I have a refrigerator that's less than a year old that stopped cooling last night but freezer was cold as could be and frosted over to boot (shouldn't be it's a self defrosting). We cleaned out TONS of cat hair from underneath and piled all our stuff into coolers and it's defrosting how. Hopefully once the ice build up clears it will run fine again.

My question is this. How damaging to the fridge would it be to put a thin lightweight filter fabric/foam over the toe guard (even just part way up) to keep the cat hair from ever getting in there in the first place??? I don't want the thing to overheat, but seems to me Air Conditioners, vacuum cleaners, cars etc all have filters, why not a fridge??

Anyone ever try this? Or know anyone that's tried it? Or know enough about refrigerators to know if this would cause it to overheat?

Thanks for any input you guys have. Sorry I haven't been around in a long time. Kitties are all doing good despite the ridiculous heat wave we've been having! Hope all your pets are doing good as well!