Well...I wonder if the fact that I had bags of frozen veggie CRAMMED around that little fan at the bottom caused this problem? Still doesn't explain the water...
I take it that it's not a self-defrosting model.
I dunno if that would have done it, sis.
It may just be old and tempermental. ;-)
Something similar to this happened to me, although I only had a slight thaw happen in my freezer. I had a ton of stuff packed around my fan. When I cleared the area in front of it, I had no more problems with it. I don't know whether it was a thermostat issue, or if it was just that the cold air didn't circulate enough to keep everything in the freezer frozen.
Don't know if that helps any, but I thought I'd share...I sure hope whatever it is is an easy fix!!