A good time to clean the inside of your refrigerator is when you have the least amount of food in it. That won’t be during the holidays. So do it now. Stock a cooler with some ice. You’ll need this to temporarily hold some things you might have in the refrigerator while you clean it. You don’t want them to perish. These items will if you leave them in the fridge during cleaning. That’s because while you’re holding the door open to wipe down the inside, the refrigerator temperature will quickly drop. Real quickly (no matter how fast you think you clean)!

Remove any shelving from inside the refrigerator that detaches and wash it in the sink with hot water and dish soap. Dry it with a paper towel before putting it back. Tip: Pay attention when you’re removing these detachable shelves so that you know how to reinstall them.

While you have these detachable shelves and bins out of the fridge, wipe down the insides of your refrigerator. Work from the top downward. Use a soapy rag and then rinse it or wipe it with just a wet rag. If needed, dry it with paper towels.

Now turn up the dial on your refrigerator so it cools quicker. Put a thermometer inside so you can read the temperature. You can buy a thermometer that sets inside the refrigerator for as low as three dollars in the kitchen gadget section of stores.

When the refrigerator once again returns to the appropriate temperature inside, place the items you were temporarily storing in your ice chest back into your refrigerator. If you are in doubt about the well-being of any item, don’t take chances. That means if you think your cooler didn’t keep the item cold enough and the item remained out of the cold past a normal amount of time, trash it. Your health is most important. If you think the food item perished, don’t take chances with your health. Replacing a few food items is much cheaper than a case of food poisoning that puts you out of work for a couple days or sends you to the doctor.

Be sure to allot at least 30 minutes to clean your refrigerator on the inside thoroughly like this. If you wipe spills and clean crumbs from inside your fridge ongoing throughout the year, you won’t need to “deep clean” the refrigerator like this more than once or twice a year.

Looking for home organization products? Karen Porter offers organization store reviews and editor’s picks at http://www.organization-stores.com