Sorry guys... wanted to pick you brains as I'm feeling too lazy to go through all the past threads and I'm up to my ears at the mo...

I'm trying to do some packing, so that the house is relatively toy / junk free prior to sale.
How do you label the boxes etc. for aquis?
How strict do you need to be regarding separating out your wooden stuff? Would you go as far as taking out wooden puzzles and photo frames?
Are they bothered about feathers? - like the ones you get on children's dressing up clothes etc. they are all dyed and treated.
Thankyou!!
Any other tips much appreciated!

Arrggggggggghhhhhhhhh there is soooooooooo much to do!!!!!

larissa, just from personal experience this is what we did

cleared the attic and put it in one room in boxes, cleaned all the garden furniture bikes and garden tools and disinfected them

when the packers come they go through the boxes and put an itinery on the boxes as well as the forms you get, they do inspect things to make sure they clean

dont bother with jigsaws they dont bother with them, cant take anything wicker

and lastly if you want to keep anything put it away in your car as if it moves they will pack it as i found out when looking for my professional portfolio, which is now in the container!!


arlene

You'll need an inventory, with the boxes all numbered, and with a rough list of their contents - Books, CDs, Clothes, that kind of thing. Try and get all the wooden stuff in together rather than scattered between all the boxes, then on the inventory make sure those say "Wooden items" - thats what AQIS are after.
They may also open some of the other boxes at random, if they find undeclared stuff in the others they may open the lot.
:scared:
The feathers might be best declared, though they probably won't bother with them. beware of things with dried flowers - including hats....... they found one of mine with IMITATION dried flowers, and destroyed it in case there were any seeds in it!!!

Our shippers advised us not to pack anything ourselves as damage caused to the contents of owner packed boxed was excluded from the insurance. Worth checking this.

My other half packed everything himself apart from the lounge suite, and then Pickfords just came and picked it up.

Other half also failed to mention to me that he hadn't actually taken out insurance on the stuff, and only told me this when the stuff was being carted into the house when it arrived here.:scared:

Needless to say I was not impressed, but at least nothing got broken, so didn't need to claim anyway.

I'm sure he has some Scottish blood in him JK.

Is that what they call it

Thanks guys for all the replies... we have to do some packing as we have too much stuff for our house... we're putting stuff like the piano in storage. Our house is miniscule, so we've got to clear out some stuff to give the illusion of space!
Another weird question... my nipper's cot mattress is made from cocoa fibre... would that be a problem? (Might explain why is ended up such a monkey).
Perhaps I better have a good pour through the aqis site

Hi Larissa

We are packing ourselves, friend owns shipping co, saving a fortune!!! so only insured on total loss but with what we've saved will outway anything broken - with my packing nothing will be though )

I looked back through threads and found Pollyanna's very useful and a few others, we have labelled each box, numbered and put our forwarding address and name on each so no confusion there.

All wooden stuff, shoes, etc that they are looking out for have been packed together and I have a full breakdown list for all boxes for when we sort out with customs at other end.

used the vacuum bags that you kindly recommended, also put silica gel sachets in with books, photo albums, shoes, bags, clothes etc

Not taking any garden stuff as could do with replacing anyway..too much hassle to try and get them throughly clean...

found starting the packing a couple of months back stressfree as we are practically sorted now, hasn't been rushed and just needs to be shipped early June, maybe find out about the cost of just a container as you seem organised too

Teresa

swifts,

can you find pollyanna thread again and copy and paste to this tread ? would like top read so I can do a half decent job packing and orgainising everything.

thanks

Hi Molly, theres probably a few, I was packing in Sept/Oct last year if you look at my threads around then.

Swifts have posted the bit about packing/listing wood separately, and labelling the boxes clearly. Make sure you have your initial, surname, box number and destination in large letters- thats another reason for using new boxes, that way they have nothing written on them.
If you can, use NEW, export quality boxes - they are very strong as they are double strength. DO NOT USE supermarket boxes that contained fruit/flowers/veg etc - they - and the contents - will quite possibly be destroyed by AQIS.
If you're taking foodstuff, pack them separately too, and declare them - things like spices aren't worth bringing, chuck them and start again. Heartbreaking, but the import cost outweighs the replacement cost!
Shoes must be scrubbed, like garden tools,and toys and that kind of thing.

I wrapped everything breakable in bubble wrap, and they only stuff that was broken was stuff AQIS had unwrapped! Just think that the box has to be loaded and unloaded and possibly jolted around.

Post any more questions, and I'll see what else I can remember.

Thanks Pollyana,

When AQIS broke your stuff did they replace it or financially reimburse you ?

Any ideas where to pick up cheap/free export boxes ? I was thinking along the lines of asking a few high steet retail stores who import clothes (such as M&S) and ask them for boxes they were only going to destroy in the crusher.

Can you list for me the items to box seperately for AQIS inspection ???

Many thanks again.

And did they have the cheek to charge you for this service?

BTW where does one buy silica gel sachets and vast quantities of bubble wrap? (Though I hope I never need to know since we've no intention of doing our own packing, having done it for local moves and learnt the hard way just how time-consuming and exhausting it is.)

Mark

No, the stuff AQIS broke was just a couple of bowls, that kind of thing - it was where things had been unwrapped and then shoved back in the box. No way of proving who did it, but they had been opened and resealed by AQIS. Not enough money involved to make it worth complaining.
They will want to know about any food, anything wooden, furs and skins that sort of thing - there is a mega-list on therir website. Also medicines of any kind, and food or drink. Wicker might get in, but declare it. Have a look at any posts by Mr Mover - he is the real authority on this.
Don't bring plants! They pulled out a hat of mine which had artificial flowers and destroyed it cos they reckoned there were seeds in it!

I might get slammed for saying this, but I don't think clothes boxes willbe strong enough - certainly not if you are sharing a container, as things get moved more. If you do use them, only pack light stuff in them. I paid about £3 each for my boxes (the pnly thing my shippers were good for) and they all survived, some a little the worse for wear. Most of the stuff is still stacked in them! The boxes that got most battered were the half dozen I got from work - and I thought they were strong. Again, see what Mr Mover has to say on the subject - just do a search for any threads by him (you'll find lots by me that way too!)

thanks again pollyana,

just one last thought

just looked at the AQIS website and it says that christmas trees and ecorations are not aloud in !!! I have a lovely 6' artifical christmas tree with artificial decorations - is this banned ???

thanks