Italian Virginia Raggi, candidate of the Five Star Movement | Vincenzo Pinto/AFP via Getty Rome mayor mocked over fridge conspiracy claims Virginia Raggi thinks something strange is going on in the Italian capital.

The mayor of Rome, Virginia Raggi, hinted that she is being undermined by political opponents whom she accuses of dumping old refrigerators in the streets.

Raggi, of the 5Star Movement, a former lawyer, has had a difficult time since being elected as mayor of the Italian capital in June and this week told the daily La Repubblica that the large amount of furniture and refrigerators being dumped on Rome's roads was "strange."

"I don't know if moves are being made, if many people are renovating their homes, but it is strange," she said, adding that many fridges she had seen were "broken and scratched."

Rome has been the biggest catch for the anti-establishment 5Stars and two of the biggest problems Raggi has to tackle are waste management and corruption. Getting a grip on Rome would send a clear signal that the party is ready for government ahead of elections scheduled for 2018.

Raggi put the task of cleaning up the city’s streets in the hands of Paola Muraro, who is being investigated by prosecutors for potential conflicts of interest during the 12 years she served as an adviser to Rome’s waste management company. Muraro defended Raggi's remarks, saying the "situation of abandoned fridges and other cumbersome rubbish is odd" and needed further investigation, according to Ansa, the Italian news agency.

But members of Prime Minister Matteo Renzi's Democratic Party (PD) mocked Raggi for her remarks. One PD senator, Stefano Esposito, launched the Twitter hashtag #frigogate (the Italian for fridge is frigo). Another PD senator, Andrea Marcucci, tweeted that “nobody has informed me that in Rome there was a terrible fridge conspiracy.”

Speaking in front of the parliament's anti-mafia commission on Wednesday, Raggi defended her comments. “On June 18, before the run-off [for the local election], the service [of collecting unwanted fridges] was interrupted and nobody knows the reason,” she said.

The 5Star Movement, founded by comedian Beppe Grillo, is no stranger to conspiracy theories. In January, a 5Star senator, Paola Taverna, said that because of all the problems facing the capital “there could be a plot" to stop the 5Stars winning in Rome.