Oh Help!! Fridge-Defrosting Emergency!!

[ForeverBlowingBubbles]

I hope someone can help me...
Yesterday I decided to defrost my little fridge-freezer as it badly needed doing. On mine, you just have to push in a button to defrost, which is on the bit where the light and the temp. dial is.
Usually it takes about 3 or 4 hours to completely defrost and when it's done, the button pops out again.
However, 25 hours after pushing in the button, it still hasn't popped out!
The frozen stuff that arrived in my Tesco delivery last night has all defrosted (there wasn't much anyway, and none of it was meat so not a major problem) but what do I do?! How can I get it to stop defrosting? All the ice has gone except for one tiny bit where I can't get to it to scrape it off. There's just a very slow drip every now and again into the bowl that I've put in there.
Does anyone know what I can do to sort this out?

Can you not unplug it to override the mechanism and then plug it back in and see if that switches it on? Sorry, not much help, but that is my approach to all things electrical that go wrong: switch them off and show them who is boss!

I'm not sure if I can reach the plug (at skirting board level behind it) or pull the fridge out to reach it![blulsh] But will go and have a try... back in a minute

Right. Managed to reach plug with DD's twirling baton but switching off and leaving for a few minutes, then switching on again had no effect unfortunately.

Thanks anyway

Has anyone got any more suggestions? Pretty please?

So this is an automatic, do-it-itself sort of freezer is it? I don't have experience of these - mine you have to switch off and catch the ice as it melts. Have you tried putting a bowl of boiling water in the bottom of the freezer to try and speed up the last bit of defrosting or would that upset the workings?

Yes it is, although it's fairly old. It has the tray underneath the freezer compartment, but that doesn't come out, instead it has a hole in one corner where all the melted ice runs through and you catch it in a bowl.

I'm also more used to the ones you mentioned as I have only had this a year or so.

I don't know whether it would cause any damage to but bowl of boiling water in there, but at this point, I'll try anything!

I've got to go to work at 11.45, but I'll be back this afternoon so will give it a try now and update later on.

Thanks again for all your help

DumbledoresGirl you are an absolute star!!

It worked, the button popped out again after just a few minutes, and everything's working just as it should be now.

Grateful thanks!!!

Feeling a bit silly for not having thought of it myself though

Hooray!!!!!! DG is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO clever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am glad it worked in the end.