benwells87

Hi. Our house is being packed up tomorrow to be shipped over to Canada and I am up to my eyeballs in shoes, scrubbing the soles to make sure there is no mud or dirt for the inspection by customs on the Canadian side.

Can anyone who has been through this say how thorough the inspection is once your consignment arrives in Canada? I am picking out tiny specks of dirt out of shoes here and I'm wondering if I am overdoing it?

Thanks!!

SchnookoLoly

It just needs to be generally clean, not spotless. If you have boots you went trekking in that are caked with mud then that might cause you issues, but you don't need to scrub out every crack and crevice. Just give everything a rinse in hot water, scrub off any excess, and don't worry about little bits that are left. That was pretty well how our shippers described it to us as we had bikes to import - he said just giving everything a wipe down and make sure it's not caked or obviously very dirty.

benwells87

Thank you! Bunged a bunch of them in the washing machine.

Aviator

If CFIA get involved in any inspection, any trace of dirt may result in the items being refused entry. At that point they will be destroyed or you can pay to get them shipped back from whence they came.

A few years ago the British army came here for an exercise, had not washed the vehicles properly. Were refused entry and the whole lot was shipped back to blighty.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...anada-1.264891

Not quite the same as your rubber boots, so long as there is no visible dirt, usually not a problem. Worst case, you lose your rubber boots. Likely cheaper to buy a new pair here than spend an hour cleaning them.

Almost Canadian

How often to travellers scrub the shoes they are wearing when travelling to Canada? How often is someone's shoes destroyed when they come to Canada for vacation?

rivingtonpike

The customs guys are unlikely to open and inspect your container anyway. I think common sense prevails. If you have on your goods to follow inventory things like garden tools, lawnmowers etc, these are things you should make sure are free of soil. I seem to remember we painted spade blades and the like with hammerite paint. Then we liberally sprayed Jeyes (sp?) Fluid everywhere.

Former Lancastrian

Unless you are coming from a farm and going to a farm then we don't normally check for mud on footwear. Containers with garden tools/vehicles or other outside items might come under more scrutiny dependent on their origin and where they are destined for in Canada.
Be aware that CFIA can charge for inspections and refuse entry if the items don't meet their requirements.
Common courtesy is not to travel with shit all over your footwear especially if on a plane for several hours.

rivingtonpike

benwells87

Thanks everyone for all of your comments. In my previous career I have had plenty of first hand experience of customs officials from all over the globe and I realise that sometimes it can be pot luck which official (and which mood he is in), as to how hard a time you get. I am leaving all our garden gear behind. I have jetwashed my pushbike so it is pretty much sparkling. It was just the footwear which bothered me (there are a LOT of shoes in my house). I was just after confirmation from others who have been through this how rigorous the Canadian customs were on arrival. In my past experience, I have never been given a hard time at the Canadian border, but then again, I wasn't emigrating to Canada before!

rivingtonpike

Don't leave your garden stuff behind because of customs. If you don't want/need then fair enough. Lots of people bring it all. Garden furniture too - as long as it's clean. I think Former Lancastrian and his colleagues have rather more important things to do than look for the odd bit of grime or dirt.

Geordie Lass

Get some Jeyes fluid for stuff like bikes and garden furniture. It stinks but that's what I was told to wash everything with before it went into the container.

You can get it from garden centres and some supermarkets I think.

HTH. Good luck - it'll all be worth it!

__TJ__

My stuff comes Friday I'm so excited! Hubby's tools had to be cleaned then oiled, but that was fine.

MillieF

I brought everything ( thanks to RivingtonPike) and have no regrets....I have far superior garden furniture to my neighbours! Because mine didn't come from the very few shops at our disposal. We also brought a car and couple of bikes and two motorbikes, but they were cleaned, pretty well, with Jeyes Fluid...but they wern't spotless! Very best of luck for tomorrow

Donnykins

I've paid for my visa now and am currently waiting for them to request our passports and issue our PR cards. I am going through the house, selling, binning, organizing and cleaning things. It is mind-boggling!

I understand that batteries needs to be taken out of everything?
Don't understand the jewellery issue though? It says to take them with you on the plane, but that these needs photographing and valuing? Really?
Also, what do I do about scented candles, essential oils for oil burners, household cleaning fluids, dried herbs and spices etc?

SchnookoLoly

Take all the batteries out, yes - it's just in case there are any battery fluid leaks, then it just gets into everything and causes a huge mess. It also stops anything accidentally turning on in the box and causing a security threat or whatever. FOr some things we just stuck paper in between the batteries so that there was no contact - we did that mainly for things that had special batteries that we didn't want to misplace. Anything with AAs we just took out completely since they're common enough.

Jewellery I think is more of a valuable thing - it's high value items that are otherwise easy for you to transport yourself. I did put some lower-value stuff (costume jewellery, etc) in the container, but anything valuable I didn't trust to the container, and brought with me on the plane. Anything particularly high value was individually declared (engagement ring, etc) but everything else I just lumped together in an entry called "jewellery". Didn't photograph everything but had it accessible in case customs wanted to see it.

As for the rest of it, our shippers said to avoid putting any liquids in the shipping container - cleaning stuff, toiletries, oils, etc - one, if it leaks it makes a huge mess, two, it can freeze because the containers aren't heated and they're going across the ocean, so, you know, bbbrrrrr, and then three, most of that stuff is easily replaced in Canada anyway.

We were told categorically no food in the container, which included herbs, spices, teas, etc. What we wanted we brought in our suitcase (mainly my nice Harrods loose tea) and everything else we just gave away. Annoying, but not hard, to replace spices.

HTH!