We finally gave up trying to keep food or ice in our freezer during the winter months.
We would arrive on a Friday or Saturday with the outside (and inside) temperature anywhere from 10 - 30 degrees and find the ice cubes in the freezer melted and the beer and water in the refrigerator frozen solid! The refrigerator would start to function after a few hours as the temperature in the house rose.
It would drive my husband crazy. It made no sense to him at all. I showed him Tom C's post explaining the problem but I'm not sure he believes it completely.