‘I was virtually begging them’: Lismore laundry claims it‘s losing business after charity donates services

A Lismore volunteer firefighter who lost everything in the floods claims he‘s lost business as a result of a charity’s services

While Ian Juleff watched the flood waters submerge his business, he knew that he had lost everything.

Located on Terania Street in North Lismore, Clean and Green Laundry was ground zero when the flood waters rushed through town on February 28.

They’ve been through a lot of floods over the last 20 years being in business in Lismore, most recently the 2017 flood, and have been forced to rebuild many times.

But this time was different.

Owner of Clean and Green Laundry in Lismore trying to salvage his business during the 2017 floods.

“We had five minutes to get out of there and we only just made it,” Mr Juleff said.

“My adult children, their partners and myself all had to get rescued from the flat above the laundromat, and my children lost their possessions from the flood.”

“Our flood storage just got totalled.”

The water had risen too fast for Mr Juleff to save much of anything. Forced to sit in the flat above his business with 11 others seeking high ground, he watched helplessly for hours as the flood waters reached more than 14 metres.

When Mr Juleff and his family returned he found that his business and his children’s homes were “totally decimated”.

“It was heartbreaking what we had to throw out,” he said.

The flood water submerged Ian Juleff’s entire shop.

It took around four to five weeks, and hundreds of hours of back breaking work, to get Clean and Green Laundry somewhat operational again.

Then the second flood came through, putting Mr Juleff almost back at square one.

A volunteer firefighter and a fit man, Mr Juleff waded through the mud and debris with chisels and a fire hose to start cleaning for the second time that year.

“It was really hard to fight back from this one,” he said.

There was almost nothing left to salvage from the business or apartments. Currently the estimate of loss is sitting at $200,000 for all the machines, water tanks, and structure damage and more.

But Mr Juleff is no stranger to rebuilding after a flood and Clean and Green Laundry were one of the first businesses to get back up and running on Terania Street, with their doors opening around mid-April.

The 11 people sheltering in the flat above Clean and Green Laundry watched the water creep up the stairs.

“I have been working tirelessly to get my business and residences my children were occupying back up and running.”

But when Mr Juleff opened his doors, the customers weren’t coming.

While he had been rebuilding his broken business, Mr Juleff said that Orange Sky Laundry, a national charity that provides free laundry services, had begun donating their services to assist those affected by the flood. Mr Juleff says the unintended result of the charity‘s services was that his business dried up.

“Our walk-in trade just vanished, and that’s our bread and butter,” he said.

The charity had moved into Lismore to provide flood relief, but Mr Juleff quickly found out that Orange Sky were giving free services to anyone who showed up.

“I was virtually begging them to keep it to flood affected people, but anyone could use the service,” Mr Juleff said.

Ian Juleff and his wife Jennifer Ann Juleff.

Mr Juleff said he believed non-flood affected people were travelling from all over the Northern Rivers to use the service.

“The only reason we had a good day was because Orange Sky Laundry was closed,” he said.

“But whenever they’re open it absolutely kills us.”

An Orange Sky spokeswoman told The Northern Star that supporting communities impacted by natural disaster was to support anyone in need, “regardless of their circumstances”.

“Our charity‘s model is to be non-judgmental and welcome anyone to access our services. We do not assess, qualify or determine an individual‘s ’need’ to gain access to our free services,” the spokeswoman said.

“There are still many people in the Lismore region facing significant financial hardship who are without access to washing machine facilities and are in great need of our free services.”

“Orange Sky intends to continue operating three days a week only at the Lismore Quad car park until disaster recovery groups and/or the Lismore Council stop operating this site or until there is no longer a high need for our services from the community.”

The charity has been in contact with Mr Juleff and, acknowledging the impact to his business, are taking steps and encouraging people to use local laundromats if they are in a position to do so or if Orange Sky is at capacity.

“When all the businesses were closed, Orange Sky were operating as many as forty shifts per week at the peak of flood recovery,” the Orange Sky spokeswoman said.

“As locals and businesses started to get back on their feet, we scaled our shifts back in accordance with demand and in partnershipwith disaster recovery groups and the local council.”

Mr Juleff believed it could take him at least 12 months to recover his lost revenue.

“If we can ever recover it,” he said.

“The month of May we were down 90 per cent on the previous year, and we traded every single day.”

One day in May, Mr Juleff had to pay a bill of $17,000, when he had only made $160 in revenue that day.

“Luckily we had commercial contracts that saved us, but it still cost us a lot of money,” he said.

“We’ve really busted our guts and gone through three floods and we could go bankrupt because a charity is set up around the corner.”

Ian Juleff has been a business owner in Lismore for 20 years, and he said he had no intention of leaving despite everything he had gone through in the last eight months.

“I won’t give up on my business, I won’t give up on the locals, and I won’t give up on Lismore,” he said.