In which I gross you out

Would you like to see how how bad things can get if you don't vacuum the coils on your fridge regularly?

Regularly, btw, means twice a year if you don't have any pets and your home is not very dusty.

If you have pets and dust, it means every 2 months. At least.

Keep your fridge compressors running smoothly and efficiently by cleaning off the dust bunnies or puppies or kitties. You do not want your coils looking like this:

Eeeeeeeeeew. Bad, bad, bad.

Bad for the pocketbook as it causes the fridge to run inefficiently and use more electricity. Doubly bad for the pocketbook if it causes the fridge compressor to prematurely wear out.

So, if you haven't vacuumed your fridge coils recently, or if you're not even sure you have fridge coils, your assignment this week is to find them and clean them.

They're either at the back or on the bottom of the fridge. If they're at the back, you need to pull the fridge out. You can protect the floor with some cardboard from a cereal box & roll the fridge out. If the back of your fridge is completely smooth, the coils are on the bottom and you will need to pop off the decorative grill at the bottom to get at them. Some people say you should unplug the fridge before proceeding. If you do so, put the plug in your pocket so you don't forget to plug it back in. Use a powerful vacuum, preferably with a crevice nozzle. You may need some skinny stick things like rulers or your kids' paint brushes to poke around and loosen the stuff in areas where the vacuum can't quite reach and to give the vacuum a bit of help. If you keep the vacuum running and pointed in the right direction while you poke around, most of the dirt will just fly into the vacuum.

That's it. All that's left is to write down on the calendar when it's time to do it again - so your fridge doesn't suffer like mine!