Emmis

We are coming over to Sydney for 12-24 months and were going to bring all our furniture over with us as it's really difficult finding decent, if any, furnished acommodation. BUT our big problem is our furniture. Most of it is wooden and we have a Chinese antique cabinet which being on the rather old side, though varnished, is worrying me a bit. I'm scared my furniture will get stuck in quarantine and never been seen again while we spend heaps of dollars for its quarantine holiday.
Has anyone any experience on the wooden furniture front and can you help? Costs & time spent waiting for it to finish its quarantine visit? The Government website has just confused and scared me!
Help! Anyone else who's shipped over furniture please reply!!
Love Ems x

bridie

most of our furniture is wooden (cabinets, coffee table, king size bed) and we had no problems. it's all pine and all treated - as long as the wood you've got is treated (which I'd imagine it has been) then no problems

worzel

I don't know why people get hung up on this subject so much. Treated wood and furniture is fine. Unless you are bringing twigs with seeds, moss or fungus on the end you aren't likely to have a problem.

Mrs Jackaroo

same here - all our furniture is wooden and had no problem at all - we did have one piece which wasn't treated.......so we treated it just in case

Pollyana

The Chinese cabinet should be OK, but if it old check it for signs of woodworm. If its been in the UK (where I assume you are) for some years, and its been varnished etc it should be fine though, More modern untreated pieces from Asia and Africa can be more problematic.
Just make sure you declare all the wood so that AQIS can inspect if they feel it necessary.

Emmis

People get "hung up" on the subject because in every book/website you read they mention the problem with wooden furniture and that if customs have any doubt that there might be infestation which may have come even from the time in storage, that they'll keep the furniture in quarantine at your expense... that's why I'm "hung up"!!
Our problem is that we've got old antique furniture and we have no idea whether it's been treated or not. It has been heavily lacquered though...

Mrs Jackaroo

If its heavily lacquered then its fine By 'treated' I mean varnished - so you should be fine

FWIW I was 'hung up' on everything before we came out - at the end of the day you want to make everything as easy as possible dont you?

Emmis

Thanks Pollyanna for your message. Sorry I didn't realise you'd said about the Chinese cabinet already, before I went off again on my rant!! We do have a cabinet from Indonesia which is not old.... I've checked for signs of woodworm and don't think there's any. And thanks Mrs Jackaroo! I just don't want too much hassle for a non-permanent move!
Anyway, thanks for all the replies. Let's hope it gets through ok!
Ems x

augigi

Surely it would be cheaper to just buy some cheap stuff over here if you're only here 1-2 years? You can get secondhand stuff from ebay or gumtree.