Right before Thanksgiving, since I knew I'd need room for prep and leftovers. I try to clean mine out about once a week. Try. I usually manage every other week or so.
I actually cleaned out and scrubbed my fridge the other day before going to the grocery store. I was ill for some time and my husband had been grocery shopping for the necessities...so it was close to empty so I cleaned it all out, even going through the condiments. I then scrubbed it. It is amazing how something can get so icky inside.
Monday before shopping for Thanksgiving . . . and again yesterday when I discovered a bottle on the top shelf had tipped over and its contents were pooling under the veggie drawer.
I did mine yesterday and it had been longer than usual. Something was stinking in our kitchen. Thought it was the garbage as we had gone shopping and forgot to take it out before we left. Then thought maybe it was the fridge so I cleaned it out. It may have been a combination of all of this but I finally noticed it was the compost bowl and my dh took it out! :-)
I *try* to check the containers of leftovers once a week or so. Usually I manage every other week.
I usually wipe down the shelves as I do that - just with a damp papertowel. About once every other month or so, I take the shelves out and run them thru the dishwasher (glass shelf inserts makes it pretty easy).
dh is anal retentive when it comes to the fridge...every wed pm (trash pick up is thurs am) he goes thr and gets rid of any thing old. As for cleaning/scubbing...its been a while for that. But dh and i are pretty good..we don't buy a bunch of stuff every week..we just usually buy what we need so we don't have a fridge so full you have something hiding behind something else and making penicillin. Although right now with turkey day, our fridge is very very full.
Actually the main part of the fridge isn't the problem. Usually what happens is that I find something waaaaay in the back of the crisper drawer that got buried and that I missed on my weekly go round. And by the time I find it, it's usually begin to develop into a new life form.
well i go through my fridge weekly and get rid of left overs and stuff that's expired. but actually scrubbing the thing... well... i'll do that when i move out!
I wipe the front of the shelves and inside the door where stuff gets dripped weekly. Just looks nicer when opening. But the stuff that's farther in the back doesn't get checked very often. I'm also bad about the crisper drawer because I tend to buy more veggies than I can use up quickly and I have to toss stuff sometimes before I can eat it.
When did you last clean your fridge?
