Sending household contents to Australia
 

Does anyone have any experience of sending a container of household contents to Australia? We have a 3 bedroom house and know it will be cheaper to send most belongings to Australia (sofas, beds, TV, furniture, appliances, cutlery and crockery, etc.) rather than buying them on arrival. However, the Australian Department of Agriculture web site lists many biosecurity concerns to consider. Everything from rugs, wooden furniture, pillows, shoes with soil on them, kitchen appliances, picture frames, vacuum cleaners, kitchen utensils, and washing machines. We would obviously clean all of these prior to shipping, but will that satisfy the Department or will we end up having to pay for cleaning or disposal?
Thanks for any help.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

They are looking for untreated wood and soil. Even unfinished wood in the vast majority of uk furniture is treated in some way. Not an issue. Feather duvets etc also fine but that peacock feather you picked up in the park..no! They don’t like any organic matter pine ones, dried flowers, seeds soil.
Clean any garden stuff and shoes really well. Same with your vacuum. Make sure your fridge is spotless and dry, same for washing machine (drain all water) or they will mould.

We brought wooden furniture, bikes,garden tools (although I did give the mower away as just too hard to clean) rugs, feather duvets. All no problem but they did inspect three boxes as we could see they had been re sealed. One had shoes, one kitchen stuff and another with tools.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

We shipped a container from Liverpool to Perth in 2018. No washing machine (although a dryer), but pretty much everything else you've listed including a lot of solid oak furniture. We had an international removal company pack all our stuff and didn't give anything a 'special' clean, although my husband's a bit of a clean freak so everything was clean anyway. I did give/throw away a few things that I thought might have posed a risk to Oz's biosecurity, including some small wood trinket boxes that had been handmade.

Our container was inspected at Customs in Perth, quite a few boxes had been opened and resealed. The only thing we were pulled up on was small artificial tree that I'd had indoors. Unknown to me, the trunk had real wood and bark in it. Customs said we could have it treated for $1,000, or destroyed for $100. It's in artificial tree heaven now ;)

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

:thumbup: We know someone who had to pay to get their gardening tools treated by Customs. Not surprising, since they'd left soil and bits of plants on them :rolleyes:

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

Thanks for the advice. At the moment it would seem that we could send our possessions but not get a ticket for ourselves.
Would you recommend the shipping company you used?
Thanks.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

Hi Miles, we used Britannia Cestrian in Chester and they were fantastic. We didn't have to lift a finger, they even took our clothes out of wardrobes and drawers and packed them. Not one item was chipped or broken when they arrived in Oz. Probably only an option if you're in the north-west of England though.

Their 'partner company' in Perth was Chess Removals and they were barely ok. They were supposed to place the furniture and boxes in the rooms we indicated but were more inclined to dump it all in the first room they came to. When I showed them the paperwork that confirmed they were supposed to put stuff where we said they did do it, but managed to chip a wall in our brand new villa in the process. They were also supposed to reassemble the beds and the dresser, but we'd had enough of them by then so told them to bugger off.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

I would not recommend using Britannia Ryan’s London and their Australian handler OSS Worldwide (Brisbane).

I have used Britannia Ryans numerous times before when living in the Uk but the London to Oz handling was fraught. I’m not sure what’s happened to the company but it’s definitely not what it was.

When my household goods arrived, there were odd articles missing - the best one of a pair of antique armchairs, a small cupboard- the most valuable piece of furniture in the container and my £200 crate of washing powder that doesn’t give my family an allergic reaction. All of which I surmise are very saleable in the second hand world. Having said that, there was a considerable quantity of wine which was all there.

I didn’t take out insurance as I figured the stuff wasn’t that valuable, but in making that decision I naively thought that I didn’t need to insure against poor coordination or theft. I stupidly thought that when you paid thousands of pounds for a service, that service would include the service provider not nicking your stuff, and ensuring that everything that was in your container gets delivered to your address. I can understand insurance covering unknowns like articles getting broken in containers or accidentally dropped or damaged during packing and moving but I thought that honesty and organisation was included in the price. Seems not.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

Our experience from over 10 years ago was items pilfered at the initial packing stage. My advice would be to watch the packers like a hawk when they arrive to pack everything up into boxes. Maybe have a couple of friends or rellies around the house to help keep an eye on things. And I suppose also when unpacking in Australia - if you use them to unpack your stuff as well - though with us we were just happy for them to drop everything off and we did the unpacking ourselves.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

Beware Christmas decorations - many people on here over the years have been caught out by these. Any pine cones, even those sprayed silver etc, are a problem so don't try and ship them. It'll cost you a fortune for destruction.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

I had ski boots stopped and cleaned by customs 23 years ago in a metre x metre box of an assortment of things. When I shipped my whole house nothing required cleaning or was forbid entry for whatever reason. Bikes, ski equipment, golf clubs x 2, and other stuff that hadn't been specifically cleaned sailed through. Good luck.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

We have moved a few times with international movers & have systematically lost bits in the move; anything from CDs to pictures & furniture. Our last move (France to UK) was an eye opener as the guys that turned up to pack the truck were travellers! So the lower the price, the more chance of it happening. I also suspect that double handling doesn't do anyone any favours. Just starting the quote process to move out to Vic in a few months, so all this advice is very useful

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

I am seriously considering Seven Seas where you pack the boxes yourself and they just pick them up and put them in one (or more) sealed 6 cubic metre 'Move Cubes', they are the same company on both ends (UK and Australia) they know and include the price of all the customs checks at their warehouse in Melbourne. Other than the good reviews on trustpilot I'm keen to hear from anyone that's used them? I guess they are a bit more expensive because everything has to go via Melbourne, and it's not a whole container but broken down into these move cubes.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

I used them to ship some of my late mother's possessions from Cape Town to Canberra. I believe the boxes were handled okay and all of the things that she had packed for storage years before her death arrived intact. Unfortunately my dad didn't do a good job at wrapping and packing most of the rest of the stuff so quite a lot of that arrived in pieces. That wasn't the company's fault but it is a risk of packing yourself. Also bear in mind you usually have to pay a handling fee in Australia as well so the cheap prices are not as cheap as you might at first think. But if I remember correctly they are quite transparent about it and their quote states what you will also have to pay in Australia.

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

My advice..... Sell the lot! Save shipping costs and buy new as most of us ship crap we dont need or it doesn't fit in very well

Re: Sending household contents to Australia
 

Works for some people, but before chucking out everything you own, go onto some Aussie websites and work out what it would cost to replace it all.