How do you do it?

I have a wooden bin that I used to use for potatoes and onions. Until I
learned that they should not be stored together. So I bought an onion bin.
And now I can't remember what befell it but I had to replace it. I got rid
of it some time back when it began to break. But it also wasn't working for
me any more because the onions were starting to go bad too soon. Now I just
keep the onions in the fridge.

The potato bin started not to work so well for me either. I bought some
onions and some potatoes at Costco and they turned out to be bad. Or at
least some of them in each bag. The onions were rotted and black and some
of the potatoes were moldy. So I may have infected my bin, much like I
think I may have done with my old wooden bread box.

I say this because have had nothing but trouble ever since. I have bought
potatoes in much smaller amounts but they always seem to go moldy right away
when I put them in the bin. I did scrub the bin out well with soap and hot
water a couple of times. And then after that I pretty much quit buying
potatoes except for an as needed basis and then only enough for that meal.

But now daughter is on a sweet potato kick. I assumed that they would keep
well like potatoes usually do. Apparently I was wrong. I just now looked
it up and one source says they will keep for up to 10 days. The other
source says for a month. One source says not to refrigerate because it will
change the flavor.

We bought some sweet potatoes just over two weeks ago and then a few more
last week. I had my daughter put them in the potato bin but I had her put a
plastic shopping bag down on the bottom just in case there was a problem.

I cooked some of them up last week. I had my daughter pick out the ones she
wanted and she showed me something that looked gray and fuzzy on the end of
one. It actually looked to me like a dust bunny. Which is what I told her
that it was. It rinsed right off. I cooked the potatoes and they seemed to
be fine.

But just now? Ew. I bought a small net bag of Yukon Golds to cook for my
husband later this week. My fridge is stuffed full so I decided to put them
in the bin. Well when I opened it, I was whapped in the face with an awful
smell. I had to get a flashlight to look in there because the bin is
located in an area of the house that isn't well lit. And there inside was a
totally rotted sweet potato. It had disintegrated to literally nothing but
fuzzy, wet mush. Now it's possible that we bought one that was rotting to
begin with. I don't know. They looked okay when we bought them but maybe
there is something I don't know about them? The other potatoes did seem
okay although there was some fuzz that seemed to have rubbed off on them.
The side of the bin had fuzz growing up on it.

Because the bin was starting to fall apart at the bottom, I decided to just
get rid of it. I paid $25 for it some years ago and now similar bins are
selling for $55 and up. I don't want to pay that much for one.

So what should I use to store them in? Or should I just buy them as needed?
I thought since they were a root vegetable that they would keep for a while.
Apparently not.