[Papu]

Hei there!

We arrived in NZ and now moved into a flat in New Plymouth (found it within 2 days via Harcourts rentals - it was worth paying a bit extra for the agency and finding a great place.

One question: We moved here from Finland, where crime (esp. property crime) basically doesn't exist. Break-ins, burglaries etc. are pretty much unheard of.

Now that we're here we're seeing alarms in many (most) homes, and are reading about burglaries in the papers (4 last week in our immediate neighbourhood).

How is the situation here? We've got mixed feedback from Kiwis (an older couple who advised us to get a good insurance, alarm and new locks vs. a younger couple who told us not to worry).


generally we don't have too much expensive stuff, just PC gear and cameras I guess. But our locks on our doors are crap and most doors could be opened with the minimum of force...

Any advice? Can we leave our passports, etc. in our house when we go on a longer holiday or do you keep them in the bank?

We don't want to be paranoid (and have lived in Venezuela and Spain, where crime is also 'a bit' higher than in scandinavia) but it would be good to get some feedback.

thx,

p

[ourquest]

The quality of the locks and the number of non-functional alarms is probably an indicator of the (low) risk. It could happen, but will likely be unsophisticated and opportunistic. So try to keep portable valuables out of sight and invest in a fire-proof safe to protect your valuable documents...mostly from fire. I suspect the average person gains their perception from newspaper reports as well, rather than direct experience. Others on the forum might have something more relevant to add.

[Familyofmonkeys]

The quality of the locks and the number of non-functional alarms is probably an indicator of the (low) risk. It could happen, but will likely be unsophisticated and opportunistic. So try to keep portable valuables out of sight and invest in a fire-proof safe to protect your valuable documents...mostly from fire. I suspect the average person gains their perception from newspaper reports as well, rather than direct experience. Others on the forum might have something more relevant to add.

Good advice. The quality of windows, door locks etc here pretty poor compared to what we are used to in UK and could easily be broken into.....but it seems that no one in our area at least, feels this is something to worry about. It certainly feels pretty safe when comparing to small market town in UK.

[Hope]

Hei Papu
We are also moving from Finland to New Zealand and like you said property crime doesn't really exsist here although I have had several bicycles stolen in Helsinki.

I know this is off topic but I am unable to PM you. I was wondering if you could let me know which moving company you have used from here to send your things to NZ? We are getting a quote from Viktor Ek next week but I am not sure who else to contact and so any recommendations from somebody who has moved from the same location would be much appreciated.
Yst,
Hope

[benandclare]

As soon as Papu makes another post you should be able to PM then as 5 posts is the magic number to make this function work :D

[Hope]

Thanks Ben or Clare :-)

[Papu]

Hi Hope!

Where about are you moving to NZ?

We actually got an unofficial deal through a relative. It was a third of a price we would had paid if we had gone directly. I asked around quite a lot before that. Transnet oy was one with a reasonable offer - quite expensive though. If you know anybody who works in a company which trades with NZ ask if you could use their account and pay for it. That would be a lot cheaper.

Don't ship cutlery, sheets, pots and pans, duves, baby gear (especially strollers). These thing are so much cheaper here than in Finland. Most important DO NOT ship your car bought in Finland. We just bought a '01 Mitsubishi station wagon (80 000km) in a price we bought our '92 Fiat Punto in Finland. Do ship your IKEA furniture.

We actually ended up selling more or less everything in Finland and only shipping some boxes of books, clothes and camping gear.

Cheers,
Papu

[Hope]

Hi Papu
Thanks for the great advice about what to bring - we had already decided to get rid of everything except for our clothes, shoes, books, CDs, our computer equipment and then the home office furniture we bought at IKEA here.

Unfortunately I don't know anybody here who can help out with a company account for shipping and I have had quotes from a couple of shipping companies over the past two weeks and we have settled on Viktor Ek as we have friends who moved from Espoo to Auckland and gave us really positive feedback about them. While it is expensive - I have to admit it is not quite as bad as I thought it would be. It's going to cost a lot more to send my cats.:eek:


Where about are you moving to NZ?


We have been trying to decide between Auckland (OH has family there) and Wellington (we would prefer a smaller city) as we have no jobs in NZ yet and are only going to start looking in September. We realized that we needed to make a decision for the movers and so we have told them our destination is Wellington and we just hope it all works out for us there. Kind of feels like a great big adventure right now. :D

Cheers
Hope