Ok guys, I know you guys are the experts with bad smelling stuff. Here’s the problem.
Went to Atlanta for a few days and had a friend stop over to check on my incubator in my garage. He calls me up and said my garage smelled like butt. Well my freezer on top the beer fridge had the door wide open and all the fish and raw shrimp was thawed out and juice ran all the way across the floor. He closed the door and refrozen it. Today I threw everything out and scrubbed the thing out from top to bottom with soap, vinigar, and Clorox. The thing still stinks bad and I don’t think I can put a beer back in it without gagging. Right now it’s sitting out on the patio with doors open.
So who’s got some kind of concoction that will get the smell out.

Freezers are cheap. Put that one at the end of the driveway with a ‘free’ sign beside it and buy a new one.

Baking soda works wonders

Hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. The same mix to get rid of skunk smell.

Baking soda product from your local walmart would help.

Unless your time isn't worth anything, cut your losses and get a new one.

WS

You can never get it like new. Will always have that little faint smell.

Set a jar open of back breaker on top of the freezer and I bet you won't notice the fish smell

I have several chest freezer that the breaker threw and the meat rotted to where the owners could smell it. They gave them to me. I cleaned them out took them home and filled with water adding 2 - 3 gallons of bleach. Let them set for a 4 or 5 days, siphon the water out, wash them out and start using them. Two months after you will not smell any thing when you open them. If it is an upright, after you set them up don't start them for a day.

TrapperKent

My friend, Rick, had most of an elk in a freezer, when a puppy pulled the cord from the wall and chewed it. Probably a few days later he noticed a terrible smell. He ducktaped the freezer shut really well and hauled it all to the curb. The freezer still disappeared, rotten elk and all.

Keith

steel isnt too porous..its not impossible to deoderize one!! Had them get bad meat before in power lapses. baking soda or bleach water as stated.

Most of it depends on how the fridge is made. Most have various panels that can be removed inside and all those have to come out, the goo scrubbed out, the insulation cleaned up, the fan motors removed and cleaned out, the drains and vents washed out etc. I have done 3. Today i would just junk them. The last one I did 9 years ago and it took a full day to clean it out good. It still smelled a little a year later.

You have done the work. Let it set out in the sun. Nature has a way of disinfecting things! If you have to have one right away, go buy another, but letting it set with the doors wide open for a month or two will do wonders for it, and won't cost you anything but time!

you all woulda told me to take a bath if i posted that.

Scrub with dawn soap power wash if needed all of my trapping freezers stink it goes with the job, wear gloves as that rot can give you health issues if it gets in a cut or splashes in your face.

but thats You!!!

Ok I had the exact thing happen . The odor is coming from the defrost pan underneath. Pull the front off the fridge and pour Clorox bleach in the pan. Wipe it out first if you can reach it. Just bend down and sniff the front you will tell real fast if that's the source.

bleach will be your friend! 1/8 cup to a gallon of water

Get an Ozone machine. You can often rent them for a day. They are made for this kind of stuff. Often used when a body is found in a house after a few days. If you have any kind of tool rental place, ask for one. They will know what you are talking about.

Not the same thing you have had going on but, I thought that if I put a skunk I trapped in a bag I could freeze it and everything would be fine. That didn't work so the whole freezer and fridge reeked. I tried the same things that you did and a lot of the things that some of the others suggested. What ended up working was exactly what you are doing now, I placed it outside with the doors off (we were moving, and I didn't have time to haul it off to the dump). When I got around to hauling it away I noticed that the smell was completely gone.