Worrying

[fj]

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.

Comments

[cpratt.livejournal.com]

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.

[susandennis]

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.

[jss]

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.

[likethecandybar.livejournal.com]

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?

[ebaug.livejournal.com]

craigslist?

[zurcherart.livejournal.com]

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'?

[rsc.livejournal.com]

I was going to point out that both you and pinkfish have experience with overseas relocation, but you probably had less stuff then, no?

[dr-memory.livejournal.com]

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.

[katbyte.livejournal.com]

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.

[bigjohnsf.livejournal.com]

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.

Slow Boat To Asia

[badsmurf.livejournal.com]

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... )

[jwg.livejournal.com]

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?

[pa747sp.livejournal.com]

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.

[iberianbear.livejournal.com]

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

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

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

[steve98052.livejournal.com]

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.