Resident claims his home was covered in dust after council project

An angry resident has turned down an “unprecedented” offer from a council north of Brisbane after claiming his house was covered in dust.

Caboolture resident John Lemon points the finger at Moreton Bay Regional Council after he claims his house was covered in dust.

A Caboolture resident who claims he had his house covered with dust by a Moreton Bay Regional Council project says the peace offering “isn’t good enough”.

John Lemon and his neighbours copped, what they say, was six months of dust while stage 1 of the Caboolture to Wamuran Rail Trail was built along Toohey St.

Caboolture resident John Lemon draws a line in what he says is the dust.

“They didn’t have the water trucks on site first off and we ended up with dust all in our house,” he said.

next door neighbour Liz Willcocks added: “It was shocking. You couldn’t open the window.”

Council staff inspected Mr Lemon’s property after he complained and offered to pay for an $800 clean for the majority of the house, excluding the garage and back room.

But Mr Lemon turned down the offer because he said it simply didn’t cover the inconvenience council had caused him and his wife Sue.

GET FULL DIGITAL ACCESS FOR 50C A DAY

“We had to clear everything from our tables and cabinets so they could come through and wipe it down — we could have done that ourselves,” he said.

“They said they wouldn’t clean the carpet. That’s where it was all stuck.”

Division 3 councillor Adam Hain wrote a letter to Mr Lemon afterwards urging him to take the offer because it was “unprecedented” for council to clean inside a constituent’s house.

“The offer you have received is well beyond any service delivery that we have given anyone before,” Cr Hain wrote.

“With that in mind, I fully support council staff decision.”

Caboolture resident John and Sue Lemon have turned down Moreton Bay Regional Council's cleaning offer after their house was covered in dust.

The council’s website says construction began during the Easter break (March 29-April 2) and the first water truck was in use on April 20.

A council spokesman said it “has received a complaint from a resident relating to dust from works on the Caboolture to Wamuran Rail Trail project.

“Council continues to work with the resident to resolve the matter.”

Civil contractor Allroads won the $789,475 tender to complete stage one works, but did not apply for the stage 2 tender, which was awarded to The Landscape Construction Company worth $604,299 on November 13.

Overall construction of the project, including stage 3, is predicted to be complete in 2020.