Mystery of the Fridge Internal Light

[Lee-Anne-and-Shane0]

Hi,

just wanted to share this weird, but harmless, experience - and to see if anyone might be able to explain it.

I got to my property after several back to back stays over Christmas. I quickly noticed that the interior lights in the fridge and freezer were off. The fridge worked fine otherwise. 
I eventually tried to fix it and noticed that someone had sticky-taped the micro switches shut, so the fridge thought it was permanently shut and kept the lights off. As soon as I removed the sticky-tape, everything was back to normal. I even found the packet of sticky tape that they had purchased for the job!

I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why anyone would do that?! Whyyy????

Does anyone have any ideas?

My only possible thought is that they were using the fridge as an air conditioner in the hot weather because the fridge fan also turns off when the door is open. However there is ducted reverse-cycle airconditioning, and it wasn’t a normal Adelaide hot Christmas period. 

Can anyone solve this mystery?

Shane 

[Quincy]

Oof, tell me about it @Sarah977. Especially those red ones 😨

[Sarah977]

@Quincy  The other thing about those lights is that while just one of them would suck almost no electricity at all, the average person might easily have 20 things in their house that all have those lights and time readouts. So added up, with them on 24/7, in places where electricity is expensive, its just an unnecessary addition to the electric bill.

[Cathie19]

Maybe @Lee-Anne-and-Shane0, they didn’t want anyone to know they were feeding the gremlins after midnight?

[Inna22]

@Sarah977 @Ann72 @Quincy @@@Is the character in Better Call Sal  who is allergic to electricity based on you? 😂

[Quincy]

Could be us indeed @Inna22 😂

[Ann72]

💯 @Inna22 😂😂😂

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Lee-Anne-and-Shane0 , interesting mystery, some things you can't know!  If they did try to use the fridge as a room chiller, they would find out very quickly that leaving the door open wont cool a room much less a house, only heat it up with the heat discharged from the back of the refrig trying to cool the boiling refrigerant that is trying to chill an area 1000 times larger than it was made to cool.   

I would more guess that someone was severely light reactive, Was your guest wearing a black cloak and checked in after dark?  Stay well, JR

[Helen350]

@Lee-Anne-and-Shane0 Some people are obsessive about not having any unnecessary lights on? Obsessive energy/bulb savers?

[Peter1]

My guess is that the Guest has light sensitive eyes, so for example, when he/she goes to the fridge in the middle of the night, the light in the fridge appears painfully glaring (especially if the Guest also has a hangover). 😊

[Renee-At-Paradise-Found-Retreats-LLC0]

Very late responding to this, but we had the same problem. Someone brought tape and taped the light trigger button down on the fridges in both the garage and the kitchen. I found this out eventually. First I started getting calls from guests and housekeeping that the light bulb was out in the fridge in the kitchen. (No one noticed the light bulb was also off in the garage fridge.) I manage remotely and have to pay for this kind of maintenance.  Needless to say, a lot of effort went into trying to replace the light bulb in the kitchen fridge, which eventually we realized was an LED that would need to be ordered. After a week of trying to address the issue, I warned the next guest that we knew the kitchen fridge light was out, and we were ordering a new LED bulb. The guest arrives and says that actually both fridges had no light, but cancel the LED bulb order because they noticed that someone had used tape to disable the light button from switching on when the door is opened.  After a little research, I discovered that this is a practice done in order to prevent turning on an electrical circuit in a strict observation of Shabbat. Don't know for sure, but I think it's a likely answer. Sharing in hopes that it saves someone else the hassle of trying to change a fully functioning bulb. Removing the tape would have been considerate, but I can also understand forgetting a small detail like that. What a HUGE pain for management (me) though. 

[Rebecca]

That's a really interesting observation @Renee-At-Paradise-Found-Retreats-LLC0 - thank you so much for sharing this tip with us. It's great that the guest let you know what was causing the issue in the end. Do you think this is something you might add into your house manual? 

[Renee-At-Paradise-Found-Retreats-LLC0]

I hope now that my cleaners know about this potential issue, it will be unnecessary to let the guests know—although I’ve considered asking guests to make sure they do not leave light buttons taped down on departure! Now that I’m aware of it, checking for tape on the light trigger will be my first instruction next time I have a reported fridge light out. I do feel it’s more helpful information for owners and management than guests. 

[Bisharat-Ullah0]

Good