Agree with the vinegar and water approach but if you've got some coffee beans or used coffee grounds, let some sit uncovered in the fridge and it will take away the smell.

Put a cup of vinegar in the fridge, it will absorb the odors. Not sure about a cup in the freezer though. Do not take the cup out right away, leave it in there for about a month. Even a jar with holes poked in the lid. Once my son accidentally shut the cat in the car overnight. The car smelled like cat pee, no matter how well we cleaned the pee smell was still there, even with urine gone etc. I drove around with a cup of vinegar in the car for a month, and the smell was gone, never returned. It also worked, when we drove near a freshly ran over skunk.

I pull everything out including food, trays whatever and wash it in the sink with dish detergent and water. That has always worked. I usually find someone has let something leak and it gets down under the very bottom tray.

I agree with adella, doing a scrub down of the whole fridge goes without saying!

Be sure to wash the gasket well and the drip pan. I use a bowl of FRESH coffee grounds to absorb odors.

I had to do this a couple of weeks ago. Something really smelled so I took everything out, checked due dates, opened containers to see if there was any mold and then cleaned the entire fridge with soap and water.

Still smelled but it was that sickly sweet smell like bad citrus fruit. But the oranges, limes and lemons all looked good. Cleaned out more stuff. still smelled, so this time I took out all the oranges, left them out for the day and sure enough that's what it was. Very unusual.

Point being - hopefully you find out what the smell is from first.

Easy way leave note for cleaning lady, please clean fridge today.

Put a bowl of water in the fridge, and replace the water every day until the odor is gone. Don't know about the freezer, but this definitely works in the fridge. The water draws the smell.

Once you have cleaned the fridge and freezer, put a dish of regular charcoal in the fridge. It will absorb the odor and the bacteria causing the odor (of course, only if you have already removed the offending foods), usually in less than a week. We had left food in the fridge and freezer of our camping trailer years ago. Something we didn't usually do, but we were going out again the next weekend, and I didn't want to have to totally empty it. DH forgot about that when he cut the grass and unplugged the electric. A few days later, he found it, and cleaned it all up, but the smell was horrendous! We layered newspaper on the shelves of the fridge and freezer, and put charcoal on top of the newspaper, and a large bag under the table. By the weekend, we could comfortably use, and sleep in, the camper. It took a little longer than that for the smell to totally go away, but we kept changing the charcoal for fresh.

I also had a milk jug fall over in the back of my car, on carpet, in Feb. in 2003. I scrubbed it good, even went and bought the spot cleaner machine. It still wreaked in a couple of days. I put charcoal in a cool whip dish with holes in the lid in the car. Smell was gone in a week. That July I spent in Cincinnati with the car in the full sun for a month, waiting for my grandson to be born. Car in the garage at home. The rotten milk smell never came back.

Scrub-down of the fridge and freezer complete! Vinegar in a bowl in the fridge. Tossed some past-their-date frozen food. And the offending item? A mushy zucchini in a plastic bag at the back of the bottom shelf. Ick. Thanks for the tips, folks!

Glad you have the problem solved!