Storing gear while living in warm, humid places

Air conditioner.

>I do a fairly decent job of protecting my high-end ski gear by storing it in thick >plastic bags along with dessicators to try to keep moisture levels low. But I can’t >store everything like this.

I think you are going to have to store every thing like this.
Nanga also recommends you store their sleeping bags in plastic bags with dissicant over the humid summer months.

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Old thread, but I'm moving to Sydney, Australia, it's a got a distinctive damp feeling to it at the moment. The humidity isn't horrible, but BOM reports the annual average relative humidity as 70%, with an average temperature of 17C/63F (looks to be a 27% chance any given day has more than 1mm of rain)[1].

When I lived in the real tropics, I have a very distinctive memory of a friend pulling out his few month old MSR tent, which was a sticky mess of nylon and broken down coating (probably PU from hydrolysis?).

Now I've got a fair bit of expensive climbing and hiking kit – down bags, silnylon in tarps and tents, PU coated nylon in tent floors and portaledge flys, eVent in jackets/bivies/pants, etc.

Is this level of humidity and type of climate something to start worrying about? Most rental places don't seem to have aircon, though if we pay a bit more we might be able to find something. Unfortunately I can't really afford a place with a spare room which I could just run a dehumidifier in 24/7.

I could go the sealing things up in containers route with silica gel or similar, but I have enough gear that it becomes tricky (the sleeping bags alone are annoying enough to store loose as is…).

Any ideas or suggestions? Could not worry about it and see what happens, but for every piece of kit ruined that might take a weeks paycheck to replace!

Ultimately my two concerns are manifestation of mold and hydrolysis of fabric coatings.

[1] http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_066062.shtml years=1981-2010