hit by a car, who is ok.. just in case you want to know
but anyway i'm busy and i'm stressed and i'm trying to go to the store just to pick up a "few things" Milk, bread, eggs, butter diapers you know the basics.
WELL i unload the car, put everything away meanwhile dealing with a cat in a pet taxi who is VERY mad a little girl who is screaming because her kitty is screaming and a new kitten who is trying like mad to get OUT the door as we all come IN.
I finally manage to resolve all the situations get everything put away and just relax.. because as you all know I AM SUPER MOMMY... (so i like to think)
A few days later i go to get the milk out of the fridge as I'm making dinner and I notice that it's almost gone and I think WOW someone was hitting that milk HARD... because usually I end up throwing away the end of a half gallon. I think very little of it, as everyone with a DH and kids knows, things just end up gone sometimes for no reason at all.
About two weeks after that i'm having lunch with a friend who is complaining about a putrid smell in her mini van and i'm thinking ewww.. cuz honestly when I am in her van i'm always thinking ewww it's always half full of garbage and food from her son and just ewww I'm kind of anal about my car, and try to keep it VERY clean. So, at the dinner I say well I keep a bottle of febreeze in my trunk I'll give it to you when we get outside. NO biggie.. right? WRONG I pop my trunk and I am digging for the febreeze in the luggage net.. and what do I find .. the HALF GALLON of MILK! now about THREE weeks old swollen to the size of a very dead very gross beached whale and not quite as wholesome as it once was. I VERY carefully pick it up, because I know at any second.. it's going to explode the lid off and the pure putridness of it is going to make me throw up again and again. I get it out of the car, I get it half way to the trash and BANG! I'm totally covered in rotten ugh.. uck just thinking about it makes me want to throw up all over again
Needless to say my friend with the ALWAYS stinky van is laughing so hard she almost wet her pants and my little girl thought it was funny. Thank god we were next to a car wash and i'd just been to walmart to buy a few new things for summer. I seriously went and hosed myself down... went into the little stall bathroom and changed my clothes. and yes, i threw away the clothes I had on I as afraid the smell would never come out and well I have a really weak stomach.. the idea of opening up that bag and dealing with it all over again... but at least it's easier to throw away a pair of jogging pants and a tshirt then it is a whole car!!
I say ewww to nasty smells and i think sometimes we all need a reminder of exactly what we put where lol... I know I do.. I always check and double check everything now...
OMG>>>> I think I seriously would have lost it! UGH!!! I'm sorry to say I was laughing out loud, because it's really not funny, but I could JUST IMAGINE the tiptoeing with the container and the holding it away from you as far it would go and then BAM... being covered in ICK!!! you were SERIOUSLY lucky that you didn't get it all over your car and that you COULD hose down and change then and there! OMG... ICK!
melsisa
You guys make me laugh!!!!!!
I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you!!! (Just wanted to clarify!!)
Thank God I haven't had anything like that yet happened to me but I can tell you that the organic garbage bags that we keep under the sink have to go out every night or else... ugh!!!!
I sincerely hope I won't have a story like this to share anytime soon...
Laura
WOW... I feel your pain. My garage fridge and freezer died last month. Unfortunately, we didn't find out for a few days. WHen I opened it, it almost knocked me over. I never opened it again. We duct taped it shut and took the whole thing to the dump. The bad part is that it was full of food... frozen chicken, fruit, a Paula Dean stuffed pork tenderloin.
We lost over a hundred dollars worth of stuff. The upside is that I just got a full standing freezer that I'm in love with.... and the warranty covers any food loss.
Good luck with your stinky mess!
Carrots that have begun to rot down into those long stringy smelly threads of putrid puke smelling decomposition are not exactly a joy either. Rotting potatoes come a v close second...
I feel your pain. I was going to move in with my best friend into his bachlor pad. I told him I would live with him if the kitchen was no longer a health hazard. (A house full of bachlors, that kichen was UGLY!!) I started cleaning out the fridge, and I started to open one of the drawers he yells "STOP that's the cucumber drawer!" Apparently the guys had received cucumbers from one of their mom's the summer before and they forgot about them. They were liquid and fuzzy. Nobody would take them out so they left them in there and ignored that drawer. The cucumbers were in there for 9 months. I thought that was the grossest thing ever.
How do guys become that way? It's a rare one that isn't and most of those who aren't had obsessive compulsive disorders! LOL Geez....
My husband's parents and step parents were all doctors so he is always soooo paranoid about germs and bacteria. You should have heard the things he was saying today about cleaning the freezer because of all the bacteria... at least he cares if I inhale that crap or not!
Melissa
At least I'm not alone! I'm the most forgetful person I know, and so I have two stories of my own.
I admit to forgetting a roll of sausage in the microwave for a day and a half in 90 degree summer weather. 
I pledged after that to check my microwave at least once a day even if I'm not using it!!!!!
Now the last story is the joint effort of my hubby and I forgetting things. I was having a HUGE fancy dinner party for my friends and family. I needed the refrigerator space, so I set a big stock pot of leftovers on the back porch. I told the hubby that the next morning one of us would make sure the leftovers were disposed of. You guessed it, we BOTH forgot. Not only did we forget, but the pot was buried under other things and we didn't discover it for a long long long long time. Lucky for us it had a tight fitting lid- which we didn't open. We promptly duct taped it shut and threw the whole lot away. I owe my mother a new stock pot, but there was NO way I was dealing with that!
Men are the WORST at cleaning up spoiled food. The sump pump at my dad's place went out, and knocked out power to his chest freezer. His was the worst because it was stocked FULL of beef, venison, chicken, etc... Being the weak stomached guy he is, he put off dealing with it for weeks after he discovered it. I finally MADE him take it outside and deal with it, because I told him I wasn't coming to his house until he had.
I've learned my lessons. I keep diligent eye on ANY place where food might go bad. I can't stomach dealing with that gross nasty stuff!!!
My dad brought some old eggs into the house intending to use them for target practice. He didn't put them in the fridge because then someone might eat them and I don't know if he ever told my mother. He put them under his chair where he drops all kinds of stuff. It was one of those that rocks and several months later we were visiting and he rocked back and busted them open.
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