The ice maker on my refrigerator has been a bitch--to put it mildly. It's high maintenance, requiring frequent emptying and constant surveillance. This is something my dad handled when he was alive.
Occasionally, I did think about the ice issue, but I was in a fog after he died and then I was nose to the keyboard, writing my book.
I didn't do anything about the ice maker.
And then I noticed water in the pull out tray. Every time this has happened, it's because of the ice maker. I put paper towels down and continued to ignore it. That became easier to do when the paper towels dried out and didn't get wet again.
Then, the fridge decided it really wanted my attention.
Water started showing up under the pull-out tray. Been there, done that with this refrigerator. That means there's ice forming underneath the tray, way in the back. Ignoring it was no longer an option.
I own an upright freezer because there was never enough room in the fridge's freezer, so it was simple to move all the frozen goods. And believe it or not, I own a mini fridge (a large mini fridge) that I bought because this ice maker issue is ongoing. I moved all the food over to the mini fridge, turned the circuit breaker off, and left the refrigerator doors open.
This is what the repair guy had us do--more than once. As soon as we knew the drill, we stopped calling him and started doing this ourselves. This is the first time I've had to do it since my dad died.
Luckily (?), the ice maker wasn't as frozen up as it's been in the past and I was able to pull it out in a few hours and empty the ice out. I also pulled the tray out and removed the sheets of ice that had formed. And then there was all the water from the melting ice. I cleaned that up, too.
And then I dug out the instruction book and looked up how to turn off the ice maker.
My dad never wanted to do this, and while he was alive, it didn't matter because he was taking care of this high maintenance beast. I don't need ice badly enough to go through this again. It turned out to be as simple as pressing a button on the door. I still get my cold, filtered water, which I want, without the pain of dealing with the ice maker. Ugh!
