To feel frustrated with my freezer situation as a renter?

[Silentfriend]

I’ve been renting my place for a while, and for more than a few weeks now, my freezer has been malfunctioning. I turned it off and unplugged it, leaving the door open for 24h+, but it hasn’t defrosted properly, and the ice buildup is still significant.

On top of that, my cooker also packed up, and I haven’t had a working cooker for a week now.

I’ve tried several things:

• unplugging and leaving the door open for 24h+
• using warm water
• clearing the drain hole

Despite my efforts, it hasn’t improved, and I’m now left without a functioning freezer for weeks. I was hoping to sort this out myself before contacting the landlord.

AIBU to be frustrated? What should I do next?

so…..

are you now saying that’s BS?

It hasn’t been completely free of ice since this started.

I think 24 hours should be enough time for it to defrost, no? I could be wrong but most people say their freezer defrosts within mere hours.

Look, stop the pile-on. I’m trying to respond to the comments the best I can and I have a lot going on. Comments like this are not helpful.

Keep the fresh food in the fridge with the door closed and with any food from the freezer inside there too. You can wrap everything in a blanket if it's still cold.

Did you turn the freezer off to defrost it? If it wasn’t full defrosted but you then stopped defrosting it just because 24 hours had passed then that’s really your own fault. Turn it off and let it defrost fully, don’t call the landlord out to defrost it as all s/he will do is turn it off which you can do at home. Obviously if it’s still not working once defrosted and switched back on then at that point you need to call the landlord.

Thank you. I’ve been doing that with the fridge. I can’t get anything out of the freezer unfortunately. The trays won’t open, it’s completely frozen shut. The bottom tray opens partially but not enough at the moment to put anything in or take what’s in out

wtf?!

pile on?

Oh i hope what this LL knows he’s got himself into

Please read the comments. It is OFF and has been off for over 24hours now. I haven’t put it back on.

I am guessing this might be a fridge- freezer? Stacked? A freezer will only fully defrost if it’s turned off. If you are trying to keep the fridge going, then it sounds like the freezer is also still going🤷‍♀️ In which case, store as much of your fridge food as you can in the coldest place, find someone else to store items like meat, fish. Milk bottles can go in a container full of cold water, kept cold. With luck, you might get a FULLY defrosted freezer in a few hours. Help it along with containers of boiling water, and carefully chip away at ice blocks (use to help keep milk cold).

we have a great relationship actually, but thank you for your concern.

my “concern” is for you LL.

Not you! 😆

It is OFF. The fridge and freezer are connected. One switch puts them both off. The fridge is also off. It’s still cold and has food in it of course. It is OFF.

That’s good. Is the freezer door wide open?

Has it been completely free of ice at any point since you switched it off? If not, you haven’t left it switched off for long enough. If the problem is that you had it completely defrosted, but the ice built up again very quickly, then it’s probably a faulty thermostat (well, that’s what happened to ours) and will most definitely require a phone call to your landlord.

I'd read this reply again - because you just aren't being clear what the issue is.

Either you aren't defrosting properly ( a you issue) or issue is it's frosting up again as soon as it's put on (a landlord issue).

When we defrost the fridge freezer we empty the fridge and the freezer and turn off at plug - so no lights in there no sound clearly off and put hot boiling metal bowl in freezer bit - ice melts make a mess caught with towels. When it goes back on it doesn't immediately ice up unless the door isn't closed properly (teen issue here or could be door seal issue) or as PP said the a malfunction with the thermostat.

In that case it sounds like you just need to wait longer. If ice is inside a switched off freezer at room temperature then basic science says it will melt, it won’t stay frozen forever but if it is completely frozen over obviously it may take a while for the temperature to drop. If you need to speed it up then turn on the heating so the temperature in the kitchen is warmer.

Correct, the freezer door is wide open

You've kept it off for 24h with the door open and you still can't chip away enough ice to get the drawers open?

Keep trying. Just focus on that for now. The drawers and food inside will be prolonging the process. Then you can use the frozen food to keep the fridge cool.

Unfortunately there is no effortless way to do it unless you're lucky.

Okay, thank you. I’ll continue to leave it off

I don’t mean to sound like a negative Nancy but appliances aren’t always covered by the landlord. Read over your contract and. See what it says in regards to this.

Yeah, can’t chip any ice off at all. I’ll keep trying.

The poster you answered makes a good suggestion about placing something warm in the freezer to speed up the process. I use a couple of saucepans of hot water. Sometimes I use a hairdryer - well obviously I don’t put it IN the freezer but you know what I mean!

Our oven broke within the first 2 weeks of our tenancy last year. Called landlord at 4.30, he was at ours by 5 - assessed the issue, couldn't fix it, ordered a new oven there and then and offered to buy us a takeaway as it was a huge inconvenience! He's a top landlord and a breath of fresh air after the last dragon we had!!
We didn't accept a takeaway from him BTW, hob still worked and microwave and airfryer so we weren't stuck!
New oven in within 48 hours!

Sounds like you are doing right thing, but just not long enough. Whack the heating up, hairdryer safely on any bits of drawers you can reach. It will start to melt, so plenty of towels, containers to catch thaw. As you can, ease out drawers, remove food, into fridge area, then when you can, get hot water containers in there. Good luck.

Thank you but the trays won’t open so there isn’t anywhere to really put a saucepan with hot water

Have you tried warming a knife in a cup of hot water and then trying to slide it between where the ice meets the walls of the freezer? I find I can usually gently lever off large pieces of ice this way. You can also use a hairdryer to speed up the melting process, again focus on where the ice is attached to the freezer not on the outside of the ice as then it will fall off the door/ walls etc in chunks. Once you can remove the drawers and the frozen food you will probably find it defrosts quickly from there but it sounds like your freezer is one big ice block right now which is going to take time to defrost - when people say it only takes a few hours to defrost a freezer they probably mean when it is empty, they don’t mean when it is iced over to the extent you can’t open the drawers and empty it.