I spend half the year in Southeast Asia, usually split between the Philippines and Thailand with the other half of the year in the US, during MLB season.
SE Asia is hot and humid year round, although the worst months are when we are in the US. April-September temperatures will generally be between 92-100F with 85%+ humidity. The cold season which is now is around 85-92F during the day time, but humidity is much lower, usually 40-50%.
Mold is constantly a problem although worse in the rainy season. The main things we do is make sure the rooms of the house are getting circulation and we also run dehumidifiers. The dehumidifiers are mainly run in the bedrooms while the main living area (living room, dining room, kitchen) we will have ceiling fans running and also use the air con consistently. When we are in the US, since its SE Asia and labor is cheap, we have year round household help. The main job when we are away is for them to be mold busters. Running the dehumidifiers at night, ceiling fans and windows open during the day getting circulation, etc. Also, we move all furniture away from the walls while in the US, pretty much congregate in the middle of the room. This is one of the keys that really helps us as you will find most people who leave for extended periods, will have mold growing behind the furniture within a week or so. I'm also allergic to mold which I never knew until I moved to SE Asia decades ago. Same feeling as someone with Asthma so I am told.
As for the sports collection, this is kept in the US. Sporting events that I typically attend in SE Asia are quite a few of the OneFC events as well as boxing, especially when Pacquiao was doing the majority of his fights in Macau. All of the tickets to this events never survived the humidity, in fact, the ink vanished off of those tickets within 1 year. Im in some ticket groups and I use those as examples as to what the humidity can do to collections. Sportscards will warp very easily here.
The only main collection we have in SE Asia are Persian carpets which also need to be protected from the mold. This is a constant battle, but again it falls back to air circulation and sunlight and dehumidifiers. Besides mold, moths are another issue.
There are some good points in this thread, but you may also find the dehumidifiers to be a big help. Just get ones with a large enough reservoir so you dont need to keep dumping out the water multiple times a day. Also, for cleaning any mold, we keep it simple, a mixture of vinegar and water. Ive been told though that this type of mixture is not effective towards all kinds of mold but for us it works.
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