Hmm, I guess I just have a very full refrigerator all the time and things do get knocked over occasionally. I do clean it often but have always assumed I spilled something because I usually have.

This is fun. It is kind of like secret of the ooze.

:OD

Hehe. Dun dun daaa!! C'mon detective Dilly. :)

I wonder if it's a lubricant of some sort, leaking-out of the rollers in the drawer?

It KINDA looks like some roller-lubricants I've seen...
just a "sorta" wild guess....

Check your drawer channels for "goo", and any roller-wheels.

Faron

Faron, there could never be that much from just rollers...LOL! I have at diff. times also had a yellowish dried stuff under the drawers. I never gave it a ton of thought, just soaked it and did a little scraping and went on with the cleaning. ???????Curious!!!!!!! I don't have to clean mine that often, it's just me and I am pretty good about keeping it neat and tidy.

My theory is that it's from our containers that have been opened then put back into the fridge. Maybe some of the item gets out on the edges of the container, reacts with the humidity in the fridge and somehow condenses down into this goo.

I get it too, with various fridges I've had. Would be good to know what this is! (or maybe not!)

I'm trying sheesharee! I'm too tired right now to fully digest all the scientific stuff I keep coming across, and I keep getting distracted by beautiful photography of molds and fungi.

I thought I was on to something when I came across Bicosoecea (Cafeteria, Caecitellus) Fenchel & Patterson, 1988]

Tomorrow is another day.

Here is a link that might be useful: Beautiful Slime Mold Photography

Cafeteria is not a slime mold, it is in group Chromista, not Protozoa. And it is not nearly as beautiful, but there is a fun story behind its name:

"Genus of marine flagellates... As to the source of this name; it was prompted by a pink neon sign affixed to the wall of a hostelry in Roenbjerg (Denmark) which was illuminated just as the authors were about to give up on finding a good name for one of the most significant consumers in the world."

Here is a link that might be useful: Cafeteria - Encyclopedia of Life

shee- got it here too sometimes, but I always thought it was a spill from kids or DH. My shelves don't butt up against the sides of the fridge so it is entirely possible that a spill could happen without dripping on the side walls. Pickle juice comes to mind for one possibility.
Thats my story and I am stickin to it.

It sure doesn't seem like any mold or slime I have ever come across.ectoplasm maybe? LOL I think if it were a mold we would have mildew growing in there too?

Someone on the appliance forum will likely know what this is. Try posting over there and direct them to this thread. I refer to it as "frig goobers," remove it and move on.

I do remove it an move on. Would still be nice to know what it is since it's not spills from food.

I'll post there.

I have had what you guys are talking about at the bottom of the fridge, under the veggie/fruit bins. My unscientific guess was sugars from fruits and veggies that evaporate and react to the condensation and settle at the bottom of the fridge. I have to use a razor to (carefully) clean it. It's as good a guess as I can come up with (lol)
Monica

This reminds me of a classic thread on the laundry forum having to do with holes in T-shirts. I don't know if it still exists, but there were over a hundred posts spanning years with people trying to understand why holes would develop in even new shirts.

I think Monica may be onto something. Any science fairs coming up? this may be a good topic! LOL

I also think Monica has it right.

Anybody want to lick it to see if it's sweet?

Lick it? Uh, no thanks but the next time it happens I'll see if my dogs will eat it. JUST KIDDING!
Monica

Once my husband spilled a large container of raspberry vinaigrette in the fridge. He claimed that he wiped it all up. Next day I open the fridge and it had run down the sides and puddled under the veggie drawer. So, yes, he did wipe up what he noticed on the shelf but somehow didn't realize so much had run down the sides. He was genuinely surprised when I had to pull out all the shelves & drawers to clean it. And yes, I did it myself, to get it done right instead of having him do it.

To this day I can't eat raspberry vinaigrette.

This sounds like the same Goo I have dripping from the bottom of my refrigerator. Nothing on the inside though. It is a 2 year old Electrolux freezer on top.

My thought is that maybe the compressor/condensor is getting to hot and melting insulation. The goo really resembles the insulation in liquid form.

As to it being in your refrig, if you have a side-by-side or freezer on bottom your exterior components are usually located at the top of the back. If there was a hole somewhere the goo could leek inside rather that down the back.

Has anyone checked the back of their refrig? This is the closest thing I have been able to find in 2 days of searching. Most results I get are "water dripping in refrig" and this is definately not water.

Has anyone ever figured this out? We have the exact same thing! It smells funny too. Soooo hard to clean. It starts out clear, and hardens to a weird yellow color.

You guys have saved my husband's life. I was ready to kill him. I clean out my fridge every Thursday evening so when I go shopping Friday morning I can put stuff into a clean fridge.

I keep getting these gross messy spills. The only thing I could think of was my husband was spilling cans of sprite. But I have never found a tipped over can.

It gets all over my shelf and under the drawers.

The fruit suggestion makes no sense because I get it under the drawer I use for meat/ cheese.

I only buy the produce, deli meat & cheese I can use in a week. So when I clean out the fridge it is all but empty on my bottom shelf & drawers. I have said this to say that nothing is going bad and making a yucky Deteriorating food mess.

I am blind so I am not sure what the mess looks like but sounds just like what you guys have described.

Since I can not see the mess cleaning is a pain. I have to feel each ridge on my plastic shelf to make sure it is clean then go over the bottom of my fridge by hand to make sure it is all gone.

I can't tell you how many times I have cleaned up this mess; but I am sick of doing it.

The most plausible thing to me so far has been the over heating element that is melting insulation but is that even possible?

I hope this is not it. I live in an apartment and will never be able to convince my landlord to replace my fridge because I am tired of cleaning it. It will probably have to stop working completely ruining all my food before I can get a new one.

Now since no one has offered an easy solution to cleaning my yucky fridge I am off to scrub the heck out of it again. I was suppose to do it Thursday but just could not stand to do it one more time. I put off shopping Friday hoping it would magically go away but darn, it is still there. If I do not go to the store tomorrow we will have nothing to eat. My husband had popcorn and I had a cucumber & tomato I snagged from a friend for dinner. We are going to have to go out for breakfast again tomorrow.

I have read that rubbing glycerin soap on the fridge makes cleaning up messes easier. Has any one tried this?

Sa

Add me to the list. I get that goo underneath my crisper drawer at the bottom of my 2 year old side by side. I do keep the frig as clean as possible, and am not aware of any spills on any of the shelves above.

To find out that IâÂÂm not the only one with this problem is reassuring, because I am a clean freak. I think MonicaâÂÂs explanation is headed in the right direction, and that it must be some kind of chemical reaction of certain elements being stored in the frig. And it canâÂÂt be pickles, since we donâÂÂt have any in our frig, and never have.

Funny, I have had that before too but just thought something spilled! I think it makes perfect sense that the condensation is depositing sugars or something.

Cookie.

Very interesting reading. My sticky stuff is on the outside {top} of the fridge!

Could it have anything to do with the self defrost? I had a 24 year old GE side by side and had no "goo" in it...self defrost and ice in the door.. It went kaputt....so now have a Whirlpool side by side with ice in the door. Have not had it long enough to notice any goo but could it be something with the self defrost and condensation from that?. Hopefully it won't have that goo but after reading the problems you have, I will be looking for it.

I've seen this as well. Can never determine what it is. We are very careful not to spill and put everything in containers. We call it ghost goo.

I have this too. Thought I was losing my mind! It's along the side and pooling on the bottom of my bottom mount freezer. There is nothing in my freezer that this can be leaking from, and I'm an OCD neat freak so I can pretty much guarantee that. Don't have kids I can't blame it on either. What the heck is this stuff?!

Since we all know how fruit or veggies becomes dehydrated/shriveled if left too long in the refer (if not wrapped), I would guess it's the moisture that gets sucked out of them when the warm air is blown through the unit to melt any ice forming. That fruit/veggie juice then condenses and ends up on the bottom of the everything. Same if you put hot or warm food in the refer - the moisture released in the cooling off process condenses and ends up as goo eventually.

That's always been my theory. Just a theory, of course.

eta: Oops, I just read backwards through the posts and see that I am just repeating Monica's theory, too.

We have an older Refrigerator in the basement that just store extras, (Unopened milk, unopened yogurt, butter, meat double bagged.) Since it is an older fridge, I don't clean it thoroughly, very often.The crisper drawers have no tops to it since it doesn't hold vegetables. Today, I was rearranging some things so I pulled the crispers out. You talk about heavy gunk. It was like a brown, sticky rust but it wasn't rust. I'm going to get my steam cleaner to get it off. This was very weird. There was also yellow sticky stuff on the back but not too bad. Must be refrigerator aliens!!!

I have the same thing funny thing is me and my dog both have been getting sick. Diahrea for a month and just moved in a month ago. Trying to figure out what the link is. Could it be the water? You use rags (wet) mold something in the water. Idk it's really starting to worry me

I've been having this issue with my Liebherr fridge for the past year. At first it was water.. or so we thought. I recently looked it up because this time it came out like a tidal wave. The only thing I could find that kind of explained it is that it's a type of algae-like mold. They claim it non-toxic but people can be allergic to it? Supposedly you have to take the system apart and clean the lines so that doesn't make me a happy camper. Planning on doing more research though.

Same happened to me. It was like trying to clean dried concrete out of the bottom of the fridge. That has only happened once until today. Google tells me the drain hose/line is probably clogged or frozen. Directions were: thaw line (I have yet to locate this), flush with water filled turkey baster, clean up mess. Hope this works!!

neetsiepie and monica have the same theory as I.

Any of you with the sticky goo have a can of Reddi Wip whipped cream in the frig. I found sticky goo it was a vary pale yellow almost cream colored, thick and sticky. Seems my Reddi Wip somehow sprayed perhaps something was pushed against it. Just a thought.

I always assume (since I have no desire to culture it) it's some sort of slimy mold. My fridge (SubZero) has a drain for condensation that leads to a pan under the motor, and occasionally it gets clogged with "the Gunk" and there's a vile puddle of "Gunk" under the crisper drawers- a very long pipe cleaner or wire gets the drain hose unclogged - and I usually mop up "The Gunk" with paper towels (ewwww!), spray everything down with household cleaner, then wipe it all down with diluted bleach - the ultimate slimy mold killer.

Gunk is nasty!

A new Amana refrigerator was installed in my apt. today. That sticky Goo was also in my new fridge under the vegetable bin. As I was wiping the inside down to try and get rid of that new appliance odor, I discovered this Awful Lubricant Jelly, because my hand get into it. I called the company to find out why it was there and what it is, and all I could glean is that its to keep the bin from moving in transport. I suggested tape! So I guess most of you never cleaned around the bottom bin and discovered it while cleaning. And probably turns yellow over time. It really is disgusting stuff to be inside a refrigerator.

It's supposed to be there. Frig's do it all now.

It's dip for your cracker.

I believe what you have is a protist or slime mold. It is a colony of individual cells that can move. I've been watching a tan/yellow slime in my frig for two years. Recently my freezer thawed because the electricity went out during hurricane Irma. Instantly it just appeared! It was in the water running out of the freezer. After I cleaned everything up and the electricity came on I checked out the inside of my freezer. The slime had multiplied due the warming of the freezer. I noticed a lot of it in the bottom bucket drawer. Then there it was a large goey drip of it on the upper edge of the drawer. I looked to see where it dripped from and there was no-where for it to drip from. I mean no-where. It moved up there. In other words individual cells that can move congregated up on the draw edge in a goey glob. But, when they're individual cells you can't see them. I'd put it under my microscope, but I've tried to kill it with bleach so many times I'm afraid it would contaminate it forever.

So, hurricane Harvey...now I've got the slime...can't believe no one knows the answer...yuk

AC off for 3 weeks... wondering if that's the problem.

After a frig sits with no electric...

Make sure to fill a few pictures of water and then toss if you have a water drink section on frig.

Those lines will have yuck in them.

Add new filtration cylinders before drinking the water and after you have flushed out lines.

Well, I seem to have the same problem. My refrigerator is a GE and I found this goo on my top shelf, then at the bottom behind the crisper drawers, then last week on the 2nd shelf. So I started my Sherlock Holmes work. No, I have not spilled anything, no food has leaked out of any containers either. What I did first was to tape paper towel to the back of the refrigerator wall. Then a place one on the 1st and 2nd shelves at the back. Then something told me to look up, and that is when I notice the compartment at the top of the refrigerator. I went and got my camera and started taking pictures. There I saw a Styrofoam piece that had the same brown stain on it. Then I went to the Internet for some researching. Here is an article I found that was very interesting.

https://applianceparts.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/refrigerator-leaking-oil-colored-liquid/

Excert: "If your refrigerator is leaking an oily or oil-colored liquid and is not freezing or cooling properly, it’s a good chance that the substance is refrigerator oil. The oil is normally clear and odorless, but when the seal to the system is broken, oxygen can dirty the oil during the compressor burn. The dirty oil is also an indication of a damaged compressor as well.

Since oxygen has somehow entered what should be a sealed system, and the compressor is shot, your best bet is to get a new refrigerator as the cost of repair might be equal to the cost of a new fridge."

I have several videos on Youtube regarding my GE Refrigerator. I hope this one shows the inside of the refrigerator with all of the goo. This refrigerator also has problems with mold, condensation, keeping food cold, defrosting automatically, and it also have some white goo / putty or foam coming from the bottom. It could be melted insulation now that I think of it. Feel free to take a look. I hope this helps someone!

This is the video that shows all of the brown goo first.

Glad I found this thread. My electricity was out for 5 days because of an October ice storm. My fridge remained cold for three days but by 4th and 5th I considered things in it not safe. I did not have much in it thank goodness but after I got electricity again I went to clean it out and there was a sticky clear goo on my shelves. I had nothing to leak. I thought some weird chemical reaction occurred. Today I discovered my too bottom bins which are empty are glued shut with the goo that has formed at the bottom of my fridge. Was not there two weeks ago. I live alone and don’t let my fridge get messy. I am freaked that I now have a slime bacteria in my fridge. Going to clean with bleach today. I try to keep my fridge very clean cause I am grossed out by any spoiled or spilled foods. This is freaking me out.

Yea wth is that every time I clean it up it comes back 🤔

Same. Still finding the weird clear sap stuff. Maybe it is something that's purposely there to hello with wheels or something?

I too have battled the goo for years, frustrated that something spilled but never finding a matching culprit. Always a sticky honey looking goo under the crisper drawer.. Fridge is old but works fine. Guess I'm calling a fridge repairman tomorrow for advice on possible causes after seeing so many people with the same issue!

It's a petroleum based lubricant

We have a side by side GE electric refrigerator that we purchased August 2021

Was having problems with Sour Cream, Cottage cheese freezing solid when put on the shelf in the rear. Called Repair Service came out couldn't find a problem so it was brushed off. Last month (June) called again with the same problem he came out had to order a thermostat control. Well my Sour Cream and Cottage cheese is still freezing.

As for the goo the color of honey is also showing up on my 2nd shelf from the top soooo sticky. I pulled out the 2 bottom drawers and their was a large gooey thick dried puddle. Am calling GE again tomorrow Wednesday. This Refrigerator will be 1 yr old next month. We are 82 yrs old and dealing with this kind of mess is not acceptable.

When I googled my problem and came across this thread I was shocked to see that this problem has been going on for years.

This is not suppose to be happening and awareness needs to be followed up.

Good luck

I just bought a new refrigerator, then decided we did not like it and sent it back and bought another. BOTH had a vasaline type substance on one sliding storage bin around the top left edge about 2 inches long. I am assuming it is was some kind of lubricant to help with assembly or to help with the drawer sliding freely. I just wiped it up with a paper towel and all is good. Refrigerators were made by Whirlpool and the other GE? PS... 12 yeas later I am here to say to all... HAPPY NEW YEARS! :)

I found it two days maybe three ago. I do not know how long it had been there. I was making something to eat and began cleaning the glass surfaces of the shelves with a household disinfectant when I noticed that the crisper drawer too needed cleaning.

It was empty and had been for a few days. I removed the drawer and began cleaning the interior pan with the ridges and the exterior scalable surfaces when my finger came into contact with the "goo", when the "Goo" attacked. It was (is) clear, gelatinous, colloidal - when I attempted to wash it off my hands it became almost like a pair of latex or silicone gloves - slimy, almost tacky, and a B to deal with. I tried hot water, Dawn (beyond the sink), and another Lysol based cleanser to no avail.

I finally removed the substance, compound, polymer, pathogen, hazardous material, ectoplasm, whatever it is from the plastic - and when my hands dried they appeared and seemed normal (as before) considering. However, when I checked the very next day the substance was already reforming. Location - the upper back corners of the crisper/lunch meat drawer. This thread appeared in a search just now.

I looked into the matter yesterday using ChatGPT/ChatGen chatbot and the answer was very interesting. The refrigerator is new.

I still haven't fully comprehended the statement, but I thought it better to fufully experience the phenomena/phenomenon before going too far. The cloth that I used is still saturated with the stuff - lyophobic/hydrophobic whatever.

Very interesting and intriguing as well.