…to think this is unhygienic & potentially dangerous?

[TheStorySoFar]

First World Problem, so apologising in advance. We are moving house. New build..we are broke, owe ££ to workmen. It's (ob) a v bad time of year for having no spare cash & we need to move before I return to work from Mat Leave (in 3 weeks) or it'll be v v difficult to move at all. So no real option of waiting. We need a new fridge freezer. DH is set on gorgeous Siemens side by side larder fridge & freezer. Lots of £££££. He thinks we should be cobbling together money to buy a Siemens fridge & to move with no freezer OR use a freezer he can get through work. That we won't waste £ on a FF we don't want. The freezer he can get through work has been used to store dead rodents!!!!!!!! And he reckons it'll be fine if he cleans it out with plenty of scalding water & cleaning solutions. I'm saying no. We should buy a cheap combination FF & sell when we can afford our dream ones…..WWYD?

It'll be all right. My gerbil died when I was on holiday and my mum wrapped him well and froze him so I could give him a decent burial.

Oh, and what the others said about paying the workmen.

You OWE people MONEY.

You pay them first. Then you think about fridges.

Absolutely not. No. Yuk.
We bought a super little new freezer for less than £100 5 years ago, unfamiliar make, online. It did good service, and when we decided to get a bigger one, we sold the old one to a man in our village. He insisted on giving us £50, so it was a very good idea all round. Perhaps you could do something similar. But pleeeeeease don't have the ratty one in your house, that's absolutely gross.

We nearly killed a wildlife-mad colleague in our school staffroom. He'd put a bloody dead ADDER in our fridge, and when we went to get some milk for our tea, there sat this ghastly reptile on a shelf. He couldn't understand why we freaked out. "But it's only a snake, and it's dead after all..." He nearly ended up with his testicles on a plate on the next shelf down.

FFS the rats will have been vacuum packed, not stacked naked on the shelves. If you're concerned, bleach the fridge, you're not going to die of dead rat.

If they are ex lab rodents then they should be free of pathogens. The freezer may need a clean and airing to get rid of smells but you could have this problem with any freezer.

I agree with DH. I would always go without or manage with what we've got/can get rather than spend money on something that isn't what I really want. So, provided you're in agreement that the fancy freezer is ultimate the one you're going to have I'd either manage without a freezer for a bit or take the free one.

I really can't see why the rodents matter. As plenty of others have said, you'll be using it to store dead animals anyway.

Any yes, you must pay the workmen.

It should be fine. Can you trust DH to clean it or is he the type to give a quick wipe a damp cloth and declare it a job well done?

As others do I keep bits of dead animals in mine.

FWIW I had a boyfriend who put his live maggots for fishing in the fridge. Fridge was fine. BF was kicked to the kirb tho

I used to keep mice in the freezer for the snake. They're in packaging so don't touch the freezer. It's only meat. They're not wild mice...They're disease free and bred for the purpose of feeding reptiles. Just give the freezer a wash out with bleach and let it air dry with the door open (they do have a funny smell about them because of how they're killed but this will get rid of that.)

Re frozen rats, my children were most amused at the garden centre a few years back to see a freezer in the pet section full of 'Rat Weaners'. Cue much sniggering

I have frozen mice next to my peas. They're in sealed bags and I cook my frozen food before I eat it.

I have a snake who eats one mouse a week, he isn't having his own freezer and I've never thought twice about it. I also am still alive

My dh's family in Abidjan sometimes catch and eat rats when they can't bear plain rice any longer. Apparently they're quite tasty.

Sometimes I have dead rodents in my fridge. I even cook them.

They are rabbits.

I doubt they've been keeping plague rats running amok in the work freezer so as long as it gets a proper clean out - which you'd do with any second hand freezer anyway - I can't see the danger.

If it smells utterly rank and is in generally poor condition then I'd just buy a cheap fridge freezer that'll last you until you can afford the expensive jobby. Right now, if money is tight, I'd have thought poncy fridge freezers could wait a little while.

My biology teacher used to buy a tin of Roses at Christmas for us and put them in one of the buckets used to store dead catfish in formaldehyde for dissection.

He had very few takers. Probably saved him a fortune. I bet a tin of Roses used to last 10 years - especially when impregnated with lingering formaldehyde fumes

Rats are apparently the only creatures that can manufacture vitamin C within their own bodies.

It's perfectly ok to say you'd feel put off by the thought of it each time you used it. I think I'd hate it too. But there's no logical reason why not. As someone said it's just meat. We put dead animals in there all the time.

I currently have a box full of dead mice in my freezer for our snake

I say take the works freezer, give it a clean out and disinfect it. It won't be unhygienic or dangerous in the slightest.

Cats and dogs also make their own vit. C. That is why they don't rely on fruit as we do.

I have worked in places where we used freezers for rodents and I think he's a bit mad to even suggest it!

I haven't read all the posts so apologies if this is repetitive but the freezers that have held rodents do stink. You will never shift the smell. Plus I'm pretty sure there's regulations against him using that freezer for his own purposes, so he could be putting his job/company at risk due to Home Office regulations. They tend to be very strict about that sort of thing. Also, if this has been from a research laboratory, what have the rodents been subjected to prior to death? Chemicals, infectious agents, worms etc.?

Also bags generally used for storage of the rodents but bags leak. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. PLEASE DO NOT USE THIS TO STORE YOUR FAMILY FOOD!

Oh yes, AdoraBell, the fishing maggots. Lovely. My dad used to keep his in the fridge. Sometimes he'd make the holes in the lid too big, and the maggots would get out and in amongst the food. Other times the fridge wouldn't be turned down cold enough and they would hatch, resulting in an Amityville Horror effect when you opened the door.

We used to check our salads really thoroughly.

Use Freecycle. You could get a very good one.

This reminds me of when the dcs were little and one of our cats got run over. We lived next door to a pub and the landlord found the body of our poor little cat. We were just off on the school run so rather than deal with a sad situation then and there, the landlord suggested he "deal with" the body temporarily until I could get back to arrange a burial.

I must confess that I was more than a little taken aback to return, go into the pub and discover that his version of "dealing with things" had been to put the cat in a freezer bag and stow it away in the freezer. Nestling up against all the rest of the frozen food used in the pub restaurant. Can't say I ever fancied eating there again.

So yes, while I still think that a good clean out will leave the fridge freezer in perfectly usable condition, I can understand a certain reluctance to take it.

But I would say that right now, expensive matching fridgery is the least of your priorities.

Who knew so many people work in places with freezers full of rodents.

Thk you all…have had some laughs reading through all your replies! The freezer in question may have had roadkill type rodents; it was used to store food for birds of prey & I have no idea how well wrapped the 'food' was. So need to clarify that..if it was well wrapped & doesn't smell I will most certainly be cleaning it well & using it as my garage freezer! No way would I turn that gift away. DH & I have reached an agreement & yes, we will def be paying our lovely workmen.

My dead, frozen rodents are stored in a sealed plastic box right next to our freezer food.

What do you think happens? The dead animals get out overnight and pee all over the frozen peas or something?