Life Preservers

How to Get Rid of an Old Refrigerator

June 25, 2015 at 11:23 am Leave a comment

Option 1

Step 1:  The people you buy your home from ask if you would like them to leave the second, old refrigerator in the basement.

Step 2:  You say, “No thank you.”

Option 2 (Significantly Abridged)

Step 1:  Use refrigerator twice. Eighteen years later, call a service to pick up old refrigerator.

Step 2:  Knowing that it will be cheaper to get the refrigerator to the curb (and thinking, at Step 2, that it is worth saving a couple of bucks), make an attempt to see if you will be able to move it yourself. Bump, wiggle, pull, push, grunt, cuss, rock, bump, grunt-grunt-grunt, and move it about 10 feet. Think, “That wasn’t so bad. I can do this.”

Step 3:  Realize that it is not going to fit through Door #1. Also realize that your screw driver and the hinges to the door are in the next room. Bump, wiggle, pull, grunt, drag refrigerator back into the room. Go find screw driver. Remove door.

Step 4:  Push refrigerator through Door #1, including conquering the unexpected mountainous peaks of the threshold.

Step 5:  Push-pull it across cement floor; wiggle, grunt, rock it, wonder about death by refrigerator, and get it up over the edge of the carpeted area. Bump, wiggle, push, grunt it to Door #2, the door to the garage, the really big, really heavy door.

Step 6:  Consider measuring but think to self, “Well, they had to have gotten it in this way” and “I don’t feel like running upstairs for the measuring tape.” Eyeball it and think, “Yeah, I can do this.”

Step 7:  Standing on garage side of refrigerator, wiggle, grunt, and (using freezer handle and condenser coils as handles) pull like a maniac. Keep pulling until refrigerator is solidly, completely, totally, dagnabbittly wedged in the doorway.

Step 8:  Figure that you could probably do better pushing from the inside. Realize that the only (unlocked) door to gain entrance to your home has a refrigerator in it.

Step 9:  Get step ladder off garage wall. Climb up, belly flop onto top of refrigerator, and shimmy through the top of doorway. Once inside the basement again, realize just how far the top of a refrigerator is from the floor.

Step 10:  Dangle feet, wrangle body, stretch legs, pull back. Consider job as Elf on a Shelf.

Step 11:  Jump.

Step 11b:  Land and roll like James Bond (if he were still being played by Sean Connery).

Step 11c:  Lie on floor giggling in a very un-Connery-like manner.

Step 12:  Re-examine refrigerator in doorway and realize (1) pushing is no help and (2) you’re going to have to remove the really big, really heavy door after all and (3) the hinges are on the garage side.

Step 13:  Pull, wiggle, grunt in an attempt to get the refrigerator unstuck from doorway. Run up the stairs, unlock the back door, go out, run down back steps, run down front steps, open garage door, get back into garage.

Step 14:  Wiggle-push refrigerator back into the basement. Remove really big, really heavy door. Wonder about death by door.

Step 15:  Push refrigerator back into the doorway until it is solidly, completely, totally, dagnabbittly wedged.

Step 16:  Run up stairs, out back door, down steps, down more steps, back into the garage. Push refrigerator back into basement.

Step 17:  Remove bumper thingamajigs from condenser coils on back of refrigerator. Put pressure on coils until the side brace whatchamacallits collapse and the coils are (sort of) flat against the back of the refrigerator.

Step 18:  Push refrigerator back into doorway. Get it nearly there and realize the legs are stuck on the threshold, and the only way it’s going to go is if you just let it tip over into the garage. Figure, Why not? Let go and brace for terrifying, satisfying bang.

Step 19:  Marvel at the silence and gaze at refrigerator, which is now standing at a 45-degree angle in the doorway, half in, half out. Run up stairs, out back door, down steps and more steps, into garage and see that the 250-pound refrigerator is resting on a rickety little wooden ladder, which has only one leg on the ground.

Step 20:  Stare at that crazy tableau for a moment. Wonder about death by tableau.

Step 21:  Push refrigerator back upright (i.e., dagnabbittly wedged).

Step 22:  Move ladder, leave garage, go up steps, go in back door, go downstairs, and push that thing like a mother saving a baby, like a Grinch saving a sleigh, like a woman saving her sanity.

Step 23:  Feel it going. Let go. BOOM!

Step 24:  Curtsy and clap lightly. (Or let out a yell and stride around the room as if you are the person who moves appliances for Vince McMahon.)

Voila! That is how to get rid of an old refrigerator.

NOTES:

• It’s a state law that any refrigerator that is not in use must have the doors removed or have the doors secured — even if you live in a household where there are no children.
• Refrigerators cannot go curbside for regular junk pickup because they contain freon.
• Some electric companies have rebate/buy back programs if your refrigerator is in working order.
• I called Appliance Warehouse at 888-GO-FREON/463-7366. The cost is $40-60. I didn’t do a ton of research, but the other options I saw were about twice as expensive or required drop-off.

Entry filed under: Humor - Commentary. Tags: home, how-to, old refrigerator.