Indeed, I believe it’s time to do a total clean on my refrigerator. I’ve been living in my apartment for nearly three and a half years, and the refrigerator hasn’t really gotten that much of a cleaning since then – just rotating food in and out as a part of living. And it’s not like my refrigerator is all that nasty, either. It’s not like some of the stuff I’ve seen at work. Some of the stuff in those refrigerators would make grown men retch. It’s just, well, after three years and four months, it needs a thorough cleaning to remain at its best.
Of course, it’s not like I don’t have experience with these things. The refrigerators at work recently finally surpassed my tolerance level for uncleanliness, and so over the course of a month, I took each of the refrigerators through an out-of-service period, where the refrigerator was completely emptied, powered down, and the entire interior and its various components were cleaned. The end result was a spotless, like-new appearance. I don’t do these things half-assed, you see.
Now at home, I have some additional challenges. At work, completely emptying the refrigerators involved getting my coworkers to move their grub to another refrigerator while one refrigerator was out of service for the deep-clean. At home, I can’t really do that, since I only have one refrigerator. Obviously, I would need to do this during a period when the refrigerator and freezer aren’t holding much, but still, keeping some stuff cold while doing a cleaning would be a challenge. I could use the aforementioned work refrigerators for some temporary storage, but trucking food down to Washington DC just to bring it all back in a few days seems a bit much. Then using coolers might keep the food out of refrigeration too long. Then I also don’t want to impose on my neighbors to borrow a little space in their fridges.
The big thing is, I definitely do want to power the refrigerator down while I clean it out. Gunk in there is easier to remove at room temperature than when it’s at winter-like temperatures. So I’ll have to think about how I want to do this. But it will get done somehow…