will boxes in a damp basement get moldy?
I think that part of the problem is that the boxes themselves are prone to mold and mildew. My family repackaged a lot of the stuff we store into large plastic bins that you can purchase at stores like Wal-Mart, Costco, Target and Sam’s Club. This is more expensive than regular boxes, but I think that overall the plastic bins do a better job at protecting are stuff, particularly against mold and mildew. Depending on what you are storing you might consider getting clear bins so you can actually see what it is that the bin contains for ease of finding things.
The airtight containers would certainly help–but truely air-tight may be hard to manage, and mold is insidious stuff. If mold spores have already started to develop, and a contaier isn’t totally airtight, you could still have problems. We live roughly 3 blocks from a MAJOR river, and the basement is damp, spring to fall. We run a de-humidifier, because there’s just no way to protect everything down there any other way. It works very well, as long as we also keep items off the floor. We don’t have any actual leaking, just constant dampness. I easily get a gallon to a gallon and a half of water out of the de-humidifier every day in the middle of summer. Another thing to check–especially if you actually get water coming in sometimes–is the positioning and direction of your guttering. If you keep your gutters cleaned out, and the downspouts direct water at least 4 to 6 feet away from your foundation, you may find less moisture down there. We had a house that leaked only when something k
