kars

Hi

Just done a search on 'wicker' items to see what experiences other people have had and now even more confused. Had PSS round last week and they said it was up to us if we want to 'risk' taking wicker items as may have to pay for items to be treated or destroyed at customs. There are not many posts from people who have actually 'gone through' customs, anyone help??

Cheers
Sally

DebraH

yes I've had this too, according to the very nice man from John Masons, wicker has to be treated, now I'm not sure if wicker purchased in shops is treated. Sea grass is definetly a no-no - pain as i have a lot of it.

Think customs may treat the wicker (not 100% on this) and have heard rumours that it can rot the wicker - again not sure how reliable this info is as a friend told me that. To be honest I'm not taking the risk - it's all going.

warbs4

We brought wicker and seagrass baskets, some quite large. Some of the wicker was painted, some was natural. Anyway, we included it on the customs forms and the boxes weren't even opened by AQIS. I guess it's a risk, you may be lucky like us.

Budgie

Customs pulled me up on a wicker basket and a wooden vase I took when I emigrated.

They wanted to charge me $100 to get the basket and a wooden vase treated. The alternative was to get them destroyed. When I opted to get them destroyed they told me it would cost $60 to get them incinerated! So as I had to pay either way I decided to pay and keep 'em!

Personally I reckon it's just another hidden "tax" on coming here

So I guess the answer is if you're not prepared to pay for getting it destroyed or treated if this is required, then don't take it!

h2oskineil

We 'risked' 6 woven bannana leaf dining chairs and were lucky! It really is down to luck, had they have been inspected, they would have probably been destroyed at our cost.
The general advice is don't take it as if they find something, they may go right through your container which would be expensive.

Neil.

iamthecreaturefromuranus

They found some pine cones in our Christmas decorations, which I would have swore blind were plastic pine cones. They asked if we would like them gamma irradiated for $350 or destroyed for $30.. They went in the bin.... along with a pair of shoes which had "soil on them", which again we could have had nuked for $350...

ub40fan

Hi

I am also in the process of having shippers round, and all but one (PSS) so far have said the wicker chair I have should be fine. One even said if it is wrapped up and labelled as a chair they probably will not even look at it.

I think I am going to risk taking it and see what happens.

Shirley

Nicky & Dave

Hi Sally,

We're in the process of having shippers round to quote and all of them so far have advised us not to take any of our wicker stuff. I've also got some pretty expensive christmas decorations which have pine cones on, and I've been told to remove these. I bought a wicker bag when I was last over in Australia - and yep, you guessed it! I can't take the bloody thing back into Oz!

You can take the risk but all boils down to whether the stuff is picked up during inspection. I know there was one expat member on here some time ago who had a hat destroyed because AQIS didn't believe the flowers were fake!


Nicky

GinaUK

We have two wicker "dirty washing" baskets. We are taking those with us. I work on the principle that AQIS like to *find and destroy* something (just as a revenue creation exercise). And I would prefer them to destroy the wicker baskets rather than "decide" our shoes or bicycles are dirty.

(I have read quite a few stories on here of AQIS saying that brand new shoes or a brand new child's bicycle have soil on them - and you can't argue with them.)

Gina

spalen

this is why edward woodward has never been to australia

gjs

lol