Tackle Your Fridge With These Fresh Tips And Tricks

Tackle Your Fridge with these fresh tips & tricks

Not many people enjoy a cleaning exercise, but cleaning the fridge is important task to keep your home fresh and hygienic. If you do not clean your refrigerator regularly, it is likely to grow bacteria which can contaminate your food and cause some serious illnesses to your loved ones. Also, it will fill your kitchen or the entire house with a pungent smell and make it uncomfortable to live in. Fortunately, you can use some tips and tricks to tackle your fridge and keep it smelling fresh always.

Tools for cleaning the fridge

To tackle this job effectively, you need to put together a clean kitchen sponge, water, dishwashing liquid or multipurpose detergent and a stain remover effective on plastics. It is highly likely you will find all these in your local store, but we suggesting you go green and use some eco-friendly cleaning agents. Below, we’ll give some natural cleaning suggestions:

For a strong home-made cleaning product, prepare a paste by mixing warm water and baking soda to use it on stains and dry spills. For the general cleaning of other surfaces or fridge drawers, you can use a solution of 4 parts of water, 2 tablespoons of baking soda and some drops of odorless dishwashing liquid. It is important to note that there are a couple of recipes for home-made cleaning agents. This improves your chances of making one with available ingredients within your house. Most of these recipes use lemons, distilled white vinegar, and salt, among other ingredients.  Essential oils make a delightful addition–especially if you need to add more grease-cutting action or up the disinfectant power.

How to clean and deodorize the fridge

Start by switching off the electricity power source to the refrigerator. In fact, the refrigerator should have been off for a while so that most of the ice can thaw to allow effective cleaning. Clear any foods remaining inside and keep it aside in coolers with ice packs; in a cold-climate winter, this task is simplified.   Of course, any fridge cleaning task should be fast to prevent food from spoiling.

Remove all the shelves or any other accessories and soak them in warm water mixed with your cleaning agent. Allow enough time for grease to break then scour with a sponge. Rinse and air them to dry.

Next, wipe off the interiors of the refrigerator and its floor with a clean sponge or cloth dipped in the baking soda solution. Baking soda is helpful in getting rid of odors too. Any tough stains will come out easily if rubbed with the baking soda paste. You can now return the shelves and drawers.  Leave an open dish filled with baking soda or coffee grounds in the refrigerator for at least a day to sop up any pungent smells.

Next, clean the coils. These attract a lot of dust and if not cleaned regularly they can inhibit proper functioning of the compressor. For most fridge designs, the coils are located at the bottom. Once you find them, get the wand of your vacuum cleaner and purge any dust, cobwebs, and debris thoroughly.

How to arrange items in the refrigerator

Any proper organization should put food safety into consideration. Generally, those foods that are ready to eat are stored at the top, while the others go to the bottom. Follow the amount of temperature for cooking each food requires when sorting. For instance, meat, chicken, and fish should occupy the lowest point in your fridge. This way, you will have no fluids dropping onto the dry or the cooked foods.  The door is perfect for jars and bottles like ketchup or Worcestershire sauce–items that would not be compromised by a slightly less refrigerator temperature.

The fridge door
The fridge door

Fridge-cleaning frequency

Regular cleaning makes sure that you do not have a lot to tackle at once. Try to clean spills as soon as they happen. This is a quick task which you can carry out when waiting for food to cook. It is also possible to come up with a cleaning schedule that involves your refrigerator so that you do not dally for long without tackling it.  Don’t let it get out of control by waiting too long!  The coils should be checked and vacuumed at least every six months.


Beverly Jenkins is proud of her staff at The Tidy Maids house cleaning service in Raleigh, NC. She has 24 years of experience in house cleaning, customer service, and business operations. She knows all the tips and tricks and do-it-yourself hacks when it comes to cleaning and her clients’ homes are the best proof for that.

3 thoughts on “Tackle Your Fridge With These Fresh Tips And Tricks

  1. My wife hates to clean the fridge. Quite often I have to do this. A really bad job …

  2. Cleaning the fridge is one of the jobs I dread the most in the kitchen! I don’t even know why, but it’s up there with doing the bins for me haha!! Thanks for these great tips; especially love that you can clean the fridge in an eco way too! 😀

  3. Glad to see I’m not the only person who uses the vacuum in her fridge lol.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *