Something Dead Under Fridge??!! Help!!!

OK so it's not a typical parenting question but the smell in my kitchen is preventing me from taking care of my family and being the best Mom I can :). It started a few days ago and smells AWFUL. It seems to come and go a bit but is definately strongest around the fridge. We moved it and looked under, nothing. My husband thinks something could have crawled inside the casing but we can't tell and don't know what to do. Spring is exploding in CA right now, we live in a wooded area and the birds, bugs and mice are super active around our home but, until now, never inside. Finally, my daughter and her friend collected a bunch of salamanders a week or so ago and had them overnight in a bucket. In the morning one was missing and I assumed the cat got it. Now, you know where this is headed. If we do have a rodent, salamander or something else (yikes!) dead in there what do we do? Has this happened to anyone else?

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B.R. answers from Cleveland on April 28, 2010

I had a horrible smell in my kitchen once. It seemed to be most noticable around the sink. Finally I realized that there was a dead mouse in my garbage disposal! I had to put a glove on and pull it out GROSS!!! Is your fridge near your garbage disposal? LOL

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D.P. answers from Pittsburgh on April 28, 2010

We had a strong dead animal smell in our last house...it was definitely in the kitchen. We looked EVERYWHERE and could not find anything. It also seemed to come & go. Finally one day my husband looked UNDER the fridge..there was a dead mouse up on the coils...so it was up off the floor but when the fridge would kick on--smell! Gross but we were glad to finally find it.

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M.O. answers from Chicago on April 28, 2010

If there's no other way and you're sure it's the fridge you can call a fridge repair man, handman, etc. and have them take it apart for you.

Or the cheaper way is to call the company, explain the problem and see if they can send you an efile on how to remove any external parts you can to clean the inside yourself.

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A.M. answers from Indianapolis on April 28, 2010

This happened to me when I lived in Georgia- there was a horrible smell in the kitchen- it smelled like rotten chicken or something dead- after several miserable days, my dad suggested looking underneath the fridge for a pan that collects water- sure enough, I pulled it out and OMG! Bleh! It was horrible, there was all sorts of fuzzy mold and yucky stuff floating in the water- apparently the fan that is suppose to evaporate the water quit working so it just piled up and got gross- I dumped it out and soaked the pan in bleach for about an hour and then rinsed it off and put it back and no more stinky kitchen.

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