Cold comfort to know our fridge was poisoning us

The first sign something was wrong was the listlessness with me feeling that I couldn’t be bothered to do anything. What’s new? herself thought. Then the irritability really set in. I would snap for the least thing. Actually, when I think about it, no wonder we didn’t notice these symptoms for some weeks. I was very tired and very, very grumpy. Situation normal.

Then there was the nausea that even a wee dram or few cans of lager couldn’t shift. Then the pains in my shoulders that were still there even if I had not had any drams or any pints at all the night before. Then Mrs X began to complain. We thought we were coming down with the bug. Wrapped ourselves in blankets, we sipped hot drinks as we snarled at each other – in a loving way, of course.

Somehow dragging myself off the sofa to make a sandwich, I opened the door of the fridge and immediately detected a sickening smell. Yet no smelly gugas was kept there. Maybe something had accidentally been left in there after its sell-by date. Probably cheese or milk or some of my mackerel fillets. Pooh, what a pong.

The butter tasted foul. That bug must have messed up my taste buds. Then my beloved and the brat complained their mornings rolls with butter were putrid. It all looked okay but smelled and tasted rank. It was probably my imagination but I began to think whatever had got to the butter had also got into the cans of lager. Oh heck.

The junior member of the household was despatched for more Lurpak and it too was off. Gosh, what were the chances of that, eh? Hold on, I thought. Something very weird is happening here. Despite putting my thinking cap on, and supping some lager just to stimulate the thought processes, I was baffled.

Herself then began to have palpitations. Hey, her heart went doolally when I first met her 30 years ago so her thumping chest was obviously down to old feelings of longing making an overdue return. Then she went red. Then pale. Then the shivering. And I felt nauseous and my head was sore and … well, I won’t go into any more detail in a family newspaper but extra supplies of Andrex were drafted in.

That was when we began to suspect our fridge. A series of carefully planned sniff tests confirmed it all and it became clear that gut-wrenching stench was there only when we opened the door – even when there was nothing in the fridge. So we turned for answers to that great encyclopedia in the sky that holds the answers to the most of life’s great questions. Google told us what we feared. A leak of a gas in a fridge called freon can give you all these symptoms – and more.

In fact, inhaling too much freon can be very serious. The line on one website that caused us concern was: “Cardiac arrhythmia (or heart flutters) is the most dangerous effect of freon gas and is responsible for most of the instant deaths following inhalation.” Er, what? A man who knows about these things confirmed the danger and that was undoubtedly what was making us ill – and grumpy.

The new fridge is here. No smell. Butter tastes lovely – as does the lager. Mrs X’s heart is still pumping wildly but that is not because of anything of a potentially-lethal nature silently lurking in our fridge. It’ll be because she has had a flash of me in my new summer shorts.

Now the serious bit. Leaking gas in a fridge can be very dangerous. Ours was not a very old one, probably three or four years old, so it can happen at any time. However, it is most likely to happen to older models. If there is an odd smell in there and it is not scabby old vegetables, get it checked.

I have just heard about a couple of lovely pensioners who are now also going to get a new fridge. Let’s call them Donald and Mary because those are not their names. Devoted Mary made Donald go to the doctor recently for a check-up because he was having to get up a lot during the night.

Donald assured the quack: “There’s nothing wrong with me because God takes care of me. You know something, doctor, when I go to the bathroom, the Almighty turns the light on and off for me.” Mary turned round with a face like thunder: “Wait a minute. I thought that was melted ice in the fridge. But the icebox is not broken. Don’t tell me you have …”