cybersecretary

Hi - from all your wealth of experience, can anyone enlighten me on the merits/and whatever the opposite of that is, of shipping/storage companies.

We are going to need to get our house contents shipped to CA and the stuff we dont is going into storage. Would prefer to have one company do both if possible.

What have been your good and bad experiences of this and is there any company who you feel able to recommend to us?

Is there anything you took to the US you wish you hadnt and vice versa (leave spouses/children out of this commentary please!).

What did you take that you really thought you needed and didnt? Is it worth storing dishwashers/washers etc or are they best disposed of. And various questions along those lines.

Roland Hulme

I'm just looking into this with my wife - if we find anybody good we'll give you a shout.

cybersecretary

Thank you, will reciprocate if (SORRY I MEAN WHEN!) we find anyone.

joto

We used Pickfords, but that was 10 years ago. We didn't put anything into storage as we were renting out our house, but took most of the contents with us. Left the electricals in the house. That was for originally 2 years, then we became permanent and sold electricals. Pickfords were pretty good,
but after we did some unpacking (months later) we found that we were missing 2 glass shelves to our diningroom sideboard and a table top from an old table. Of course we signed for everything being delivered to us. Depends whether you or the company are paying for the movers.

SecretGarden

DO NOT use First Move International. Lawsuit pending after severe injury to my husband.



~SecretGarden

Paul S

Pickfords whilst excellent for us in general did have a downside when we discovered that a few items had gone missing

Consider all the things you could leave behind (aaprt from electricals) and then take them all the same. Really wish we had done that as there was plenty we offloaded/left behind that we really wish we had brought now

Deedee13

dont use OMEGA either. !!!!!!!! very very very bad experience.

kel.n.issy

Dont use Brittania Removals either - con artists waste of time !!

TouristTrap

Dear Gawd!!!

After reading this lot I suggest a huge car boot sale and you buy everything here!!

Bob

The thing to look out for is who the movers use state side, because often they can be shite...

Oh, and it might sound stupid, but pack a few plates, cuttlery and a can opener in your suitcase because when you get here, move into a gaff and then realise you've got to wait for all your stuff or it gets stuck at customs and you've got nothing to eat out of, it'll be just one less hassle to deal with.

As for storage, wouldn't know to much about that, but check that the place has climate control and that it has surveillance, not much use if the place gets raided and no one knows anything been nicked for a couple of weeks.

Bob

you might well get social services come knocking on the door if you leave the kids behind mind..

Deedee13

dont be silly ... PAPER PLATES ARE IN!!!!! and PLASTIC cutlery can be obtained in every grocery store!! AS can the garbage bags

jumping doris

We used EuroUsa.

www.the-eurogroup.com.

We didn't chose them, they were the ones the relocation company used.
They are based in Suffolk and I think subcontract the work to someone local to you.
Similarly, at this end they had an agreement with a local company.

They were excellent, probably the best part of our relocation. The Suffolk office coordinated everything. We had lots of questions about stuff we could and couldn't bring and they were always quick with answers, we never had to chase them.

The team who packed were great. They involved our children, looked after the dog, made me cups of tea, went to the shop to buy Birds custard powder to put in the container!

The team at this end were OK, can't fault them, but they didn't have the same approach. They moaned a lot about the weight of some of the boxes, which I could lift!

Nothing was broken, chipped or marked in anyway.

OH's company wouldn't pay for any storage so we moved straight into our house and lived on air beds for a while. Paper plates ets.
No washing machine at first and that was hard as there are no launderettes near us.

jumping doris

Forgot to say...we had two shipments. The main one was packed and shipped in early September and we kept stuff behind as we were not comming over until late September. They came back 2 days before we moved out to pack the last few things.

Our main shipment was a 40 ft container. For the second shipment, which was airfreighted, we could only have so many boxes because of the weight.

nethead

We used Brittania and didn't have any problems with them, I'm not sure if they do storage though.