flip

Paranoia and exhaustion are taking over - just remembered a picture with a dried flower in it and a cushion filled with feathers as well as my daughter's purple feather boa.

Immediately found them all a new home but how can you ever be sure you've cleansed your home properly. Will the packers know not to pack the wicker coasters or picnic hamper if I forget to remove them or am I on my own? I'm ridiculously worried after that post about the sand filled toy costing $500 to destroy.

6 days left to sort it all out and panicking!

Carolyn

Vanessa

Interesting question. However, we have been told that there is no problem with our bedding which is filled with goose down, are our packers wrong on this one?

We also have some cushions made from Springbox (yes they eat the meat too) I was going to 'smuggle' these in!!!!

Pollyana

Alot of the actual packers will not be aware of what is "contraband", , so better have a good look yourself. By the way it turned out that the $500 included the inspection fee and everything, it wasn't just for that lizard - thought it sounded a bit steep when it was posted

flip

Thanks for the reassurance about the lizard - it's just I'm sure I'll miss something no matter how thorough I am, will remember it when the containers on its way and will worry until I get the bill - I'm pretty predictable that way - just sent out all our invites only to be asked by the first person I spoke to whether I'd got the time wrong - I had and I'll worry till every last person's been told in triplicate.

Geordie George

Polly's right - the packers pack whatever they're asked to. And you won't remember everything! That's normal. The best thing is to clean anything you're worried about and make sure it's labelled accordingly. We took wicker baskets and a chair, cleaned them with Jeyes fluid, declared them and had no problems. Customs were aware of them and let them in. However, we forgot about our dining room chairs (which have straw backs and seats).

To have the chairs gamma irradiated would have cost $322.00, they could have been completely destroyed for $110.00 but we organised with the shippers and quarantine to remove the straw from the chairs for a labour/destroy charge of $66.00. This charge was in addition to the quarantine inspection charge of $245.00, which we expected to have to pay regardless of whether they found anything or not. So not a huge bill by any means.

Must admit, we binned our feather cushions and bought new over here. Not worth the hassle, to my mind.

Try not to worry too much! The packing team we had were very professional and organised. To the extent that Mr GG and I left them to it and went shopping for an hour while they worked away! We definitely felt surplus to requirements on the big day!

GG

Pollyana

Just to add - people have posted stories on here about packers who have packed passports and important paperwork, and even bags full of garbage, just because they are packing everything.
Be warned - put all the stuff NOT to be packed into one place if you can , and be VERY clear about what is not to go

Geordie George

Aye, good point. We cleared one room of everything before the packers came. Then we put all the stuff that wasn't to be shipped into that room with a big, 'DO NOT ENTER!!!!!' sign on the door. Also told the packers that this was the room full of stuff not to be packed and they weren't to go in there at all. We were then able to throw stuff in there, right up until the last minute (until we moved it all to the B&B we were staying in).

Brissiegirl

totally agree with GG's and Pollyanna's comments. The packers will pack anything not nailed down!!! We had to be very specific... although I'm just waiting to see what happens now when customs gets hold our container and start ripping through our stuff. I'm sure that we forgot stuff, although we were paranoid and steam cleaned all our gardening tools (very large collection of forks/hoes collected over a number of years) and also painted them with hammerite. Just depends on what they 'read' on the inventory written up by the packers.

Our packers were nice though. A couple of proper Janners... didn't stop talking for 2 days!!! They did work their socks off...

our container should land next week.. then it's waiting time again..