A friend helped me clean my stove from top to bottom one day. Ever since then, every time I use the oven/broiler, these orange "spots" appear on the top of the stove and on the wall near the stove. They don't appear right away, but rather several hours later. I'm not sure about when they really appear since I'm usually eating whatever I made and don't sit there and watch for the spots.

To clean the oven, we used a major brand of oven cleaner. It was not an aerosol can, but rather a sponge that had a "reservoir" on top of it. You squeeze the "reservoir" and the oven cleaner goes onto the sponge, and you just wipe it around.

My hypothesis is, with the help of some friends, that we didn't wipe up all of the oven cleaner (see broiler pictures below), and when using the oven, the leftover oven cleaner heats up and evaporates into the air through the vent. As it cools, it forms these amber colored spots on the top of the oven and on the wall near the oven. Because of convection, these spots predominantly appear on the right side of the vent.

These spots are very difficult to get off. It takes very hot water, some abrasive cleanser, and a lot of elbow grease. On the day the below photos were taken, I was planning on cleaning all of the spills on the inside of the oven, but the DEP foiled the plan. There was no hot water that day, and I was too lazy to boil some water since the oven was partially dismantled and I would have to put it back together to boil the water, and then take it apart to clean it.

Cleaned

September 28, 2003 — Finally got around to cleaning the oven today.  Got out the Soft Scrub, two Scotch-Brite Rescue pads, some large Playtex gloves (still too small for my hands), and a heap of hot water.  After about 45 minutes and two sore arms, it was as clean as it was going to get without completely dismantling the oven.

I poured the Soft Scrub onto the stains and gently spread it over all the stains so they all had some Soft Scrub on them.  I let it sit like that for about 15 minutes.  I then attacked each area with the Scotch-Brite Rescue pads, using a circular motion to get the stains off (wax on, wax off).

The stains on the top of the stove disappeared with only a few circles.  The stains on the back of the stove took a lot more work to get off.  The stains on the wall were almost impossible to get off, taking about 15 minutes of constant scrubbing to get it halfway decent.

Before	After
	As you can see, the stove is spotless (except for some dents that were already there).
	Some of the paint came off during the scrubbing, but the mysterious stains were caked on.  The space between the stove and the wall is too tight to get in to.
	That one spot on the left is actually a ding.  I couldn't reach the spots on the wall behind it.
	The wall is as clean as it is going to get today.  My arms were too tired to clean any more.  Perhaps another time.

Experiment

October 6, 2003 — On October 2, 2003 I ran an experiment to see if the "alien" spots would come back after one use of the oven.  During the experiment, a photograph of the top of the stove was taken every 5 minutes using an intervolometer so that the results could be examined by a panel of experts.

The experiment was performed under the supervision of an independent accounting agency, and consisted of the following steps:

• Oven was turned to the "broil" setting at 2219 hours to allow flame to ignite.
• At 2224 hours the oven temperature knob was turned to 350 degrees F.
• Oven was run at the previous setting until 2319 hours at which point the knob was turned to the off setting.  One hour is about the average time that I use the over for when cooking, assuming about 15-20 minutes to warm up to 350, then 35-45 minutes of actual cooking.
• Photography continued until 0019 hours October 3, 2003.

After the experiment ended, the top of the stove, the back of the stove and the wall near the stove were examined carefully.  The photographs were also carefully examined.

The unanimous result was that there were no "alien" spots to be found on any of the surfaces examined.

There are two problems with the experiment as it was performed.  One, there was no food in the oven during the experiment, and two, there was no cooking utensil in the oven during the experiment.  If the "alien" spots are not originating from the suspected source, but rather from some food or a pan that is used in the oven, this would explain why no spots were seen after the experiment ended.

I'm not sure another experiment will be run again, but I will be keeping an eye on the stove top after each use, and will update as appropriate.

Update

November 4, 2003 — It's been almost a month since the previous experiment took place.  I have used the oven several times since then for all sorts of food preperation (warming up cold pizza, baking cookies, baking potatoes, baking ziti, etc.), and the weird "alien" spots have not come back.  I gave the top of the stove a very good once over today, and did not find any spots at all.

I guess the good cleaning that I did in late September must have cleaned the root cause of the problem as well.

I hope this is the last entry I need to make regarding this problem.