How to Get Rid of Bad Smells in Your Fridge

Co-authored by James Sears

Over time, it’s natural for most refrigerators to build up a slightly unpleasant aroma. While the smell can be off-putting, it’s not doing any harm to your food itself. If you’d like to remove lingering food smells before they permanently soak into the interior of your fridge, start by throwing away any bad food. You can also place a deodorizer or 2—like coffee grounds and activated charcoal—on an upper shelf. To prevent bad smells in the first place, throw out food as soon as it begins to spoil, and always store food in airtight containers.

Method 1

Method 1 of 3:

Using Odor-Removers

1
Keep an open container of baking soda on a back shelf.^{[1]
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Expert Source

Heather Isenberg
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 27 August 2019.} Baking soda has no smell itself, but it’s great at absorbing and neutralizing other aromas. To get rid of odors in your fridge, open up a box of baking soda and store it on the back of the top shelf. When you notice a few unpleasant smells starting to emerge, toss that baking soda and replace it with another box.^{[2]
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- If you fridge smells especially bad and you’d like to absorb a great deal of odor at once, pour out a full box of baking soda across a baking sheet and place leave it in the refrigerator overnight. Then discard the baking soda.
2
Remove odors from your freezer with boiled apple cider vinegar. Combine apple cider vinegar and water at a 1:3 ratio. Pour the mixture into a saucepan and bring it to a boil on the stovetop. As soon as the mixture begins boiling, remove it from the heat and pour it into a heat-resistant glass or metal bowl. Place the bowl in your freezer, shut the door, and leave it for 4–6 hours. This should absorb foul smells from your freezer.^{[3]
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- After the 4–6 hours have passed, remove the vinegar mixture and pour it down the drain.
- Once it’s been boiled, apple cider vinegar absorbs unpleasant odors and replaces them with a pleasant fruity smell.
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3
Cover 2–3 shelves with coffee grounds if you have plenty of time. Coffee grounds can successfully absorb unpleasant odors, but they take a long time to work. If you can live without your fridge for a few days, try this method. Spread dry, fresh coffee grounds across 2–3 baking sheets. Place each sheet on a different level of your refrigerator. The smells should leave within 3–4 days.^{[4]
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- During this time, you’ll need to keep your food in a second refrigerator or in a few ice-filled coolers.
- Once the 3–4 days have passed, dispose of the coffee grounds, wash the baking sheets, and put your food back into the fridge.
4
Set 2–3 baking sheets of unscented cat litter on different shelves. Coffee grounds can leave behind a slight coffee aroma in your fridge. If you’d like to absorb foul smells without leaving your fridge smelling like coffee, opt for cat litter instead. Spread a layer of clean litter in 2–3 shallow baking sheets and place the sheets on different shelves in your fridge. Leave the fridge running and empty with only the litter inside for 2–3 days to absorb any lingering smells.^{[5]
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- Purchase unscented cat litter at any pet store or large supermarket. Some home-improvement stores will also stock cat litter.
5
Let activated charcoal absorb bad odors if other methods fail. Fill 3–4 small cloth bags with about 1 cup (130 g) of loose activated charcoal. Then place the charcoal-filled bags on different shelves in your fridge.^{[6]
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Research source} Set the refrigerator temperature to low and leave the door closed as much as possible for several days. The smells in question should go away within 3–4 days.
- Activated charcoal can be purchased from pet stores or drugstores.
- Unlike with the coffee grounds method, you can use activated charcoal while your food is still in the fridge.

Method 2

Method 2 of 3:

Removing Bad Food and Smells

1
Unplug your refrigerator from the wall before you begin cleaning it. Follow the power cable from the back of your fridge to the outlet where it’s plugged in, and pull the plug.^{[7]
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Research source} If you leave the fridge plugged in as you clean, you’ll find that your next electric bill is extremely high!

Tip: Some newer models of refrigerator have an “off” button. If yours does, you can just turn the fridge off rather than unplugging it.
2
Remove all of the food items from your fridge.^{[8]
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Expert Source

Heather Isenberg
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 27 August 2019.} Go through every storage area within your fridge—shelves, drawers, and door bins—and pull out all of the organic food items.^{[9]
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Expert Source

James Sears
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 28 August 2019.} Look closely at the food and, if anything is spoiled, rotten, or emitting a bad smell, throw it into the garbage. In most cases, bad smells in your fridge are caused by spoiled foods.^{[10]
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Trustworthy Source
Consumer Reports
Nonprofit organization dedicated to consumer advocacy and product testing
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- Try to start and finish the entire job within 4 hours. The USDA warns that food left out for over 4 hours may spoil or become unsafe to eat.
3
Place any food you choose to keep in a cooler while you work. Depending on the amount of food you store in your fridge—and how long it takes to scrub out—unspoiled food could be sitting out for quite some time. To avoid ruining good food, place it in a cooler while you’re cleaning the fridge. If you keep the lid shut, the refrigerated food will keep itself cold.^{[11]
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- Add ice to the cooler if it will be out for over 60 minutes. This will keep the food well preserved.
4
Scrub the fridge walls and floor with a mixture of baking soda and water.^{[12]
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Expert Source

James Sears
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 28 August 2019.} Dissolve 1 cup (128 g) of baking soda into 1 gallon (3.8 L) of warm water. Dip an ordinary dish sponge into this mixture, lightly wring it out, and scrub out the interior of the fridge. Wash the fridge walls, ceiling, and bottom. Take the time to soak, scrub, and remove any lingering food stains.^{[13]
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Trustworthy Source
Consumer Reports
Nonprofit organization dedicated to consumer advocacy and product testing
Go to source}
- If the mixture loses its potency or the sink fills up with food bits, throw out the batch and mix up a new one.
- You can also use a solution that's equal parts vinegar and water to clean the inside of your fridge.^{[14]
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  Expert Source
  
  Heather Isenberg
  House Cleaning Professional
  Expert Interview. 27 August 2019.}
5
Take out and wash all shelves, bins, and other removable parts.^{[15]
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Expert Source

Heather Isenberg
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 27 August 2019.} Remove all of the components of the fridge that aren’t attached to the walls, including the vegetable drawers and the shelves themselves. Wash and rinse all of the parts with your baking soda mixture before thoroughly drying and reinstalling them.^{[16]
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Expert Source

James Sears
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 28 August 2019.}
- Also be sure to look underneath the vegetable bins. Sometimes bits of food and old water can accumulate beneath the bins and create a foul smell.
- Avoid using the scrubbing side of a sponge on glass or plastic since it may leave scratches.^{[17]
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  Expert Source
  
  Heather Isenberg
  House Cleaning Professional
  Expert Interview. 27 August 2019.}
6
Clean any food scraps from the drip pan under the fridge. The drip pan is a thin plastic tray that clips into place beneath the bottom of the refrigerator. Remove the drip pan from beneath the doors, carefully pull it out and dump the contents. Then, dip your sponge into the baking soda mixture and scrub any food stains off of the drip pan before reinstalling it.^{[18]
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- Not all refrigerator models have a drip pan. If yours doesn’t, you can skip this step. Do take the time to scrub the bottom of the fridge, though.

Method 3

Method 3 of 3:

Preventing Bad Smells

1
Toss expired food weekly to prevent bad smells from accumulating.^{[19]
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Expert Source

James Sears
House Cleaning Professional
Expert Interview. 28 August 2019.} To prevent odors in the future, make a point to look in your fridge once a week or so and remove expired food. This preventative measure will keep foul smells from building up in the first place. It’s much easier to prevent bad odors in your fridge than it is to eliminate them.
- Try looking right before you take out the trash. That way, you’ll be able to get the spoiled, smelly food out of your home as soon as you’ve noticed it.
2
Store fresh foods where they’re visible so they don’t spoil unnoticed. Fresh items like fruits and vegetables can easily go bad without your noticing if they’re tucked away in a seldom-opened veggie drawer or the back of a bottom shelf. Prevent this by storing them in a location where you’ll be able to see them daily. Then, if you notice any fresh foods starting to look a little past their prime, dispose of them immediately.^{[20]
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- For example, keep meat at the front of the top shelf, and keep fruits and veggies on a lower shelf where they’re easily visible.
3
Set the temperature in your fridge between 35–38 °F (2–3 °C). When kept in this temperature range, food will keep without going bad. Since it’s only when food spoils that it begins to smell, you’ll keep your fridge smelling fresh and clean as long as the temperature remains in this range. If the temperature in your fridge rises above 40 °F (4 °C), bacteria will begin to grow and the food will begin to smell.^{[21]
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- Were you to set the fridge temperature to 32 °F (0 °C) or lower, of course, the food would freeze.
4
Keep leftover food in airtight containers to prevent it from smelling. If you leave food uncovered in your fridge or leave it in, for example, a cardboard takeout box, it’ll go bad quickly. The sooner food goes bad, the sooner it’ll begin to stink up your fridge. By keeping leftovers in a sealed airtight container, you’ll help them last longer and prevent foul smells.^{[22]
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- As an extra measure to keep food from spoiling in your fridge, label and date leftovers when you store them. Tear off a piece of masking tape and stick it on top of the airtight container and write, for example, “February 14; chicken parmesan.”

Community Q&A
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Question

Do I need to turn off my fridge when getting rid of bad smells from it?

wikiHow Staff Editor
Staff Answer
This answer was written by one of our trained team of researchers who validated it for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

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Staff Answer

Support wikiHow by unlocking this staff-researched answer.

Yes, you'll need to remove all of the food and turn off the fridge. You can keep the food in another fridge or in a cooler during this time.
Question

I cleaned out drip pan and drain on my refrigerator but it still smells like something died in it. What can I do?

Community Answer

At the back of the fridge/freezer is the motor located at the base. Turn the power off and pull the appliance out. If it has a grill in front of the motor compartment, remove this and, with gloved hands, check all around the compartment. It could be a small four legged friend that has passed away or the remains of a nest.
Question

Do all refrigerators contain drip trays?

Mohsin Khan

Community Answer

Yes, mostly, but I noticed nowadays they assemble them on top of the compressor, so water evaporates by the heat generated there and it is rarely necessary to empty them.

Things You'll Need

Cooler
Ice
Baking soda
Warm tap water
Sponge
Coffee grounds
Cat litter
Apple cider vinegar
Activated charcoal
3–4 glass or metal bowls
2–3 baking sheets
Airtight containers
Pen
Masking tape

Warnings

Never clean a cold glass shelf with hot water. Either allow it to come to room temperature or use lukewarm water. A sudden temperature change can shatter the glass.

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Avoid using abrasive cleaning items (e.g., steel wool) to scrub refrigerator surfaces clean. These have the potential for scratching the refrigerator surfaces.

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