Cleaning This Overlooked Spot Can Make Your Fridge Last Longer

We must admit, cleaning and organizing the fridge is one of those tasks that we often leave on the back burner. Indeed, pulling forgotten, gooey red and green peppers from the bottom of our fridge's crisper drawer leaves us feeling a little sad. If only we would have made stuffed peppers as we thought we would! Seriously, though, cleaning all of the sticky remnants of food residue off of our fridge's surface isn't the only area that we should be thinking about. Thankfully, Epicurious has some go-to tricks to make the job easier, including tackling one shelf at a time, taking the drawers out for a good cleaning (definitely noting this), and not forgetting that the exterior needs a good wipe down as well.

It's true, cleaning the fridge can be a long weekend job, and according to Molly Maid, a deep clean should happen every three to four months. But these fridge parts aren't the only things that need cleaning: Keep reading to find out the often overlooked area of a fridge that so many people forget to clean. It may not be what you think, but it is essential nonetheless!

TikTok's self-proclaimed DIY Queen @southernescape has some critical advice for us when keeping our fridge coils clean (if you don't know, the coils are located in the back of the fridge). She says to her followers about this important part of the fridge: "Did you know you are supposed to clean these bad boys every six months, and whenever you don't, you are drastically reducing the lifespan of your appliance? Not to mention your electricity bill goes up because now your fridge has to work twice as hard." Who knew?

But before you get to cleaning your fridge's coils, there are a few steps that you must take. Bob Vila explains that the condenser coils are generally on the back of the fridge, just as DIY Queen mentioned, but they could also be underneath the refrigerator. In any case, you will want to unplug the appliance before you get started, and then you will use your vacuum to suck up any dirt that has taken hold of the coils. If your coils are underneath the fridge, you can vacuum and sweep up any debris with a broom. May we suggest using the other TikTok hack to quickly get up all that debris from your floors after you've thoroughly cleaned your fridge coils?