stefian

We are beginning to sort the rubbish from what we are taking with us to Oz.

Can anyone tell me what the shippers do? do we pack our own things in boxes? do we do detailed inventries or brief ones?

someone told me you can't take certain things made of wood and ohter things you have to disinfect thoroughly with soecial disinfected

any advice welcomed

Stef x

Brisbane bound when house is sold

PeteY

In a nutshell.....if its dirty, clean it. And if its been in the garden, disinfect it too. There mus'nt be a hint of mud on anything (shoes inc).

Have a look at www.aqis.gov.au for a list of things you can't take.

We are doing a self pack, so we have to box everything up ourselves. Advantage = cheaper, disadvantage = insurance does'nt cover breakage, unless somthing drastic happens to the boat. We are doing a VERY detailed inventory, not just for AQIS, but also so we know where everything is.

Cheers

Pete.

stefian

thanks for your reply, all we have to do now is sell the house. A viewer was supposed to come the other night and just didn't turn up, which is so annoying.

We have applied for a 4 year tempory visa and should know in about 4 weeks if we have been accepted, we just presumed we could take all our worldly goods with us do you know if this is possible with a tempory visa

Stef x

Getting more panicky and confused by the day

ayanem

No problem!

Davenshell

when our stuff arrived in Melbourne the customs unloaded our container, the shippers in UK said they do it to one in 10, the shippers her said they do it to all.Had a bit of a shook when instead of a 40' container arriving 2 smaller vans turned up as I knew we had some very delicate stuff. the customs had gone through all boxes marked for daughters bedroom. they had found a headband with "dried flowers on it" in fact it was artificial it was posy from when she was a bridesmade some years previously. that had to be destroyed. When the shippig company over here told what had been found out of a 40' container I imagined every item spread around the floor. Customs also checked all the boxes marked kitchen even though shippers had packed tea, coffee, suger tins still half full. One other thing that was distressing was we had a very old trinket box with some items of jewellery it had been locked when it was packed when it arrived it had been broken open with a screwdriver, some gold rings were still inside but the damage is beyond repair, also found a muddy old basketball the packers had found somewhere in the garden and decided to pack they missed that one.
David

HiddenPaw

Hi Stef
If you are entrusting your worldy goods with a removal firm, I would make sure you find out excatly how they intend to transport your stuff. Ask questions about packing materials, will all packing be done at your house, what happens after it leaves your house, who has authorisation to pack/unpack your stuff, which company they intend to use at the other end, and do they outsource, etc.

I had a nasty experience getting here - the main problem was that the 'highly reputable' (and expensive) company we gave the business to outsourced the packing to another company (who also have a reputation as one of the UK's best removal firms!). The people that turned up at our house to pack were wearing the uniforms of 'expensive' company so we didn't even know they had outsourced until later in the day. They turned up with inadequate materials to do the job (they were removing draw knobs with a penknife, and used our dust sheets to pad out boxes...and a whole load more that I wont go into). It was only when they had to get another team to drop off bike cartons that we realised we were dealing with a different company to whom we thought. In hindsight, I should never have allowed the stuff to even leave my house...but I was naive and believed the company when they said that the furniture that they had taken from my house without packaging would be wrapped as soon as it reached the warehouse. (They lied, assured me it was packed...it turned up 10,000 miles later without an ounce of protection on it...and very damaged!)

The packing company will do an inventory of each carton - but it will just be a high-level summary (e.g. 'books' or 'bedroom ornaments'). They won't go into detail such as '2 lamps, 1 vase, 1 jewellry box' etc, so if you want to be that detailed you'll need to keep track of that yourself.

Good luck with the move.
HP

Davenshell

Agree with hidden paw the packers we had were sub-contractors some were good others had only just started and this was from a big company that gets regular mentions here putting heavy items on top of microwave didn't help ,and beware they pack everything that doesn't move and are very much in a hurry, I've ended up with library books and presents that we were supposed to give to friends, and as hidden paw says boxes are just marked "kitchen utensils,tools,books main bedroom" etc so customs just seem to take a random selection of your items and open them up but they do seal them again.
David

stefian

Thanks everyone for your advice. Now we have to decide what should come with us and what not. I stood in the attic and didn't know where to start.

Stef x