We went on vacation and my dh accidentally unplugged our freezer with half a cow in it. We put the freezer outside but the basement still smells like raw rotten meat. Any suggestions on how to eliminate the smell from my basement and the freezer befor i put it back in my house???
I'm not sure if this is an option but can you open windows in your basement to air it out? If not you can always try an odor neutralizer like Febreeze Air Effects.
Vinegar will help you get the smell out. Put a shllow pan, like a glass 13x9x2 in the smelly area and fill it with vinigar. Same in your freezer. It will take a few days.
For your freezer get a large box of Arm & Hammer baking soda and put it in the freezer. For the basement Try using white viniger and water then spray Fabreez in th ebasement. This may help.
Good Luck
First off, L., I can feel your pain!!! This past year one of the kids left the freezer door open and almost all the food in it got ruined. Ours was cheaper food than yours as most of it was salmon dh and the boys had caught.
Our basement and freezer smelled horrible!
We have an upright and ended up pulling it out, laying it on its side and draining the drain tray that was underneath the freezer. It was unable to be reached any other way. While we feared it might ruin the freezer, this was what the repair man suggested. Besides, we knew we couldn't live with the stench so if it wasn't fixable we'd be out a freezer!!!
We used baking soda to totally clean the interior, even letting some go down the inside where the drain is.
When we laid it on it's side we were grossed out (even strong, deer hunting dh) by the smell of the tray. We took it off, bleached it, ended up having to thoroughly clean the basement floor and actually we then unattached the drain hose to run into a bucket. We figured if anything freakish like this happens again we will have access to the drain this way, without having to disassemble the freezer.
Once put back together, with a cleaned basement floor, we were good to go and I was doing a serious happy dance!!! Praising God for that creative solution (who in their right mind would actually lay a freezer on it's side?) Since then, we often have the kids go back to the freezeer to make sure it's shut after they have gotten food out. Or else we have someone else go double check that it's clossed. We've also trained them that when they're near it (just walking by even) to give it a push to make sure it's shut all the way!!! Best of luck, perhaps this might help.
I recommend Ozium, if you can find it. It's in a small aerosol can, about the diameter of a quarter and only about 5" tall. It was the only thing I could find to get the smell of vomit out of my husbands car. Good luck!
My friend Carol Jackson has the solution for you.
Her contact information is located on her website:
http://www.carnico.net
She's helped me solve some odor issues in the past (urine and smoke). Her products work great - they are guaranteed to eliminate the ordor. Plus they are safe to use!
No sure if you got this advice yet or not, but you can always mix equal parts of vinegar and water, put it in a spray bottle and spray the entire basement. Make sure that there are not "raw meat juices" spilled anywhere, also.
I don't know what to tell you about the basement. As for the freezer I do have one suggestion. This will sound weird, but worth the try. I had Tupperware that had a VERY strong garlic smell. Tupperware is too $$$ to just toss out. This suggestion was made to me and WORKED!!! Bunch up newspaper and fill the freezer with it and close the door. In a couple of days repeat the process with NEW newspapers. Repeat as necessary. For the Tupperware it took a week and I had changed the paper 2 or 3 times. Smelled like new. Something about the paper, I don't know why, but it absorbs smells.
Ladies, often our plastic storage containers to smell odd after we have stored broccoli or cabbage, etc. This is specially true if we have kept it a little too long. This newspaper trick works on those smells as well.
Ack! Yuck!! What an expensive mistake! That is so depressing.
Is the basement floor unsealed concrete? That will hold smells in a way that is really frightful... You may need to seal it. Try cleaning it with a strong vinegar solution first.
The freeze is holding the odor in the insulation, so washing the chest itself is a waste of time (for odor problems). Try *filling* the chest with crumpled up newspaper (the dry, absorbant paper, not shiny slick flyer paper), and leave it closed for a week or two. There are also dry-air deodorizers that do pretty much the same thing -- they absorb moisture and hold the odor -- that are available at hardware stores.
For the freezer: a mild bleach solution. (And any other hard, non-porous surfaces in the basement)
For other surfaces: Something like Febreeze. (Might take a couple of applications)
When I was a kid our freeze got unplugged and my mom put charcoal in the freeze to suck up the smell.I beleive she also put boxes of baking soda in there too.
Clean freezer with soapy bleach water, then put a box of baking soda Basement try spraying area with lysol spray
you could also try a candle they have that gets rid of smoke smell after a fire or just smoke, works on smoke, i see no reason won't work for rotten meat odar....
