Came home after a weekend away, and there was the most unbelieveable
stench in the house, like something had died, and it would have had
to be something substantial at that. Oh damn, forgot to empty the
kitchen bin, I thought, which had the remains of a piece of roast
pork from Wednesday or Thursday last week. Tackled the bin, but it
didn't really smell that much at all, and I didn't think it was the
source of the pong. Smell showed no sign of going, and it was very
difficult to tell where it was coming from -- it had reached into
every corner of the house. Started going through the kitchen,
looking for something that had gone off, or some bowl or pan which
had been put away accidently with food in it, but nothing.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, smell was coming from the fridge,
but not inside the fridge. Pulled out the fridge, and then realised
what had happened. I had put the pork on the carving board, on top
of the fridge, which serves as an extra bit of worktop. The juice
from the meat had overflowed the well in the carving board and
spilled onto the fridge, which I had cleaned up. What I hadn't
noticed is that a significant amount had run to the back of the
worktop and spilled down the rear of the fridge. There it had
mostly been caught by the condensate collection tray on top of
the compressor, where it had mixed with condensate draining out
of the fridge, and then sat at probably the ideal bug breeding
temperature all weekend, and boy, did the bugs breed ;-)
However, the stink was also coming from the trail down the back
of the fridge, behind the hot condensor, which made cleaning it
off extremely difficult. Hopefully, it's all gone now, at last.

--
Andrew Gabriel