A little while ago Mark and I noticed that we had a terrible gnat problem in our kitchen pantry. It was really getting bad and I had checked everything I knew to check. We finally decided that we needed to take everything out of the pantry, wipe down the shelves, and mop the floor to get rid of whatever must have been attracting the gnats.
About the fourth shelf down we found the culprit. Someone (we still do not know who) had opened up a “Healthy Choice” single serving soup container. They ate half of it, put the lid back on it, and put it back in the pantry! Of course, I wasn’t able to find it because I thought the soup container was unopened. Let me tell you the gnats found it! Nasty is all I’ll say!
Anyway, once everything was out of the pantry, Mark decided to add a couple more shelves….bless his heart. Here’s a visual of the project…(don’t you just love my ugly wallpaper on the inside of the pantry? I wallpapered our kitchen years ago but left the pantry as is….I’m the only one who sees it…except when I show the world on my blog!)
Sometimes you just gotta make a mess to clean things up!
Do you have a “what’s that smell?” or “where are these gnats coming from?” story to share?
I'm cleaning out my pantry today, too, so I laughed when I saw the contents of your pantry sitting on the table! I'm going one shelf at a time, though, so as to not bite off more than I can chew.
I think your kitchen is so cute! And I kinda like your pantry wallpaper. It reminds me of my family's kitchen when I was growing up (early 70's). 🙂
Nancy
I have had times where something like a freezer door getting left open leaves a mess and forces me to clean out the freezer – which I was needing to do anyway. Or this summer our basement flooded and that forced us to clean up. It's too bad it takes messes like those to motivate me to clean up, but at least it gets done then.
When we first moved to MN, my husband suggested we move our soda (pop) cans that we store in the garage, outside before the frozee. I heard him, but didn't think much of it…until one day it got really cold….I mean REALLY cold, and the soda exploded all over our new garage walls. Yuck! Needless to say, we (I) spent some time cleaning up.
Two things come to mind when I think of finding things in my cabinet or fridge. One was a rotten potato a few years ago that I found on the bottom shelf of my pantry. Couldn't figure out what the foul smell was and when I looked down there, I found the source! Yuck! Then just this week I took the milk out of the fridge to pour on my cereal and wondered why the bottom of the jug was all creamy. Looked in the gridge and found out that the creamer for my coffee had spilled and got all over the other shelf. What a mess to clean up! It's always something, isn't it???
Debbie Goumas
Yes, it's always something, Debbie!
Jess, we've had that happen before!
Okay, so it wasn't the pantry, but… Not long after my husband and I were married, we were enjoying a rare day at home. Every time I walked into the kitchen that day, I smelled a "rotten" smell. I mentioned it to him each time I smelled it. I emptied the trash. Finally, I decided it must have been a vegetable gone bad in the refrigerator and began to empty the veggie bin and clean out the 'fridge. Feeling bad for my being unnecessarily burdened with this work, my husband sheepishly admitted that he had been "gassy" in the kitchen several times, and every time I'd walked in right after! (Haha…hope that is not too nasty to share!) And, by the way, I found wallpaper very similar to your pantry's in my bathroom behind some cupboards we removed! Whoo! 🙂
My husband is the KING of putting things away! I am the QUEEN of NOT putting things away. I had made lasagna and shoved all the waste back into a lasagna box to throw away, trying to consolidate my trips to the trash. Little did I know, my husband, the ever faithful cleaner-upper came behind me and put it back in the cabinet, thinking there were noodles in the box! I could not figure out for a couple weeks where the INFESTATION of moths were coming from! Finally, I lost it and decided if I DIED finding those stinkin' moths, it'd be the last thing I did! I invaded the kitchen from TOP TO BOTTOM and FINALLY that silly lasagna box, from which the moths were flying free! We had a good laugh about my husband's putting-things-away ways–even a box of waste back in the cupboard!
Hey Jill- here's my "whats that smell" story- a few months ago I made shakers with the girls using water bottles. Well since I didn't have any rice in the house- I used some pinto beans that I had in the pantry- we don't eat them anyways so I figured this was a PERFECT way to use them up. All was well- the girls LOVED it! Then about a month later I was sitting on the couch and there was this RANCID smell- Enough to make you want to throw up- seriously! So I tore apart the couch to find the cause of the smell. Turns out the girls decided to fill their pinto bean shaker bottles with water as well- then they managed to get under a cushion of the couch- well the beans fermented or something and the bottle somewhat exploded and the nasty pinto bean water got all over the couch and on the floor. I could clean the floor up- but the couch wasn't so easy! Try putting some pinto beans in some water in a sealed bottle for a few weeks- and see what happens- you can call it a science experiment if you'd like! LOL SOOO nasty!
My story is from my Mom. We had a closet in our farm house where our winter coats were kept. Sometime in early summer we began to smell something foul coming from that closet. Mom cleaned, a few weeks later cleaned again, then pulled everything out and cleaned again. She did this numerous times during that summer and even into fall and just could NOT get rid of the awful smell. When cold weather returned, my sister (probably grade school age at that time) pulled out her winter coat for the first time, thrust her hands into her pockets, and found the culprit…. she had put her colored Easter egg in her coat pocket and it was still there so many months later, but quite rotten!!!!!
Cindy, that story made me laugh! Oh my goodness!
I love that saying, "Sometimes you just gotta make a mess to clean things up!" I think I'm gonna hang it up in my house somewhere. Its so true – not only for house clutter but also for relationship clutter, don't ya think? Sometimes you gotta unpack all those bags to get to the real problem, where the "stink" is coming from in a relationship. Anyway, I just think that is such a good little quote to keep in mind. Thanks for sharing your photos (and ugly wall paper). Refreshing and encouraging to see home photos that aren't totally designer. It's real. 🙂
When I was a kid we lived in a rental house. The first summer we lived there we notice a horrible smell in the living room (like someone forgot to let the dog out. My parents searched high and low for the smell. They put the couch cushions outside, they put the rug outside. But the smell remained. Finally they found the culprit. There was an enormous house plant in the living room that came with the house. It was a vine that spread all over one entire wall in the living room. In the summer it bloomed and the blossoms smelled so bad!! The problem was we couldn't get rid of it because it came with the rental house. But, at least we knew it was no one's fault!