[TonnyTessa]

I am working on filling in the Unaccompanied Personal Baggage Declaration form just in case my container shows up in time (less than 2 weeks to go). Man, they sure make things complicated! Any advice on the following issues:

1.
I know I packed some dry processed food like tea and soup, but on the list that the packers gave me there is no mention of it and I have no idea whatsoever which box it might be. Do I declare it or 'forget' about it?

2.
They ask if my things have been in contact with any animals. Well duh, I have a cat, so she has been all over it. Should I mention it?

Anybody had a similar experience?

[Janey]

none of it we had some coffee for our tassimo machine and a brand new pet bed did not declare as heavens knows what box they were in

[Tesall]

Whats the chances of it getting checked? Ours is getting delivered next Tues, and we didnt hear a peep until they said it is on its way down from Auckland. I guess we got lucky.... or they checked it and it was fine.

Yay for the imminent arrival of golf clubs!

[seattle]

well we "declared" our brand new pet bed and it got pulled from our shipment for "treatment" (our container was inspected by MAF yesterday). We declared our food items and labeled the box "for MAF inspection") -and had no problem with them. The manager at the storage place where the MAF inspection took place said that some of the inspectors are more "strict" than others- so a lot of it is luck. MAF inspected 24 boxes that we "declared" and spot checked and opened a few random others (that ended up being kids plastic toys). We decided to be honest and declare the most obvious stuff- food, shells, baskets, soccer cleats, etc. and made sure that those boxes that were labeled "for MAF inspection" were loaded together at the end so it would make it easy for MAF. (I'm sure we did this on the advice from someone on this blog!) We just didn't want to take the chance of them finding something- which could result in everything being searched. (which happened to another family we know). However, if you don't know which box your cat bed is in- I don't think I would take the chance of declaring it (especially if its new/clean anyway!- no harm done). We had a hard time with pet question also- since you don't want them to have a reason to search everything just because you have a cat! We ended up checking the yes box-and then I noted "cat bed clean- box 70" So that is how they found the cat bed- but I'd rather have them set aside that than search the whole container!

[Kerry and David]

I did declare all the obvious items for inspection - garden, bikes etc but I didn't declare dried sealed food, although to be honest I think it was probably only a jar of marmite! We had about 15 boxes inspected - all ok.

[Mrs Pony]

What if all you are shipping is just "stuff"? We're mostly bringing books, toys, collectibles, knickknacks, and a few shoes (which those boxes i'm sure will get looked at)...We have a lot of collectibles/toys that we VERY carefully packed... Some things are still sealed so are we going to get taxed on those?!

If they open the boxes can you tell that they have when you open the box up? We don't want anything damaged after they look at our stuff... if they do look at it...

[BkyMonster]

We had an inventory list for our pallet. The lady at MAF marked down (and had us pay :( ) for 5 boxes. Basically everything that I had noted as wood, even though I noted as treated wood, we had a lot of random decoration/toy things and some bamboo fabric--which is...like cotton fabric just made of bamboo fiber. They totally flipped out over that. :roll
We had a box made up with tools, vitamins etc but they weren't that interested in that.
The inspector didn't end up looking at anything as far as we could tell. They put MAF inspected tape on the box after they have opened it. We found some on one of our bookcases.

The customs people were angry at us for having a permit that was 3 weeks shy of 1 year (seriously?) but didn't charge us though she said she would like to.

[seattle]

We are planning on shipping another container after our house sells in the U.S. (whenever that may be!). After the experience we had with our first container this week, we are going to make sure that the movers inventory list is very clear and legible (and the boxes are labeled carefully). We kept explaining to our packers/movers how strict NZ MAF can be so they were really careful about how they labeled things. For example-we brought a couple antique pots (that have never had soil in them, etc.) and one of the packers originally labeled it as "planter pot"- so we had them change it to "antique iron container" since we knew MAF would be want to see anything labeled "planter". With a toy collection- if you just pack it and label it "toys" I think it will be fine. Also make sure your container is clean and free of cobwebs (look under tables, outside furniture, etc.)- our movers swept the floor of the container before and after the boxes were loaded. MAF doesn't like dirty containers- and if your movers are loading on a rainy day, for example, they can track in a lot of mud/dirt. We also brought a teak outdoor bench after powerwashing it- it still didn't look that clean to me- but MAF said it was fine since there were no cobwebs on it. I think it helps if MAF thinks you are making an effort to be organized, clean, and honest- it makes their job a lot easier!

[Airways Ed]

Which shipping company did you use, Seattle?

Thx
Airways Ed