I feel a little guilty asking again about machine oil smell from appliances.. Well, here goes.

I rent an apartment which supplies a relatively new fridge (2009 maybe). But it has received knocks and shaking as it has been moved around quite a bit. I've recently noticed a faint machine oil smell that accompanies the vented air coming from the fridge. It's no big deal initially, but after some time, it seems to pervade the apartment, or at least I notice it everywhere. Then the scratchy throat sets in. Harumph.

The fridge is an Eletrolux P/N 241857201. I opened the back and there is a warm compressor, a fan, and coils. There isn't much label information except on the compressor: Embraco EM2Z 60HLT. There's lots of technical data online, much of which I can't interpret, and I'm not sure if it would help to troubleshoot the smell anyway (http://www.embraco.com/default.aspx?...at=9&idfam=18). From a simple visual inspection, there doesn't seem to oil leaking either out of the fan bearings or the compressor.

Is it unusual to have a faint machine oil smell coming from the output vent air of a fridge? If so, I should just get over it and get use to the harumphing. If not, would the cause typically be the fan or the compressor? I'm not sure if it would necessarily be a leak that causes this, but if there was a small or slow leak, where would the best place be to check?