Try asking her for it, but that requires more than one brain cell to work out the solution - one more than you have unfortunately.
Typical botch job - and quite easy to damage the freezer.
Don't know about "everyone else", but I simply empty the freezer (putting the frozen food into another freezer of course), and leave the door open for a couple of hours - no effort or cost that way!
That's the easy and *correct* way of doing it by the way - but obviously too simple for our resident drama queen to work out.
It is usually after a couple of hours have elapsed. that the saner DIYers remember that you are a tosser in a parallel universe, and resort to hot water and careful scraping to remove the ice that hasn't even BEGUN to thaw.
I just turn it off and leave the door open: but you don't say if you are talking chest or vertical.
Ours is vertical, and I put a washing bowl in front of it, with a rolled up tea towel to act as a wick/siphon to get the water into the bowl rather than on the floor. On a cool day if I'm in a hurry I point a fan heater that way. After a while the bigger lumps drop off and can be put in the sink - or any cold box you might have put the chilled food in temporarily.
Being careful with the knife: some of the coolant tube's metal is very soft (I now have two freezers that are just cupboards for this reason. (I was less patient in my younger days!)
With careful placement of a washing bowl/oven tray or similar depending on ground clearance, you can use a rolled up tea towel as a wick to drain the drippings into the bowl rather than the floor.
A lot of the plastic in fridges is thermo softening: I have had to do several tray straightening jobs after SWHBO will insist on putting them in the dishwasher despite the warnings against this liberally stuck on them. So take care with those heat guns etc.
Incidentally, apart from the odd bit of dust and sweetcorn, the fridge water is distilled from the air and fairly pure. I usually keep a litre or two after boiling, as it comes in handy where distilled water is needed. (Used to make my own contact lens solutions with it once upon a time.)
Our vertical model has a clever little duct which you pull out from the bottom of the freezer, and the thawed ice runs down that and into a collecting bowl beneath. Neat and effective (until it inevitably gets bunged up with a stray pea!
I once had a fridge with a frozen food compartment - a large lump of ice would start to thaw and end up hanging on the thermostat tube. It's a wonder it never snapped..
Take out all the food, piled up as tighly as possible on a sleeping bag or two, put the freezer thermometer on top, and wrap the bags up and over the top.
Leave door open with tray to catch the thawed water.
Speed up if necessary by putting a large roasting tin inside with boiling water in it and closing the door to keep the steam in. Don't allow the hot tin to come into direct contact with any of the plastic lining or the refrigerant tube - put it on a wire shelf or drawer.
Note that the lining of the freezer might easily be damaged by direct heat. Years ago when I was living in a shared house, I did this and put the backing tin on the bottom of the freezer (it was a tiny one). When I lifted it out, the bottom resembed the texture of a crinkle-cut crisp.
At the end, if any of the parts need cleaning, use a solution of sodium bicarbonate. Dry lining, shelf rails, etc so that any water left doesn't freeze and jam drawers later.
Turn freezer back on, and allow to get down to temperature (there's no point using fast-freeze - that won't speed up the process). Unwrap the sleeping bags and check the temperature of the food, that it's still well frozen. (I usually find that even a couple of hours in sleeping bags, it barely changes temperature.) Load back in.
My freezer lasted almost 10 years before it needed its first defrost. That's longer than most frost-free ones seem to last before they need their first repair to the frost-free mechanism.
No-one's mentioned the hammer method yet. Take a hammer to the ice, hitting itonly just enough for the ice to move a bit, NO MORE. Lots of big lumps fall off, job done in 5 mins. As long as you only just give the ice enough whack to move it a bit, and never hit the aluminium, only the ice, its totally harmless.
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