Something stinks around here!

And boy does it stink! As many of you know, we were on vacation for a week. We came home last night. As we pull into the driveway I instruct the kiddos to put all their trash into our trash bin outside and to be sure to take the rest of their stuff into the house. We open the van doors and smell an AWEFUL stink in our driveway. We had a friend come feed Connor's fish and Courtney's turtles and also had her take our trash out to the curb while we were gone. Ugh! She must have forgotten to take the trash to the curb. NOPE! The bin was empty. We then thought the smell was coming from inside the house. We enter our home and the smell was faint but still, there was a smell. Courtney's turtles??? NOPE! The turtle cage doesn't stink. Patrick checks the backyard...nothing. Then it hits him, the freezer in our storage room outside. He opens the door and the smell is so bad that we all start gagging! Someone had bumped the freezer cord and the plug came out of the outlet just enough for it to not get any electricity. The freezer had been unplugged for days (maybe all week). The smell was so bad I was afraid the neighbors would start thinking we had a dead body decomposing in our yard and would call the police. I told Patrick we needed to clean the freezer out quick. And by WE, I meant HIM! So, off to the store he goes to buy lawn and garden bags and rubber gloves. He doubled up the bags and emptied the rotten contents into it. We had pounds of hamburger, a ton of chicken, a turkey, boxes of popsicles, frozen veggies and juice in the freezer. There was meat juice from the various meats all over the storage room floor. The same storage room that holds all of our holiday decorations and a few keepsakes like the cradle that my kids and many of their cousins used as newborns. Patrick hosed out the freezer and emptied out part of the shed. How did he do this when the smell was so bad? He tied a bandana around his nose with a fresh dryer sheet inside the bandana. We let the storage room air out all night and this morning I washed out the freezer with bleach and Dawn dishsoap (I didn't need the dryer sheet and bandana combo now that it was able to air out a bit). The next step is to wipe down the insides again, this time with Clorox wipes. Then we need to put bowls of cat litter in the freezer and storage room for a few days to absorb the oder. If you don't believe me on how bad the smell was, just ask my brother, he got to experience it too!

The freezer is now clean but still smells!

Oh, and as far as our vacation goes....It was a blast!!! I'll post more on that soon!