Moving internationally .... don't use Graebel

Think all international moving companies are about the same? Think again!

I promised I would write this post even though now it all seems like water under the bridge. However getting the word out about how bad Graebel is and how important it is to check reviews before selecting your moving company seems like a good thing to do.


Theoretically I should have had the option to choose among 3 moving companies, but our move was done in such a hurry up fashion (we needed to be in Australia by a certain date for my son to start school), that apparently my company had to skip that part of the process. One day the phone rang and a young woman who sounded about 18 said she was from Graebel and she would be in charge of our move. Things didn't get off to a great start when she told me that the first thing I needed to do was go through our 3,000 sq. ft. house and inventory every item in it, and assign a value to it. Somewhat stupefied at the thought of how time consuming this would be when I was so close to my departure date and didn't have a spare minute in the day, I said that surely I did not need to list every pair of shoes, jeans or T-shirts in the house, and she replied that actually I did. And every fork, plate and glass? Yes, every one. At which point I had a complete melt down and said that I simply was not going to do that, and if Graebel needed that, then they were going to get to be the ones to call my company and tell them I'd decided to decline the assignment.

Things only went downhill from there. And since it was 3 months before our belongings showed up in Melbourne, that was plenty of time to get really far downhill.

Cut to the chase - we had to file a claim for over $10,000 in damages. The packing job was unbelievably unprofessional and poorly done. The moving company on the australia end which was in charge of getting our belongings out of the container, moving them to our house and unpacking them, was stunned at the condition things arrived in. They said they would not pack things like that to go around the block, much less an international move.

Not a single piece of bubble wrap was used in the move. Not a single one. Just paper.
A colleague of mine who was also moved from NY to Melbourne with a different moving company said that his shipper arrived with huge rolls of bubble wrap, and rolls of cardboard. Each piece of furniture was first wrapped in bubble, and then in cardboard. Our furniture was wrapped in paper at best, and towards the end of the packing (it took them 3 days because they showed up late each day, moved slowly and employed people who did not know what they were doing), they just stuck them in the truck with no wrapping at all.

Needless to say, just about every piece of wooden furniture was scraped and gouged. We have a lot of antiques and the damage was inconceivable. Imagine the gouge in the chair below, times 30 to 40 pieces of furniture, with many of them being damaged in multiple places.

Of course ceramics and glass items shattered. Not surprising when you find out that Graebel used a cheap, thin box to pack our goods, instead of the thicker, stronger (more expensive) quality of box. This caused the boxes to collapse during shipping, and to tear, damaging the items in the box.

What we found endlessly ironic, is that at the start of the packing job, they were telling us about how we could not ship liquids (even in closed, brand new containers) or spices. Or gels. Or this, or that. Their list was very long. On the last day of the packing, when they were flat out of time, they had yet to pack the master bathroom. They ended up taking out each drawer of the cabinets and upending them into a box. All sort of open tubes, gels, and liquids, just dumped in on top of each other in a large box. And yes that is a mirror you see thrown in there with everything else.

We liked the box where they took the glass scale and just plopped it on top of all the toiletry items.  Or the box where they threw in the weights with the ceramic vase - none of them with any wrapping!

I wont continue to drone on about how absolutely terrible this shipping company is, but suffice to say - consider yourself warned. Do not use Graebel, and if your employer suggests using them, direct them to my blog about my experience with them.

Waiting for the shipment to arrive

our vessel Lutetia

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There is that old expression of how a person’s life is going to change for the better when their “ship comes in”. I expect it originated in the days of merchant cargo trade by boat, but it has a certain resonance for people on overseas assignment waiting for the arrival of their household goods. 

I left the US with two suitcases on July 19^th. My husband was able to remain back in the US longer and dealt with the movers showing up to pack the house on July 30^th. (More on the movers in a subsequent blog – suffice to say for now that you should NEVER, EVER use Graebel as your international moving company!) 

I lived in the hotel Mantra for a month in a suite that had a dining area, living and a small kitchen. I was far from impressed but my college-aged son liked it and kept reminding me that if I were staying in a suite like that in NYC it would cost a small fortune. One thing that was very convenient was that it came with all that one would need to make a meal at home, and obviously it came with a bed, sheets and towels.

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Fast forward to the time when, as a newly relocated ex-pat, you need to move into your new home. You’ve used the services of the relocation agent, found the perfect place to live, and needed to sign the lease. Also, your company’s hotel allocation in the relocation package has probably run out. So, you pack up your two suitcases of worldly belongings, plus any small treasures you have bought along the way like your coffee machine and olive oil and get in a taxi to start the next phase of this adventure. 

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luggage in empty room

 Walking across the threshold into the beautiful space you will be calling home for a while, empty rooms echo in the evening light.  In order to spend even one night there, you will need sheets, pillows, blankets  and oh yes … a mattress. When the morning comes, you will need soap, shampoo, towels, a plate, a fork, a mug …. you get the picture. It is something of a daunting task to be new in a country, to not have a car, not have your spouse or partner with you, and to walk into a large empty house with just 2 suitcases. And don’t forget that in Australia, rentals do not come with ‘white goods’ … so, need a refrigerator to store that quart of milk you just bought? Buy one.

nice big (empty) walk-in closet

 

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I briefly considered renting a ‘corporate rental’, which is furnished, for a month or so, but when you finally find the perfect place to live, they of course want you to start paying rent right away, and it is very expensive to rent an empty home and also rent what is referred to around here as executive housing (because who else would be able to afford such things?!) So I arranged for rented furniture, which is also expensive but we really had no choice. The funny thing is that they have a minimum of 8 items that have to be rented in order to arrange for delivery, and even with 8 things it was still over 1K, so that’s what I rented .... 8 things ....

my (only) rented sofa

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Here we are, 9 weeks after our house in NY was packed up, still with our belongings in limbo. The ship arrived on time – September 25^th – and it was the only thing in this entire process of moving that was actually on time. They had told us to plan for 10 to 14 business days to clear Customs and Quarantine (actually the rocket scientist in the US had told us ‘about a week’ and it was only after we got to AU that the local delivery person broke us the news about 2-3 weeks). However, unfortunately, our professional movers managed to pack something that has caused the shipment to be delayed by Quarantine. We have not been told what it is, only that there are items ‘of concern’ to quarantine. They check for things like soil, plants, food, and wood. Yes, wood. You have to list every piece of wooden furniture that you are shipping when moving to Australia.

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At some point, our things will show up. And here’s the odd thing … my husband and I have very mixed feelings about all of that ‘stuff’ that made up our life in the US arriving. We have become accustomed to owning 4 plates, 6 wine glasses and 6 water glasses. We walk into our big beautiful walk-in closet and enjoy the small number of items that hang there.  As I said to a colleague at work, this international move has forced us to live with ‘about 10 things’ and you feel that life might just about be perfect if you had maybe 10 more things … but do you really need the 2,000 items that are sitting in a 40 foot container waiting to descend upon you?

I started this blog entry with an old expression, and I will end it with one as well … we are seeing the truth of the old adage that says “the more stuff you own, the more stuff owns you.”