Very high humidity - should I worry about their food??

[Dejavu]

ok, so after having months and months of no rain, now we've had 2-3 days of non-stop rain and high, VERY high humidity. Now it's stopped raining since yesterday, but you can practically swim when you go outside, it's like someone spilled buckets and buckets of water on the garage and backyard, the walls are dripping water inside and outside, the floor of some rooms are totally wet, you can't even mop them, they just won't dry.
Book covers are getting curly, and what worries me the most, my dogs food bags (Innova) feel "moist" on the outside. I usually close them getting all the air out and very tight and then with some big clips.

It hadn't been like this til today, it was today when everything started to look and feel wet.

Now, the bags are "metalized" in the inside, but does that even offer a good protection?

As usual, I'm paranoid. Now I feel like I'm gonna poison my dogs if the food gets humid and spoiled and what about the aflatoxin?? Could it be a risk??
All their food contains rice so can it get moldy like this??

ok, now I don't even know what to do. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING inside the house is as humid as outside, from walls and floors to furniture.

I tried looking for some plastic containers, well guess what, they're so freaking humid I feel I can't get them dry.

Ziploc bags? What can I do?Any suggestions for this paranoid person??

[jocoyn]

Ungh sounds like you need to pick up a dehumidifier --- that much humidity is not good for anything. I imagine with what you are doing the dog food will be fine.

Can you run the heat or AC for awhile to dry things out? An air conditioner pulls a LOT of moisture out of the air.

[onyx'girl]

If I were you, I'd keep the food in a freezer if possible and thaw the food an hour before feeding. I think you use to feed raw? so a freezer would be a better option than storing in plastic(temps will still be a factor regardless of the humidity levels).
Freezing is more consistent/safer IMO. When I fed kibble I stored it frozen.
Sorry you are going thru this!

[Dejavu]

I don't have a dehumidifier, even if I did I would need like 4 of them for the rooms with more problems.

Do you think a heater fan would help? The air conditioners we have are the window kind, are those ok too?

Seriously, we've been praying for rain, but not like this! And according to the forecast, the weather won't change much the next few days.

Then the dog food can be ok, even if they're the "original" bags? Two of them are big 30 lbs ones, one almost half way, the other... I just opened it tonight.
And even if I'm keeping them in one of the "drier" rooms, I just can't help but worry.

As much as I worry for all the material stuff, if anything were to happen to my dogs I wouldn't know what to do.

[Dejavu]

Originally Posted by onyx'girl

If I were you, I'd keep the food in a freezer if possible and thaw the food an hour before feeding. I think you use to feed raw? so a freezer would be a better option than storing in plastic(temps will still be a factor regardless of the humidity levels).
Freezing is more consistent/safer IMO. When I fed kibble I stored it frozen.
Sorry you are going thru this!

Ah Onyx, thank you! I just saw your reply.

Yeah, I used to feed raw, but now I'm feeding kibble. (Gawd if I could still afford it I wouldn't be going through this!)

What do you use to store it in the freezer? Or do you just store the bags as they are?
I don't have enough space though, I have two 30 lbs and two small 5lbs bags of kibble.

[jocoyn]

IT is overall unhealthy if the walls and floors are wet - mold, fungi, bugs. So I would do what I could. I don't know if a window AC removes water like a central unit - I would think it would.

Not sure a heater fan would do anything but move it around.

[onyx'girl]

I just put the 30# bag the kibble came in into my chest freezer. The recalls were going on, and I wanted to keep track of batches at that time, so didn't want to toss what the food came in.
But you could put it in food safe containers to store it. Even if your food is now compromised by humidity, freezing it may save it? I don't know though....
I was always worried about the change in temps when I fed kibble, heat or humidity can be bad(not to mention bugs/rodents)stored in my garage. So into the freezer it went.

[Dejavu]

Well, I have turned the air conditioner in two rooms, and moved the dog food to one of the "drier" rooms for now, til the air conditioner removes the humidity.

I'm guessing the kibble is fine now, as only the outside of the bags feels humid, the food inside doesn't feel any different. I just don't want it to get spoiled or heaven forbid, moldy.

Jane, one more question about freezing the kibble. When I thaw things here they almost always get/feel wet. Wouldn't that be an issue?

[onyx'girl]

Not if you only thaw a meal at a time, just set it out to warm a bit(won't mold in that time) or even pour hot water over it to thaw if the dogs will eat it that way.
Many people do add warm water to the kibble before feeding(supposedly to prevent bloat?)

[pyratemom]

We live with humidity most of the year. The wall unit air conditioners/window units will take some humidity out of the air. We don't have central air and our wall unit takes care of about 750 sf of (floor) space as far as humidity. If you can at least air condition one room and keep the food and other stuff in there that you worry about it should help. You might also consider getting some containers of Damp Rid to set about. It will take the moisture out of the air too but you have to put it where the animals can't get to it and empty the containers of liquid often. We have gone through this after hurricanes so I hope it helps.