AIBU to be hacked off with spending the evening defrosting freezer?

[ThinWomansBrain]

GRR - it's newish, just over two years, supposed to auto defrost...
Fed up with having no idea what's in there, never able to fit anything in.
I've spent three hours defrosting it, putting bowls of boiling water in to loosen up the chunks of ice, keeping the cat who wants to help out of the way. Still not finished.
And it's not huge, externally 50cm wide and probably about the same height

I feel your pain. Ours doesn't have any way for the defrosted water to flow out so I have to scoop it out and then use towels to soak up the rest.

What speeds it up is aiming a fan heater at it or a hairdryer.

yes, there's a huge bath towel in there, now quite soggy
I stuck with bowls of boiling water & refreshing them every 10 minutes

At least it's cold, so some of the stuff is in thermal bags and will be fine to go back in (not bothering with the weird unlabelled bags).

I am definitely keeping a list or spreadsheet of what's in there this time.

Heating on, towels down, dehumidifier on, leave for a hour or so, job done!

Are you sure there isn't a drainage hole? Most unusual if there isn't!

Perhaps look out for any frost free freezers in the Christmas sales?

Never had a freezer with a drainage hole.

Hair dryer as above. Dries it nicely once defrosted too....

I use freezer defroster spray, works really quick.

Ooh, I've never heard of that.

<runs to Amazon>

Its from amazon, great stuff!

Or, if you've got a steam cleaner...

Those blue freezer mats are helpful too for keeping down the volume of ice that collects in the freezer. They don't stop it completely, but they do help, especially if you take them out and clean them periodically.
Don't ram stuff in from floor to ceiling - it needs a bit of circulating air to work properly.
Frost free freezers are wonderful IMHO.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.
I think @Wingedharpy has identified the problem - I threw quite a lot away, and removed lots of ice, but when I put the remainder of he food back in there was only just space to fit in the two half litre containers of soup that had set me off on the 'defrost the freezer' project in the first place, so there won't have been a lot of air circulation going on..
I'll look for the blue freezer mats when there's more space.

I now have a lovely neat spreadsheet, veg in one container and meat & fish in the other. Now to eat my way through it before I try and shove anything else in.
It looks as if I'll be working my way through a half salmon fillet this week.

Blue freezer mats are on their way😀

For future reference turn off, the use a hairdryer, carefully making sure it doesn’t go into the freezer and get wet. Takes me half an hour to defrost a normal size freezer from a fridge freezer