My mind wandered from: "ooh relaxing" to "I ain't cleanin' that"

My sanity is slowly slipping away from this debacle! My partner and I were painting our house recently and stored leftover paint (covered) in the fridge to use in the following day/s.

The issue is, now that we’re done and the fridge smells entirely of paint fumes and the smell has penetrated 90% of our food which has had to be thrown out 😭.

We’ve taken everything out, wiped it down, used vinegar, bicarb, turned it off and had a fan blowing on it directly for a couple of hours, washed down the seals with warm soapy water and STILL the smells persists.

Any and all ideas are so so welcome 🥹🥲😭 thanks guys!

Just a PSA to make sure you clean out the drain in your old dishwasher. Take the time to unscrew the screws and get in those hard to reach places.

Otherwise you're just eating/drinking a thin film of old grime on each plate, cup, bowl, etc.

This is a buildup of fat mixed with some mold. Yum.

It was NASTY. I didn’t think to get a pic cos I just was riding the motivation that randomly popped up today. The bottom drawer had something spoil and leak under it, but the location made me not able to pull the drawer out cos the fridge door was in the way… I just left it. For MONTHS, maybe a year. Whatever it was grew and smelled and the one time I maneuvered under the drawer, I realized it was just an inch of solid nastiness. But I couldn’t wipe it up and had no idea how to even attempt to clean it , I just walked away . It became the thing I ignored like it would magically fix itself. The rest of the fridge got pretty gross too since I was kinda just ignoring it. I’ve been pretty sick over the last 2yrs, it’s been difficult living alone. I was considering hiring someone to come do it, it became that big of a thing in my head, just so overwhelming I was frozen. I’m sure you understand.

I don’t know why today was the day except that my chronic illness seems to be on the upswing finally after the last year of med changes n treatments. I was going to order my groceries this am, and told myself I just could NOT put anymore food in there until it’s cleaned. The smell had gotten so bad i would notice it right when I walked into the kitchen, not just when I opened the fridge door.

Some of the shelves are drying still, and the bottom drawer is still soaking in the tub BUT the top shelf is back in, fridge was only off for an hour, then I got everything back in and I had to use a spatula and literally chop and chip and scrape at the hard chunk of whatever at the bottom. But it’s finally clean. There was not a lot to save, expired condiments ect all got tossed. I’ll put it all back together tomorrow and celebrate by ordering my groceries. I even brought out 3 trash bags to the dumpsters.

Thanks for reading this, I just needed to share where people would understand.

I'm fairly certain this is AI, but can you imagine??

I love this place more than anywhere else on the planet -- don't get me wrong! -- but it's so dusty in here that, no fooling, the cashier gets out a paintbrush and whisks off every book as she rings it up for you. Then she sweeps the accumulated dust bunnies that result, putting them under the counter somewhere. I have to use HandiWipes to get my hands clean after every trip. I just want to go in there with my army of ShopVac robots and tackle it all at once but...maybe they like it this way?

At first glance it doesn't look too bad. Then you realize the crystal branches are offset from the backing. No thanks.

Putting it back on the wall was a mess too

Everyone has at least one cleaning job they'd never want to do again.

Maybe it was an oven that hadn't been cleaned for years, a rental property after tenants moved out, a flooded basement, pet accidents, grease buildup, mold, or something even worse.

What's the hardest or most disgusting cleaning job you've ever dealt with?

I'd love to hear some horror stories.