fj | Worrying

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Worrying

Anybody any experience with international moving and shipping? I guess my personal items -- pictures, vases, Christmas ornaments, all fragile, and my few books and most of my clothes -- I will want to send to my Dad to store in the basement until I have settled somewhere. I think that's not just a Take It To FedEx job, because some of these things are big paintings and will be bulky when protected and there is no need for speed at all. I would like to do that before I leave, now tentatively the end of January.

Then there's the furniture, of which I will not want to take much. I'd rather sell most of it with the house because really, how likely is it that I will need 12 feet of table in London or Amsterdam? The small tables, the desk, that is all IKEA and West Elm, almost disposable after the sale. But I doubt I would get what I want for the couches and the console table, so those will need to come over on the slow boat too. It would be better if those stayed until The Loft has sold, even if I have left, in case they could become part of the sale.But if they are not, I need a company that my broker can call, will pick it up, put it on a slow boat, and end up somewhere in storage until I decide which country I will live in. You know, for just a set of couches, that could be more money than what I would want for them. Sigh. Who do I call?

As for my tools, cookware, impressive collection of cables and peripherals (among which one will find a PCMCIA to SCSI card for example), linnens, stereo, loudspeakers, TV, TiVo with lifetime service, everything else? I am not attached to any of it and it is not required for staging, so I guess I will just have an open house and hope my friends go through my space like locusts.

Freecycle the rest? I don't know. But it is the shipping that is keeping me up at nights. But the hard disks go with the travelling clothes. Oh yes.

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I'd be happy to ask my parents how they relocated all of their household goods from Sacramento to London - but they're in Libya until the 24th.

Please do.

(Libya?)

(Yeah, they're on vacation. They even had to get their passports translated into Arabic earlier this month. Apparently the Roman ruins are fabulous.)

bemocked has packed and shipped her shit all over the world at one time or another - including her cat. She may have some tips for you.

All of my moves have been domestic. My extended (2-month-ish) stays out of the country have been temporary move-stuff-in-the-car moves.

That being said, there are undoubtedly companies that provide the service you need. I'm pretty sure whoever you contracted with in the MA-to-CA move could suggest international movers (for example, if their company has one they recommend if not themselves). I've moved domestically with Allied, and they have an international section on their website.

I want to stay far away from my last movers; their idea of protecting my couch seems to have been covering it in motor oil.

I had bad luck with the NorthAmerican Van Lines movers (MI to TX, 1990), and generally good luck with Allied (TX to IL 1994, IL local 1997, IL to MA 2002, and MA to MN 2005). None of the long-haul moves were perfect, but Allied was always responsive and quick to fix any problems or schedule any repairs. However, a lot depends on the individual movers in question, not necessarily the company.

I'd recommend contacting the larger moving companies with international arms (including Allied) to get a free quote and free information about what your options are.

Wow...I didn't realize you were on such a fast track to get the hell out of Dodge.

Will we see for Meat Rack at the Eagle on Saturday?

By Christmas I won't have worked for 3 months, and I hate it. Disney's final check will only carry me till mid-January. I have savings, but I shouldn't use them for too long, and trying to find a job over there from here is just sub-optimal, so I gotta be there and find work, or commit to doing my own little ideas. In any case, just sticking around here is getting me nothing but a really nice time now and less resources for the future.

If I remember I will be there, yes.

You're probably entitled to up to 26 weeks of Unemployment income (that is, your employers have paid into the pool so you're entitled to your share thereof); file if you haven't already.

I wonder if I can do that over the web...

Yes, you can.

http://www.edd.ca.gov/fleclaim.htm

Yes, you are totally entitled to this money, and you´ll probably max out at the highest rate. It´s not much, like $1700 a month after taxes paid every fifteen days but definitely worth it. The first week after you are supposed to get unemployment benefits is a 'hold week' which means, you are not getting paid, but the benefit kicks in on the second week. You just have to fill out a form they send you on the mail every 15 days attesting you are looking for a job, and that's about it. I think you can get it for half a year.

craigslist?

I used a relocation firm in Dallas who handled everything. They were affiliated with Allied Movers.

They weren't problem free ... but the problems were really nothing to worry about (communication mostly). No problems with actual transport.

Shipping across the states to the port of departure is billed by weight (standard in the US) and then the rest of the way by volume. The port of entry for Europe is (of course) in the Netherlands ... so it will be close to you. One shipping container on the slow boat is about 7 feet long as I remember and 6 feet high or so? Maybe 4 feet wide. Something like that. It is standard though - you can google it. One container held all my dishes and Christmas ornaments .. some lamps .. clothes ... some books. A bed (it comes a part - mattress,no box spring). My COOLIO dining room table (also came apart to save space) that came off the side of the road in the junk heap in Oak Cliff Dallas (and everyone loves it). Half my CDs and much more other junk then I can remember that I decided I didn't even want by the time the slow boat arrived. (Actual time 3 months.)

The couch would have required a separate container for me. So it is still with my super ex-boyfriend in Dallas.

The relocation firm also handled all the import paperwork.

I don't remember how much it cost ... but the US leg was the disproportionately costly part. I do remember it was much cheaper than I expected.

And everything was well packed. And at least insured against damage.

Wooden container packed at your loft is taken to the port, where it is placed in a metal container then loaded on the boat for the journey.

The firm would also handle packing items later or storing things before shipping etc, etc.

Only problem is there was a strange translucent film on some my stuff. It wasn't really corrosive ... so not exactly sea water. The people at the relocation firm said they had never heard of the like ... but said if it didn't wipe (or in the case of the dishes wash) off they would file a claim. It came right off. So 'was sollst'?

P.S. Don't worry. The shipping (with an international firm) is the easy part.

Ok, so you do not have exact figures, but any approximate ones?

I am REALLY bad with remembering figures. (And so I looked to verify the exact figures are no longer in my files upstairs - and I'm NOT going downstairs tonight!)

But, I remember it being less then $1,000. I hope I'm not misleading you. Because that seems awfully low. But like I said ... it also wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. I am positive it wasn't more than 3,000 if that helps (because my mom loaned me 3,000 which covered that cost and some more). (You will likely to have to pay more for the overland route to the east coast I'd imagine.)

I was going to point out that both you and

pinkfish have experience with overseas relocation, but you probably had less stuff then, no?

I had one single huge suitcase and a duffel bag. That was it.

A good friend of mine moved from NYC to Bangkok a few years back, and used a service that basically let him fill up some fraction of a shipping container on the docks in NYC and then pick it up in Thailand. I'll point him at this post for the specifics.

postscriptum: shipping furniture transatlantically strikes me as complete insanity at any price unless you're talking about Lloyd Wright or Stickley originals. Maybe not even then. At the very least, put them up on ebay with a reserve price you can live with a few times before committing to shipping them.

Go to http://casprini.it . (It will resize your browser.) Choose the English Flash site, then upholstered' from the left hand menu, then Salome from the sub menu. It is a system where the back pieces are moveable on the bases. The bases come in different sizes. Here are some other publicity shots.

I have assembled my own sectional from high-end importers, and had my own custom covers made locally. All together it cost more than my car when I bought it new, and the construction is such that structurally it will probably last until after I am dead.

eBay is a shit place for high-end furniture. Shipping has to be insane before it is worth my while to abandon this piece or sell it cheap, and

zurcherart is telling me it is not. 3K would be a steal, because I couldn't replace this for even double, even without US import duties on foreign furniture.

I don't know what it costs to replace the furniture you have, but I would consider that before I shipped it. I have totally gotten rid of two full households and moved into an RV twice. I kept only things that were irreplacable to me. (Mothers paintings, etc.) I have now replaced everything, and then some.

It is so much easier to just travel lightly, so pick what you keep carefully and get rid of the rest. JMHO.

Good Luck with this move.

I can't remember who but I knew a couple of people who moved everything internationally and they used containers.

Someone brings and empty container (8' x 8' x 20') to your house, you pack it. They take it away, put it on a boat, handle the customs clearance, store it, and then drop the container off at your new house.

In 1990, the charge to go from New York to Amsterdam was something like $2,200. I knew a Dutch guy who shipped all his stuff and a 1965 Lincoln 4-door convertible in one.

I had another friend who had a job in Germany. He air-freighted everything. He got a $/lb quote, weighed everything he wanted to bring and asked himself he could buy it there for less than that.

In both cases, you kind of get to pack things yourself. If you don't have enough stuff to fill a container, air freight might be the way to go.

Hi - Nathan the Purple sent me your link.

4 Years ago I made the move from New York to Thailand, and brought a LOT of junk with me. First thing I did is decide what I could do without, and then I sold it or stored it with my folks; then I separated out what I needed to have immediately and would take with me; and the remainder was what I shipped over by cargo ship.

For the shipping, I went direct to a company that specialized in shipping to Thailand. I did NOT use a relocation company, or one of the big movers. Last time I used a moving company they tried to double the price with bogus surcharges. Effectively I ended up with about 1/3 of a container just for my crap. Price wise it was about $1500. Door to Door New York to Bangkok (I did all the packing/boxing ). Shipping FROM the USA can be very cheap, since the boats are often half empty. The company I used was referred to me by someone in Thailand - and proved excellent.

For computer equipment I pretty much disassembled everything, and brought hard disks, motherboards and ram with me. Once here I bought new cases,keyboards, etc.. The most critical Hard Disks I took on the plane with me.

My one mistake, was getting rid of my stereo gear before I left since the voltage would be different here. I later learned that it not that expensive to have someone replace the power supply in a receiver.

Since I had lined up a work permit in Thailand, I did not have to pay any tariff or taxes on my stuff since it counted as personal possessions.

In summary - find a shipping company, don't use a middleman. And have a solid grasp of fees and tariffs involved, and how to NOT pay them. Get everything in writing, and keep asking about 'extra' fees, tariffs, and details (i.e. do you deliver at destination ?, do I have to pay storage at Destination, etc... )

ps. The temperature inside the container can get VERY hot. So keep that in mind. I had some thin plastic thingies that looked a little melted when they arrived.

I'd advise selling more stuff. SInce you don't know where you are going to live, if you ship it it likely won't be to where you live and it'll have to be stored and then shipped again. I'd think that simplicity and perhaps even some cost saving and headache - if it gets damaged in the move-ship-store then what will you do?

We have moced twice - once from the UK to NZ, then from NZ to Australia.

In both cases we have used professional movers, and had no problems whatsoever. In both cases, we have tried to reduce the amount of stuff moved to the minimum, but have found that it might have been better to be a bit more generous with what we moved. After all, it is probably better to transport items by sea than buy new ones, in terms of environmental impact.

if you go to Europe, are you going to let your greencard go?

Not sure how not to. I could keep a few bank accounts here, but I cannot afford to keep real estate. Maybe if I had a corporation.

Well, I think that to keep the greencard you don't have to do all the above. Probably coming back every now and then to the US would be enough. You will have to get reentry permits to make sure they let you in if you have been out for a long time, more than a year I think it is. You can only get reentry permits from the US but they are relatively easy to get.

Keeping bank accounts and owning real state is more the stuff that's needed to keep the 'continous residence' requirement used in naturalization. When you go away like you are thinking of doing, you will lose whatever time you have accumulated of 'continous residence', if you ever came back and had kept your greencard the clock would be reset to one year plus one day. You could become a citizen 3 years and 9 months after coming back.

I maybe following your own steps soon too, and it would be nice to have the options to come back to the US if we wanted to.

If it's just a matter of owning some real estate, one could buy some bit of worthless property for cheap – something like a junky mobile home on an ugly patch of land in a town where local industry collapsed. In a discussion of "how much does a house cost where you live?" discussion I read, someone linked a tiny (but actually decent-looking) house in some agricultural ghost town in Texas with an asking price of $8000. (The same would probably go for $300k in a not-too-distant Seattle suburb.) Unless you're a farmer or have an all-telecommute job, you wouldn't want to live there, but if it's just a matter of owning the property it would satisfy the requirement pretty cheaply. On the other hand, if you didn't actually live there at more than at any other address, it probably wouldn't satisfy a residency requirement, and might be treated as fraud if you tried to pass it off that way.

But to keep a green card alive, I think you need to visit every three years, although maybe they've tightened that since I last looked (early 1990s).

I still occasionally hint to my wife that she should try to naturalize, if they'll allow her dual citizenship, so she doesn't catch grief from some crazy anti-immigrant regulation. Way back when, the only way a person could be dual-citizen was to have family claim to both countries and be under 18; at 18 one had choose which to keep. But some time since she immigrated (1991) that rule was relaxed, so she could probably go dual if she applied. After the appropriate wait through the underfunded paperwork nonsense, of course.

In order to be admitted with permanent resident status once you are at immigration control at the airport you must have not been outside of the country for more than a year. If you have you need a reentry permit, which you must have got before you left the country last time. They start frowning at stays abroad of longer than six months.

Visiting one week a year will probably not work either. This is really not an objective matter, and even when it's written in the law that you start needed a reentry permit after a year, it's all up to interpretation of the immigration officer to let you in. If he thinks you've abandoned your permanent residence status he can quite easily deny you entry as such.

Admission into the country is probably what one has to worry the most if planing to stay abroad for a long time and if one wants to keep his/her greencard. Owning some real state, like the kind you mention, will help for naturalization, but the biggest problem there is that you have to reside continuously 30 months in the US before applying for naturalization. I am not sure how they can check this, if they actually check your entry and departure records, which I highly doubt they do given the pathetic status of US customs and the USCIS in general. If they are not checking factually that you have resided in the US for those 30 months then it should be quite easy to come up with a valid application.

I see. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that things have tightened up, given an administration that doesn't seem to understand anything except intimidation and tax cuts for the rich.

At immigration control, discrimination is probably another factor to consider. If you have pale skin, speak native English, and have a passport from a rich country, the crossing should be low-hassle, unless the immigration officer checking your papers is having a bad day, doesn't like you for some reason, or you're unlucky get one of the extra inspections they do so they can claim they treat everyone equally. If you have brown skin and are carrying an Iranian passport, count on a really crappy day, unless the fascists on the staff are taking the day off. At southern border crossings, make sure no one thinks they hear a Spanish-influenced accent. Those hassles are nothing new; the only thing that's changed since Ellis Island is the nationalities that get the worst grief.

It looks to me like fj is at fairly low risk for hassles from immigration officers, except for the ever-present risk that they cause trouble because they're having a bad day.

If the rules are that tight today, best plan might be to leave the country by a tourist bus across the Canadian border when the lines are really long. Then immigration would probably not even be aware you ever left, particularly if you maintained a token financial presence somewhere. Continuing to file US tax returns would probably be a good idea too, even if they show no US income and pay no US taxes because of the foreign tax credit.

Still, it might be worthwhile to investigate dual citizenship. I'd guess that regaining a green card after letting it lapse is probably as difficult as getting it in the first place. Waiting for a less anti-immigrant administration would also be a possibility.

US Immigration officers are incredibly rude and tactless. Last time that my parents came to visit from Spain, they took them aside because they couldn't communicate with them, put them in the room and asked them why they didn't speak english, to proceed with the interview in spanish. My parents are 65 and 75.

I think there is no real harm in trying to get your wife naturalized. Worst thing that can happen is that they deny your application and you can keep trying.

Also, it sort of seems that they can't reliably track people coming out of the country even if you do it by airplane. I-94 forms are entered into their computer systems by hand when checkin in into the country. The ratio of those forms being handed out must be relatively low. Some must get lost from their respective passports, some are forgotten by airport employees.. In my case where I'm a greencard holder it gets worse, most of the time the people at the counter forget to ask my greencard when leaving, and usually my last names on the passport don't match the ones I use on the ticket so I don't see how the USCIS could possibly match that departure info with my immigration record in a reliable manner without human intervention.

All the above would indicate that being sloppy when filling out the immigration forms about your coming and goings should be quite safe.

The US has a balance of containers problem so shipping from the US is usually cheap.

My wife shipped her stuff from Oslo Norway to Seattle (Redmond, actually) for about $2000, door-to-door, in 1991. They charged by volume; she was billed for two cubic meters. I'd guess that a lot of the cost was the shipping aggregator's mark-up, for packing and local transportation there, loading her stuff into a portion of a container, shipping it, unloading it on this end, and local transportation here. I'm pretty sure the cost is very non-linear – lots for the first cubic meter, cheap for additional cubic meters up to a small container, a bunch for the next cubic meter, cheap until a medium container is full, etc. There might be a maximum weight per unit volume, in case you're shipping containers full of lead, but you wouldn't see a charge on ordinary household goods.

If you don't mind hauling your stuff to the dock and picking it up at the other end, this page (http://www.cockeyed.com/inside/container/container.html) says a full container is $5781 from Oakland to Belfast (in 2001). A shipping company would be able to quote prices for shipping less than a full container.

Getting your stuff from house to dock and dock to house goes by land transportation rates. In the US, it's billed by weight times distance, with load and unload charges. I'd assume that there's a volume limit too (you'd probably pay more than the standard weight-based price to ship a ton of bubble wrap) but I doubt you'd see that on household goods. I'd assume the rules are similar in most destinations.

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Worrying

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Slow Boat To Asia

Re: Slow Boat To Asia

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