---

Thanks for the excellent advice Susan. I have now put my boxes in a room that has no window and has a room on either side of it. It stays a fairly constant temperature - about 20 degrees (so a little more than recommended for winter). It has a chimney providing good ventilation. The boxes are inside a large wooden cupboard, which provides some insulation against fluctuating temperatures in the room. The cupboard is NOT shut tight, so there is a good flow of air through it. I think this will be the best I can manage at home. As far as longer term storage is concerned, I am intending to pass a load of my stuff on to Liverpool Museum, and I will just retain critical stuff that I need for comparative purposes, when determining species IDs.

I will be keeping up regular inspections of boxes, and in fact have been doing this - that's how I discovered the outbreak of mould in the plastic boxes. However I was only doing them on a six monthly basis. This will now be increased to 3 monthly.

Thanks for the silica gel link. I will be making immediate use of it! :D