It’s happened to the best of us: you open up your refrigerator door and are immediately met with a terrible smell that is impossible to ignore. You start rifling through your fridge, wondering what could possibly be in there that is making it smell this bad. Did you let a vegetable sit too long and now it’s rotting? Did you forget about leftovers that have gone bad? Is there old milk in there somewhere?
As it turns out, food might not be the only thing to blame. If your fridge smells weird, there are other ways to fix it besides just getting rid of old food. Sure, stinky foods that have gone bad are a likely culprit, but there are a whole bunch of other things you could be doing that are making your fridge reek, and you don’t even realize you’re doing it. So how do you remove these odors for good, and maybe even make sure they don’t come back? We’ve got a few ideas on how to fix that weird smell really quickly:
Clean everything in there.
It might not be the food in the fridge — it might be the fridge itself. You should be cleaning the inside of your refrigerator fairly regularly, since CNET points out that plastic absorbs odor. Clear all the food out, then wipe everything down with a non-toxic cleaning solution until it’s sparkly clean. You can use a baking soda and water mix, or vinegar and water, if you’d like. Both will neutralize odors and clean.
You should also make sure that when doing this, you’re really doing a deep clean. Don’t just wipe down the shelves and the veggie and fruit drawers. Take those drawers out and really clean and soak them, making sure to get in all the crevices.
Use baking soda.
To get rid of weird odors and keep them away, leave an opened box of boxing soda in there. The Spruce says that “the smells in your fridge are made up of food particles that float around and eventually settle into your other meals.” That’s pretty gross, but okay. A box of baking soda will give those particles something else to bond with, and then whisk the odor away. You can use a regular old box of baking soda, or buy one made for the fridge (that’s your best bet, as these are created specifically to neutralize odors).
Check the drip pan.
Some refrigerators have a drip pan that collects condensation while the unit cools. The pans need to be emptied once in a while or they start to smell really bad. Find out if yours has one by looking at the owner’s manual or looking it up online. If it does have one, unplug the fridge, take out all the food, and follow the manual instructions on how to remove it. Clean it with warm water and dish soap before putting it back.
Let the fridge air out.
This is kind of tough, but if you’re able to do it, it could make a big difference. Take all the food out of the fridge, unplug it, and leave the doors wide open for about 24 hours. Do this after deep-cleaning the fridge. It can help really get all of those odors out, leaving the fridge refreshed and much less smelly.
