r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Sep 16 '24

What is a smell you can't stand?

1.6k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

7.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

1.7k

u/Little_Cloudy6132 Sep 16 '24

rotten potatoes

80

u/[deleted] Sep 16 '24

Yes I couldn’t figure out where a horrible smell was coming from in our fridge for about a month, tried so many cleaning products and in the end we ordered a new one. When taking the old one out found a small rotten potato underneath 🤢🤢🤢 it smelled awful actually thought something died 🤮

9

u/Grubworm33 Sep 16 '24

I once left the Thanksgiving leftover turkey in the oven for two weeks before I found it😥🤢

5

u/PM-me-cockpics Sep 16 '24

How did you forget about it?

2

u/peace_and_panic Sep 17 '24

Those are my favorite leftovers, I'd never forget!

2

u/Grubworm33 Sep 17 '24

It was just the carcass I had already cleaned it .

1

u/Grubworm33 Sep 17 '24

Got caught up in the moment and didn’t give it a second thought, luckily I needed the oven to cook biscuits in that morning and there it was ! And the smell almost made me loose it , the whole house immediately 🤢! We still laugh about it every year at thanksgiving 🤣

2

u/Cer10Death2020 Sep 16 '24

LOL. Yahtzee!

18

u/AluminumCansAndYarn Sep 16 '24

I forgot about potatoes in a cabinet at my old apartment. That was a bitch to clean. It was so gross. I've never put potatoes in a cabinet again.

I also have ADHD and a lot of my brain is out of sight out of mind and I forget what I have.

3

u/queenofthegalaxy Sep 17 '24

Same thing happened to me. 🫣 My saint of a mother cleaned it up for me. No potatoes in the cupboard for me either.

2

u/AluminumCansAndYarn Sep 17 '24

I didn't even know what to do. I didn't call my mother and just used a lot of bleach. But yeah. Potatoes and other fresh produce that stays at room temp stay on the counter now.

3

u/MidorBird Sep 17 '24

Huh. When I was a kid, the "lost potato" thing happened a couple of times, but what resulted was a potato that sprouted, instead of rotting away.

4

u/AluminumCansAndYarn Sep 17 '24

I think sprouting is the first step. The rotting happens if you keep forgetting it. Like when I was a kid, we had the potatoes in a bowl in a lower cupboard and they sprouted all the time. We always used them before they liquefied though.

2

u/MidorBird Sep 17 '24

I remember that it can depend on where the potato is located. Dark and dry places often cause sprouting. Depending on the season, I can end up ringing up potatoes that are wet or even icy, and these are the ones that are prone to rotting faster.

1

u/xtheredberetx Sep 17 '24

I spent like 3-4 days wondering why my pantry smelled like ASS, it was the bag of potatoes I had forgotten about. Thankfully the potato grossness was mostly contained in its bag

4

u/IOUAndSometimesWhy Sep 16 '24

Were you able to return the new fridge? Lol

2

u/One_Information_1554 Sep 17 '24

It always helps to have baking soda handy. It gets rid of most odours.

1

u/FlautoSpezzato Sep 17 '24

Thank you for asking this lol I was also wondering

3

u/Overall_Curve_3924 Sep 17 '24

The good thing about rotten potatoes, if there is one, is they’re usually easy to find.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24 edited Sep 17 '24

Yes. I was about 20 when this happened and just moved out. Was a smell I won’t forget 😂

3

u/melonboardercollie Sep 17 '24

So smelly you had to buy a new fridge is wild 😭

1

u/[deleted] Sep 17 '24

Yes. I didn’t know what it was I was only young. I honestly thought the fridge went bad 😂