have you moved UK to Australia? Does this sound like BS to you, too?

[PhDlifeNeedsaNewLife]

Now I am an aussie, so I know how rigorous their Customs rules are, but still this sounds like bollocks to me -

They have both insisted that they must pack our stuff. One said this was because Customs would wonder why we were shipping our stuff half-way round the world, having packed it ourselves. Apparently this would attract suspicion and they would go through it and then we'd have to pay the search/repacking costs. He said professionally packed stuff is less likely to be searched.

I've moved internationally half a dozen times, including to Oz in the 1980s, and I've never heard of such a thing. I would really prefer to do it myself, whaddyarekkin?

shouldn't try tuping lying down
what a load of rubbish

how's that DS PHD? mine is an ANGEL. I need something to make up for DD though, who is vile

your ds finished teething then, has he?

gcse is completely lovely - hair-raisingly into everything, piling on the new skills every day, charming as hell. But waking at 3 or 4 am with tooth pain and struggling to get back to sleep, poor little bugger. that's in addition to still bfing... [haggard]

you will TOTALLY have to come to bris. just wait til I get there

thanks for tip, had already planned to put dodgy stuff together. well not dodgy, just the stuff that will bother them - camping gear, etc. Will add chrissy decs to that list.

I am the Queen of Packing, nothing ever gets broken, just don't trust some no-necks to do the same. Sigh.

Insurance isn't the issue here. If we pack, we forfeit insurance on any individual item and can only claim if they crush or lose an entire crate. I'm okay with that as I'm a good packer. It's just the question of whether that will attract even more Customs interest than otherwise. Oz Customs have to be seen to be believed...

perhaps not.

so califrau, you move a lot, why's that if you don't mind me asking?

we seem to have crossed trajectories over the years: I was born in california, married a german/brit (in oz) and now live in cardiff - you went the other way, I take it?

oh i will def wait til you're there. we're going to be using up quite a few hols on Oz I think

DS has finished teething because he has all his blimming teeth apart from the 4 back molars. He had all those by about 14 months, so at least all that teething was purposeful! he's only just started taking a few steps though, the lazy toad. He is such a fast crawler though that I don't think walking is very attractive to him. He has a few words and he is GORGEOUS. I am a bit in love with him at the moment TBH

other weird stuff they ask about includes shells and they ask what your ornaments are made off. WHat, all of them?

Sorry to drag this thread back onto topic , but if I have two feather light shades and some feather Christmas decorations, am I going to lose them to a sniffer dog? Is there a guide to things you shouldn't even bother packing?

we took a chance ont eh Chrimbo decs and so did my parents, and it was fine - they looked at them but we kept them. ditto our wicker stuff and other bits and bobs

for NZ, our not even botehr packing list just included everything from the garden - it just didn't seem worth it.

I wouldn't recommend Anglo Pacific either having had a flattened car roof, a chipped piano leg and a missing sofa cushion. They basically took our 3 most expensive items and ruined them.

They did beautifully pack a blown lightbulb though which arrived completely intact - but sadly still blown.

Insurance was a nightmare the form we had a copy of (from Insurer registered with Ombudsman etc) they had used someone else and were "using up" the stationery. Check you are insured by ringing the insurance company you think you are with and checking they have heard of you!

Oh and we paid for our own container and got totally random boxes of someone elses, and they didn't steam clean our engine either and charged us for it.

We moved from Hong Kong to Shanghai with Links. They packed up the plastic bowl the Christmas pudding came in that had been sitting on the bench waiting to be put in the recycling. It was wrapped in about 25 layers of paper. Would have done far less environmental damage if we'd just put it in the bin on Boxing Day.

We are going to buy the bamboo floor here for the flat we're going to renovate in Sydney. ($20 a metre rather than $90 a metre in Aus). Customs said they just check the packs to make sure it's not still green and sproutable. We're buying everything we can here - the one that really made me go was bathroom tiles - $350/sq metre in Sydney, $25/sq metre here!

Sounds like sound advice to me, and I would do anything to stop customs opening your stuff if I were you as they are notoriously crap at throwing everything back into the boxes without bothering to re-pack. The only stuff that went missing/got broken in our shipment was in the two boxes customs decided to check (ditto most of our friends). If they start to get shitty you risk having to pay a fortune to have stuff "cleaned" or lose it. Not worth the savings in my opionion.

we paid for unpacking of container... then we paid to have stuff cleaned.. and treated. I stupidly decalered taht we have some horse equipmnet in the container.. i specially marked boxes and some wooden bowls not to forget the worlds most expensive accidently left pine cones! ( they cost $250 to burn 3 of them!)will never forget that. horse stuff wasnt even cleaned.. just tagged that it had been inspected... and they only did that to 50% of it.
We luclily didnt have stuff lost and only one wine glass smashed.
I halso had a disscussion with customs knowing i needed to bring some hores stuff with us and was told, yes we will open the boxes with horse stuff in but as long as they are accessible and well marked we will keep interevtion to a minimum. I was also told so long as the equipment was clean and dry it would incurr minimal cost! ha they have a different idea to us on minimal.. and of course their services get GST added to boot!

oh that reminds me chloe - I had without thinking - grabbed some gorgeous pot pourri - you know chunky with sort of pine cones etc to send to my mum for one christmas when I was still in the UK. Mum got the parcel sans pot pouri and told if she wanted to pay $50 to have it 'cleaned' etc then she could pay it and have the pot pourri.

I just told her not to worry I would get her something else instead. The pot pouri cost me about 5 quid!!

Oddly, the story of your wedding dress has really been niggling me, eids (I actually had a dream about it last night). It's just outrageous. It's not even like you got married in your jeans and nobody but you would know they were special jeans. I am all for strict quarantine and doing the right thing, but I do think that respect could be reciprocated.

We do get Border Security on ABC Asia-Pacific, and it does mystify me what people get away with. Last week it was some farmer trying to bring in rooted taro tubers. He admitted he was going to plant them, and all he got was a warning.

I packed my own boxes when we moved to oz, we only brought 22 boxes and they were not even opened! just had stickers stuck on saying they had cleared customs!

Customs don't like pine cones, feathers, sand (as in tiny stuffed toys from islands etc) and candles. I have been told about wicker, but brought in my magazine race and it wasn't a problem. Can't remember the company we used but am so glad I got them to pack, as we did claim on insurance later for some lost tools and it wasn't a problem. Plus the hassle of cleaning things and then packing them, with 2 small children, just seemed too much.
We thoroughly cleaned the dd's outside toys, our bikes, and most garden tools and they all got through. They were sparkling though I found some helpful hints on the britishexpats website.