Aus4us

Have read previous threads on Lawn mowers, To those who cleaned and scrubbed them, did you have any problems with customs and are you glad you took them?

I am not sure if it is worth the trouble to have customs want to clean/remove it anyway?

Any advice folks?

floss

bump - 'cos I've been looking at our lawn mower and can't imagine it ever being clean enough!

Centurion

We've decided on it being donated to a relative - the cost in terms of my time and sanity in cleaning it to quarantine standards would be a completely false economy me thinks.

GinaUK

Same here! Impossible to get into all the nooks and crannies - ours will stay behind (and the pine cones from the Xmas dekkies).

Gina

Sir Les Patterson

to be honest my MIL just pay a gardener to come every other week to do garden for about $20 a pop

banjo

we brought ours as it was fairly new and we took the line that at least it would get us started. My husband washed it with a pressure washer and we didn't have any problems at all. It's still going strong but waaaaaaaay to small for the garden. I have to push it up and down for two hours to moe the lawn! And I used to whine about the 10mins it took in the UK

wengerboy

IMHO i would`nt bother unless it`s pretty new,mine was goosed and smothered with years worth of ground in grass so i binned the bugger

Sandra

We have a huge lawnmower and brought it over. It cost us a fortune and is top notch at doing its job. Hubby used hose and scrubbing brush.

When we got here and waited for our stuff to clear the customs took the lawnmower grass box and charged us about $200 to clean the thing and kept it for about two weeks extra. I believe it was a revenue raising task cause they released the mower itself?! But 200 was a drop compared to buying another for us. I was also lucky as my job transfer paid the extra cost.

The first house we had had a massive lawn and it was worth it for us to have the big machine. Now we are in a smaller place (grass wise) if it gives up we might be tempted to buy smaller, especially cause hubby gets asked to help out cutting the grass at the scout hut and is considering buying a ute to haul his monster mower

Like the other posters have said you sort of have to decide is the mower worth the potential extra cost. I would recommend though that if you clean it yourself make sure your slop around the jeyes to make sure it also smells clean. We did not do that.

Have fun

kango_jack

I would say not worth even considering unless it is a petrol mower - can't imagine how many extension cables you would need to cut the lawn otherwise.
We didn't bother with anything that would cause a problem, sister in law had to pay for her plastic 'pine cones' which she had stored in her Christmas decorations as Customs wasn't convinced.
My sister had a problem with her husbands work boots, from what I remember it cost her $70 for them to destroy and nearly $300 to be cleaned......
Annie

whisky

We cleaned ours with a pressure washer and had no problems bringing it in.
We did this on advise from previous expats that lawnmowers can be a bit pricey for a new one here, and I have found this to be the case.

Whisky

lesleys

FYI cheapest petrol mower is less than $300.

Aus4us

Thanks guys!!

It is a petrol mower and it is relatively new!!

Don't know if it is worth the bother though

Roni