Google I Think I Love You

Do you know what this is?Neither did I until last night.

That is the drip tray from under my fridge. Why am I taking a picture of it? Because for the last couple of months, there has been a bad smell in our kitchen. And for the life of us, we couldn't figure out where it was coming from.

Last night we finally decided that it was coming from the fridge, more specifically, from under the fridge.

Was it broken? Leaking? Did something die under there?

My wife began scouring the Internet for new fridges. Then she mention how much new fridges cost. I said lets call a repair man first and see if we can get it fixed.

Then a light went off.

"Type there is a smell coming from the bottom of my fridge into Google", says I.

And sure enough it lead me to the drip tray.

My brain started whirling. I checked Google again. Typed, how to clean drip tray into Google and how to instructions magically appeared.

Forget the repairman I said, I'm going to try to fix this myself!

And this morning I went at it.

Found the drip tray right away. Only problem was, its secured to the bottom of the fridge with four screws. And the only way to unscrew them was to get under the fridge.

Since it was only me, I managed to do this by jacking up the fridge on each side by sticking a paint can under it. Took the tray off and the picture above is what I found.

Now I want you to look closely. The short strip to the left is where the water from the fridge drains into, and the overflow goes into the big pan on the right. Now look closer. You can see that the thin strip is full of dog food. But it's not only dog food. Under that layer of dog food is 10 years plus of mouse shit. 10 years! No wonder the fridge had a God awful smell to it. 10 years! I had to scoop out the shit with a drywall knife!!

Have you ever seen mouse shit before? It's usually the size of half a grain of rice. The drip tray was FULL of mouse shit, so much so, that it had blocked the fridge from properly draining. Oh My God, I Have NEVER Been So Disgusted In My Life.

Thank Go for Latex gloves.

I got it done. Took it outside and cleaned it with soap and water and then again with bleach.

But thanks to Google, I saved myself the price of a new fridge, and the price of a service call.

But next time though, I might just spring for the service call ... and save myself with having to deal with that horror show ever again!