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We have a very old Gibson mandolin, and we had a problem with some bugs. The bugs would eat some kind of glue that they used to make the mandolin, and it eventually collapsed in. When our mandolin was repaired a few years back, we left mothballs in the case for a while to keep anything out. The mandolin / case smell like mothballs now, but I haven't noticed ...

Thicker strings (aka higher gauge strings) do exert higher tension on the instrument. on a violin they will do this in two primary directions, one is is pulling the neck toward the tail piece, and the other is putting more pressure on the bridge. I don't think having higher gauge strings will make much of a difference, but you should make sure of two ...

If you have a high-quality instrument, heavy strings shouldn't damage it. If your instrument is made out of cardboard or you're stringing it with steel power cables, things aren't so certain. Just don't do anything ridiculous; going up a gauge or two won't exceed the parameters of a decent instrument.