I have just cleaned my fridge

Well I have one small fridge, one large fridge/freezer, 2 small freezers and one large freezer. And they're all almost full of food, meat, veg. and fruit from last year, baked goods etc.
I defrost the freezers when the ice starts to force the door open. The fridges get emptied and cleaned once a year.
The problem comes if we have a long power cut, as happened after a storm in 2009. A friend lent us a generator to keep the contents cold, otherwise it would have meant a big financial loss.
You can insure against this.

I'm ex catering durhamjen and as there's no environmental heath officer in the vicinity I very rarely clean mine!! As you say, the germs will only multiply when you take them out!!

Once again I will speak up for people who like a clean fridge/ freezer and oven. And yes, I do have a very active interesting life.

I have been there with my grandma kittylester and can totally sympathise.

She will pick the thing closest to the front (bless her) and I was always finding tubs of butter etc. with only a tiny bit taken out that had gone mouldy as she had opened a new one. I now go through the fridge every week and give it a clean with anti-bac spray while I am at it.

Before I realised that mum wasn't coping, I had been maki g her single portions of casseroles, lasagne etc and handing 3 or 4 over per week! She eventually said she had no room in her fridge for milk and, when I looked, it was full of dried up and hairy Tupperware boxes full revolting casseroles etc! And what a waste of Tupperware!!

I clean my grandmas fridge almost every week as she is a sloppy old.....
she is very short sighted these days. It helps me keep track of what she needs and dates etc. and really takes no doing.

I could do with giving my own a once over every now and again though. I will put this on my TODO list.

Obviously that should read 'so much ICE overhanging'

My freezer gets done when there is so much over hanging that the door won't close!

I am neurotic about keeping my inbox sorted but DH has never been known to delete an email in his life! His (real) desk is well organised whereas mine has enormous hemorrhoids!

Watering the plants in the greenhouse! It's a testament to the wonders of Mother Nature that the plants defy my neglect of them Must do better/try harder/see me after school . . . . .

I cut DH's hair approximately once a month and we have a set routine of testing the alarms then too, so we don't forget. We have 2 smoke alarms and 1 carbon monoxide alarm.

The freezers get done when I can see icebergs building, the fridge gets done when I can persuade DH to do it as I can't kneel down, and the microwave gets done if something splatters.

I get an email reminder once a month to check my smoke alarm (not that I pay any attention to it).

We could set up a thread, master-minded by one of our more efficient posters, that nagged us regularly to -
"NOW CLEAN THE FRIDGE!"
"NOW CLEAR OUT THE UNDER-SINK CUPBOARD!"
"NOW DELETE ALL YOUR OLD EMAILS!"

But would we do it?

What else could you do with a regular reminder of?

Did it - cleaned the fridge! The power of Gransnet!

I thought as much, Charleygirl. Guess I will just have to do it myself

Bellasnana- I think that because Malta is marginally further than a bus ride away, I have a feeling that he may say no! It is a good bargain and apparently he does bathrooms for £20 but mine is fairly new and pristine, tiles everywhere.

Anno You could have posted those socks to the Budongo chimps, Edinburgh Zoo, EH12 6TS.

The keepers hide fruit in them, so that they have to find it and extract it. They also use old Tshirts, jumpers and pillow-cases as part of their "enrichment" - though I am not quite sure how enriching smelly old socks are. They are stimulated by having to search for their food in new and interesting places, rather than getting it served up at set times in a neat bowl.

Things don't last long - they get ripped up in no time - so a constant supply is needed.

Charleygirl do you think your local bloke would like to visit Malta?

Mishap you are obviously in the mood- I have a f/f and a single fridge, both which would love your attention.

There is a local fellow who cleans out kitchen cupboards, fridges, floors, the inside window (s) and the dreaded oven, all for £40. I think that is quite a bargain. If he would add my venetian blinds I think that he may have a deal in the near future.

I am sure Oxfam take anything, even old socks and bras. They can sell on from their recycling centre in Yorkshire. It can even go as mattress stuffing.

Sock monkeys

I de-cluttered my sock drawer which I'd been having trouble closing and opening. I have decided to wear only soft-top socks, so chucked out all the pairs with elasticated tops that leave a mark long after you've taken them off. They filled a carrier bag which I left in a charity box, though I don't know if they can do anything with good used socks.

I was at DDs yesterday child minding and discovered a lot of water at the bottom of the fridge where the vege boxes sit. After mopping this up I took my knitting needles to the hole at the back of the fridge to allow the condensation at the back to drain away. This was blocked with the usual sort of fridge grunge.

It is much easier to notice the mess in other people's fridges than in your own.

I haven't cleaned the fridge out but I did attack the medicine cupboard and took all the old stuff to the chemist - that got me a bit of a look! Glad it's done though.

I am feeling virtuous having crossed off quite a few of the items on my list, including the newly added "clean fridge" – inspired, of course, by you Mishap. Thanks.

I have never succumbed to the current fashion for eating meat barely cooked, mainly because on the rare occasions I have had food poisoning, it has been as a result of eating food not fully cooked in a restaurant. DH was recently laid low for several days after eating seared tuna when eating out.

A preference for slow cooked casseroles and stews and because I buy meat in bulk and store it in a chest freezer means, I hope, that if I have ever bought infected meat, any infection has been killed by cooking. So far no-one has ever got food poisoning eating in-house, but I am not complacent. I know it could happen.

www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/07/infected-meat-food-inspectors-warning
It's not your fridge you need to be worried about!