Golmer's Blog

So the day started out pretty well. I had finally gotten the permits to start working on my basement, so I went down stairs, marked out the locations I wanted to put outlets and light switches, counted them up, and off to Home Depot I went to get the outlet boxes, outlets, and light switches. (I already have the wire, and I already put up all of the wall studs). 

So anyway, In addition to having to go to Heaum Depeaux, I also had to help our local PTA association tear down after a book sell and auction at the local fairgrounds. But first, I had to drop off all of the stuff I bought by the house (I also bought other stuff as well).

When I walked in the door, I smelled something that was sort of “off.” I thought maybe it was something in the refrigerator. I looked, but couldn’t find a culprit. I also couldn’t find an obvious culprit in the trash can, or the food scrap bowl, etc. But I didn’t have time to look anymore, because I had to go to the fairgrounds.

So anyway, I got home from the fairgrounds and decided to start putting up outlets. I put one of my drill’s batteries on the charger (which happened to be on top of the chest freezer in the basement) and noticed that the light didn’t come on. Further, the light on the power strip it was attached to was not on. Further, the FREEZER is attached to the same outlet. It is one of those GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupt) that has a little “test” and a little “Reset” switch on it. It was tripped offline. I can only assume that I had pressed the “test” switch the last time I unplugged an extension cord from the outlet. 

It is amazing what accumulates in a chest freezer over time. It really is. For instance, Meat. We had lots of fish, squid (both calamari and fish bait), worms, pork chops, beef patties, ribs, sausage, pulled pork and chicken, barbecue, two turkeys, and lots of chicken too. We had pre-packaged meals, TV dinners, ice cream, ice cream sandwiches, cookie dough, lots of bread, frozen pizzas, and several types of pies.

And every single bit of it had gone bad. Really, really bad. Especially the fish and squid. And it greeted me full-force when I opened the freezer door. There was a full 3 inches of “effluent” at the bottom of the freezer - drainage from said meat and fish and pies, etc. 

I vomited the first time when trying to open the basement windows.

I thought about dragging the thing outside with the tractor, but that really didn’t seem like a good option, given I’d slosh goo all over the place trying to do so. I couldn’t really just throw everything outside (with plastic bags, tin foil, etc.) so I had to separate the rotten food from the garbage part. Which meant getting down and dirty with the content. 

So I started on the left end, where the worst offenders (fish and squid and bait) used to live. I got a 5 gallon bucket and started lifting the bags and putting them in it. That is when I vomited for the second time. I actually had to go upstairs, find the Vic’s Vapo-rub, and smear it all under my nose, which helped. I eventually got an entire 5 gallon bucket of rotten fish and squid outside and took it down the hill so I could dispose of it. It was still in bags, so not so bad on the trip down. The trouble started when I cracked the seal on the first bag (a bag full of bait squid that probably didn’t smell too good before it was even frozen). I really am incapable of describing the smell. Suffice to say that once I cracked the seal, the only thing I was capable of was retching - followed quickly by trying to get far enough away to actually breathe. That proved to be difficult - there was about a 30 foot kill zone of stench. I tried holding my breath and running over and opening the rest of the bags and dumping them and that actually worked for a few minutes, but I just couldn’t, in the end, empty them all. But there were only two or three ziplocks full in the end, so I didn’t feel too bad. 

The rest of the freezer was relatively mild, in comparison. I hooked a utility trailer up to my 4-wheeler and used the 5 gallon bucket to transport the rot-sodden packaging out to the trailer. By this time my nose started not being capable of smelling anymore, so it was really just a matter of doing the drudge work. I drove the mess down to the bottom of the hill and separated the food from all of the packaging. (You’d be amazed, btw, of how much pressure a ButterBall turkey package can actually hold. You’d also be amazed how far it can fly behind a jet of rotten turkey blood powered gas when said package is ruptured.) I put it near where the foxes live, so they should be fat and happy for a while.

I then dragged the trash back up the hill, set up the water hose, and washed all of the garbage out so I could bag it for disposal. (If I didn’t wash the trash, the trash can would have been unbearable by garbage day.) I then went back inside the basement and, using the 5 gallon bucket and a piece of tupperware, scooped a little over 5 gallons of the effluent out of the bottom of the freezer, repeatedly refilling it with fresh water and detergent to clean out the remainder. That was followed up by healthy doses of bleach wipe downs to clean the mess up.

It took about 3 hours total. I walked outside and the vultures were actually circling our property - zeroing in on the rotten fish.

But that isn’t the whole story, you see.  While I was cleaning out the goo in the basement, I noticed (primarily because the windows were open) that the upstairs heat pump condenser unit wasn’t making the noises it normally makes. It was buzzing, humming, cycling on and off, squealing, etc. My wife said it had gotten really cold right before that and then stopped getting cold at all.

The inside unit was running full-bore, but the outside unit wasn’t doing jack. And walking up to it, you could actually smell the hot, burning plastic kind of smell that means something is really wrong. So, I disassembled it to look for the culprit(s). The first indication something was wrong was that the fan motor (that pulls air through the coils) was so hot I couldn’t even touch the side of it. The metal around it was really hot as well. Now this is a motor that requires a capacitor to start it, so conceivably the start capacitor could have gone bad, but the motor is what stunk, not the capacitor (which is in a different location) so a good bet is that at the very least the motor is damaged in any regard based on the smell and heat. 

So I found the part number and went online and ordered a motor and a start capacitor for it. It may get here by Tuesday or Wednesday. I can only hope that is the only problem - I shudder to think what the cost will be if something is wrong with the actual compressor. The unit is from 1994 - they don’t even really repair those anymore - the refrigerant has changed since then and the entire unit (both the condenser and the indoor coil) would have to be replaced. 

Oh, and my hands STILL smell like rotten squid, even after about 20 washes, with orange cleaner pumice soap, hand sanitizer, antibacterial soap, bleach, dial soap, and even Listerine mouthwash. 

Oh, and the scariest thing of all: The beef patties. The beef patties were in a cardboard box that was sitting in the effluent at the bottom of the freezer. They were “100% beef” but that can’t be right, can it? I mean they were formerly frozen ground beef, sitting in rot-water for a couple of weeks at least - and yet they looked like they had just been thawed out prior to cooking. They were red, of good consistency, intact, and relatively scent-free. I think we may have discovered a new kind of antibiotic that could thwart super-bugs.