So your kitchen smells horrid and it doesn't seem to be the usual culprits: trash cans, pet odors and expired sour cream in the fridge. What gives? Chances are, you need to clean out your garbage disposal.

Freshening your garbage disposal is fairly easy if you maintain a monthly routine of cleaning it out (I recommend using lemon peels or liquid bleach water). However, once your garbage disposal starts smelling less than fresh, you've got a bigger problem than a splash of bleach can fix. Odors form when hardened food residue begins to form among the pipes of your garbage disposal, so if you're smelling something from the depths of your sink, it's time to do a bit of emergency surgery:

More than once something has gone down the garbage disposal that shouldn't have. The scary thing is that people stick their hand down after that item without thinking, and that could end up with disastrous results. Unless you want to be one hand or body part less I suggest following these simple instructions.

First off, please make totally sure that the power to the garbage disposal is off. Sometimes people forget that the disposal is still on when they try to remove the cause of the jam, resulting in some serious bodily harm. You can try to remove the jam from above (inside the sink) by pressing the end of a short broomstick against one of the impellers and then jab in the other direction. After a few tries in each direction, the jam should come loose. Remove the debris with a long handled tongs or a long nose pliers.