So you may think! But I left three pounds of potatoes on a high shelf and forgot all summer til I noticed a smell. They rotted and started leaking everywhere. It stained the shelf. Potatoes will come for you if you give them time, humidity and heat
I also discovered this. I was panicking a little bit when I started smelling what seemed like sewage in my basement. In a 100 year old house, I was wondering what broke. After a few hours, I figured out that there were potatoes rotting in the pantry, which was more open to the basement than it was to the main floor of the house - so all the smell sank down there. It was honestly a relief.
I worked at a train yard taking train cars full of potatoes and loading them on semi trucks to go across the bridge to Canada. One car had sat in the sun with no refrigeration for a week before it got to us. When we cracked that thing open, the smell was atrocious. It was like we could feel it as it expanded out, it was so potent.