Check Your Freezer, Watch Your Street

It's a strange week for home safety. You've got microscopic bacteria threatening your morning smoothie, and literal craters swallowing up the street outside your front door. Between a persistent wave of frozen fruit recalls and a rash of infrastructure collapses, keeping your guard up takes some work.

Check your freezer (again)

If you buy frozen berries at Walmart or Trader Joe’s, check the bags in your freezer. Frutas y Hortalizas del Sur S.A. recently pulled its berry blends and blueberries from store shelves due to potential E. coli contamination. As NBC News reports, this specific strain causes severe stomach cramps, diarrhea and vomiting.

The real kicker is the shelf life.

These are frozen goods with Best If Used By dates reaching as far out as June 12, 2028. A contaminated bag could easily sit unnoticed in your icebox for years.

This is the third time this year the manufacturer has issued a recall for berries. The affected Great Value and Trader Joe's goods were sold across more than half the country. If you have either brand's organic mixed berries or blueberries, toss them out. Both retailers offer full refunds.

What's happening in your state

Your kitchen just needs a quick freezer audit. Out on the streets of Michigan and Pennsylvania, things are a lot messier. Decaying local infrastructure is giving way, and homeowners are dealing with the aftermath of massive sinkholes.

In Northville Township, a suburb of Detroit, a sinkhole the size of an inground pool has sat in the middle of Clement Road for three weeks. According to CBS News, crews recently removed a concrete slab fix. That left a gaping void resident Nolan Emlaw described as road, space, and then dirt. School buses reroute daily just to avoid the gap.

The damage isn't staying on the street.

Resident Marney Wolf lost her patio to a washout and ended up with thick mud right up to her sliding glass door. She says she spent 10 years warning the city about the caving road before the ground finally gave way.

The earth is opening up elsewhere, too. A separate Wayne County crater forced an emergency Friday morning closure of northbound U.S. 24 and two traffic ramps.

Meanwhile, over in Philadelphia, an entirely different sinkhole just swallowed a chunk of the 2900 block of Fanshawe Street in the residential Mayfair neighborhood.