[Nhcoll-l] Cleaning a roadkill freezer

Wed Nov 21 10:57:34 EST 2018

We had a freezer full of freshwater mussels that failed, creating a tank of black, stinking fluid. We hosed it out, then used Lysol cleaner and dried it on the loading dock for about a week. Then we threw it out anyway, as the stink was intractable. 

PC

Paul Callomon
Collection Manager, Malacology and General Invertebrates

Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, Philadelphia
1900 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia PA 19103-1195, USA
callomon at ansp.org Tel 215-405-5096 - Fax 215-299-1170

-----Original Message-----
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of Dirk Neumann
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2018 10:49 AM
To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Cleaning a roadkill freezer

Hi Matthew,

we  had similar issues in our -25°C chamber; stepping onto the aluminium flooring when entering the rooms after clearing & thawing, the blood was coming up like in a bad horror movie. We cleaned thoroughly with detergent, ripped out the aluminium panels and treated the entire room and floor with a disinfectant that was rated for hospitals.

There is not only the smell, but for sure viruses and bacteria that can't be killed of that easily; as your freezer surely contained birds and mammals, disinfection is strongly recommended (even if you consider to trash it). Usually the smell is gone afterwards, too.

Hope this helps
Dirk

Am 21.11.2018 um 16:26 schrieb William Shepherd:
> Hello Matthew,
>
> 	I don't have much experience in getting rid of corpse smell from freezers but smells tend to get into everything. Bleach would probably help but when all is said and done you'll probably still smell it to some extent. If there are any fluids or left overs frozen to the freezer, cleaning that out will help too. My best recommendation for the smell would be to clean it well with soap, possibly give it a wipe down with bleach, and then put bowls or pans of baking soda in there for a while. The amount of baking soda will depend on the size of the freezer but you can't have too much. The flow through boxes may work too but you have limited surface area being exposed to the smell. The longer you leave the baking soda in there the better, but this may depend on how quickly you need to get the freezer back into use. In the conservation world baking soda is often used to remove or reduce smell from items with relative success.
>
> William Shepherd
> Collections Officer
> Swift Current Museum
> 44 Robert Street West
> Swift Current, Saskatchewan
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> On Behalf Of 
> Matthew Becker
> Sent: November 21, 2018 8:58 AM
> To: nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> Subject: [Nhcoll-l] Cleaning a roadkill freezer
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> We have a freezer where we store dead on recovery animals before sending them to our taxidermist to be mounted for exhibition and storage. We are in the process of the cleaning out this freezer as some of the dead animals at the bottom of the freezer are dated back to the 1990s!
> Getting rid of the old specimens isn't so much of a problem...the real problem is that at some point in the past the museum lost power and the roadkill freezer thawed leaving a horrible dead smell inside (beyond the regular dead smell from the animals).
>
> My question: Does anyone have recommendations for cleaning a roadkill freezer? My inclination is just to go at it with bleach, but if anyone has any better/less toxic suggestions I would very much appreciate it!
>
> Thank you.
>
> Matthew Becker
> Curator of Collections
> Museum of Natural History + Planetarium Roger Williams Park
> 1000 Elmwood Ave., Providence, RI 02907
> 401-680-7221
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