Cindyr

My husband and I have decided to ship our contents ourselves. Our stuff is going into storage for 4 months and this was really bumping up the quotes.

The company we are having our container from have advised us to wrap all garden furniture and bikes ect. in clear polythene wrapping.

Has anyone else done this? If so how will immigration inspect our goods for dirt.

thanks

Stormz

I think they`re off their trolley. I don`t think it`s worth the risk of you taking gardening stuff (and even the bikes) as if you get hit by customs for them they`ll hit you HARD. Hence why we`ve been selling our bikes and all gardening stuff here.

Aus customs/AQIS are VERY VERY tough on dirt.

kevinl

With our bikes I was thinking of just throwing the old tyres away and taking brand new ones unopened with us.

I think I can clean the rest of the bikes bits pretty well apart from the tyres.

Not taking anything else from outside, to much hassle.

Kevin

Stormz

Hey, that`s not a bad idea......

TheRossers

My understanding is that you have to get them professionally cleaned, the shipping company should be able to tell you where to get it done. I paid over £1000.00 for my bike so I'm going to get it done properly.

Chalkfarm

Hi we took our boys bikes and just jet spayed them down.The shippers then wrapped them up,everything is labelled on the sheet so if they want to look they just open up the packages and have a look.As for other stuff we left our mower,strimmer and garden tools.These are the ones that cause major problems.We are waiting for our stuff to clear ,so fingers crossed it will all be fine.Oh they also dont like wicker so that is another thing thats best left at home!

TheRossers

Thanks for that, only today the mrs. was talking about taking the conservatory furniture, even though we'd agreed to leave the majority of stuff. I shall let her know.

Phoenixuk2oz

You don't have to get things professionally cleaned but you do have to make sure items are spotless or "dirt-less".

Clean all items of dirt i.e garden equipment, camping gear, shoes, tools, bikes etc using Jeyes cleaning fluid [recommended by AQUIS]. Any garden or garage tools that are rusty then it might be worth sanding off all rust and painting with hammerite.

We did the above and although our boxes were thouroughly checked, we had no AQUIS charges.

This bit is hard work but it can pay off if you do it right.

Good luck!

TheRossers

Excellent advice, much appreciated. Karma on it's way if it'll let me.

nanci

We brought one bike, all our major garden tools, not our lawn mower, and hard wood garden furniture with us. The bike we thoroughly cleaned. The garden tools we cleaned and then painted with hammerite, as suggested by our shipping company. Our garden furniture we cleaned, revarnished and stored in the garage for a month before our move to ensure it was properly dried out, to prevent damp problems within the container.

All items were looked at by AQUIS, but we had no problems with any of them.

I hope this helps everyone just about to pack up and move over.

Nanci

cazz

If your taking bikes clean under the seat, apparently it's one place people forget about but the customs don't!!!