Most refrigerator manuals instruct you to unplug your fridge when it’s time to clean the interior. That advice is nearly universally ignored, but it shouldn’t be: Leaving the door open while the fridge is running stresses the mechanical components, which end up running constantly in a futile struggle to keep your fridge at the right temperature and humidity.Plus, letting a fridge fill with warm air is never a wise idea.If you’re dealing with a seriously dirty fridge, unplug it and remove all the food inside. But for routine cleaning, Justin Evatt, an appliance-repair professional in South Carolina, taught me a hack that he recommends to all of his customers. Evatt cleans his fridge in smaller sections, tackling them in five-minute intervals (to prevent too much warm air from entering the fridge) with a 30-minute break in between (to allow the fridge to return to its target temperature).This task is even easier, if you break it up over a few days, which eliminates some of the waiting. And if you think five minutes doesn’t seem like enough time, don’t worry — it’s a lot longer than it sounds.