Have you ever pulled your cooker out?

[Sonolanona]

OK this is grim confession time.
We have a large range style cooker, that has a tiny gap either side to the kitchen work top.. maybe 3mm either side.
Yesterday the bastard cat got up there and puked his breakfast. Right over the gap.
Obviously I cleaned up and did my best to clean out the gap.
BUT it dawned on me that in 9 years we have never pulled the cooker out (it's a beast) and there is probably enough stuff in those gaps to do a nature programme !
I'm just wondering how grim it could possibly be, should we pull it out!!!

😂 I’m painting our kitchen atm, and as part of the prep decided to pull out the washing machine which has been in situ for 10 years…

🤢😱 among the inch thick grime / dust I found:

a Christmas chocolate (which I did not eat)
about £1 of change
a tiny tennis ball
a fruit: I think it might have been a kiwi at one time but 🤷‍♀️
a piece of (very) dried up beef
3 hair bobbles
several pieces of broken glass
a wooden fork

we also have a giant American style fridge, which cannot be moved; God know what is under / behind there 😱

My Mum’s cooker had a gap of 2cm on each side. She cut 2 strips of plastic the exact dimensions and kept them in the spaces. She slid them out at least once a week and washed them or if something fell down into the space she just slid out the strip to retrieve it.

We once had rats behind ours overnight. They dragged fruit from the fruit bowl and left the remains behind the range. Pulling the warming draw out was easier to access the back than pulling the whole cooker out. It was absolutely filthy, rat droppings, dessicated avocado, egg shells. Thankfully they never came back.

I have a built in oven now, but I used to pull my other one out every six weeks or so, when the kids were on school holidays, I'd send them to play centre for two days and blitz the house, windows, clean out cupboards ect and then we'd have the rest of the holidays to do stuff together. X

I never do it but my mil who is very fussy used to pull hers out every week and clean behind it. She also cleaned the oven after every use. Madness imo.