Bleach fixes a musty cooler

A musty cooler just needs a bleach soak — nothing fancy.

Musty smells are mold and mildew living in the plastic pores. Dish soap alone won’t kill it. Bleach will.

Here’s the whole job: wash the cooler out with dish soap and warm water, then fill it with a solution of about 1 tablespoon of bleach per gallon of water. Let it sit for 15-20 minutes. Dump it, rinse thoroughly — I mean really thoroughly, until you can’t smell bleach anymore — and dry it completely with the lid open.

Baking soda can help pull any remaining odor if the must is stubborn. Sprinkle a box in, close it, wait a day, rinse. But honestly, the bleach soak fixes most coolers in one pass.

The real trick is prevention: dry it fully before storing the lid closed. A wet cooler closed up for a month is how you got here.