Gold Coast lawn mowing services saved from financial ruin following recent record rain

A trade that was providing almost no work just a few weeks ago is suddenly subject of massive demand.

GOLD Coast lawn mowing services were on the brink of financial ruin a few weeks ago after months of dry weather.

Now they can’t keep up with demand.

Cutting Edge Maintenance owner Grant Sheather said he was clocking up at least 22km a day behind a mower in the clean up from the wettest February on record.

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Cutting Edge Maintenance owners and partners Grant Sheather and Lucy McIntosh are struggling to keep up with the growth at another Mermaid Beach garden. Picture: Glenn Hampson.

“We’ve got bookings for months and while we try to help our permanent clients who’ve stuck with us during the quieter months, we’re doing our best to service new customers,” the former Gold Coast Turf Club boss said.

Five lawn mowing businesses the Bulletin contacted yesterday were too busy to take calls. Preferred Lawn Mowing replied via text message saying it was “fully booked for the next two weeks”.

Mower World Helensvale manager Simon Massey said in the first two hours of opening yesterday 20 service jobs had been booked, mainly by lawn mowing contractors.

“Over the weekend we served more than 200 customers in five hours and sold almost 30 lawnmowers,” he said.

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Lawns are growing like wildfire across the Gold Coast following recent record rain.

Record rain across the Gold Coast has also caused havoc for the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service, with 821 call-outs being logged this month.

Today, clean-up crews from the Gold Coast City Council will remove logs and debris from beaches between Miami Beach and The Spit, while the Tweed Shire Council has a bigger job on its hands with uprooted trees clogging up Duranbah Beach.

Point Danger Volunteer Marine Rescue NSW radio operator Janie Bladwell with unit commander Glenda Ashby on Duranbah Beach with the flood debris which has washed up including a large tree with seven foot high roots. Photo: Jessica Lamb

“We’ve had a lot of flood debris come out of the Tweed River on to Duranbah Beach,” said council’s Jane Lofthouse. “From Wednesday we’ll have some machinery on the beach to stockpile up the debris and it will be removed by excavators and trucks, but … roads and landslides a priority.”

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Large surf pounded the beach at Duranbah on the Gold Coast last week. Photo: Adam Head

Meanwhile, thousands of fish, prawns, crabs and stingrays have been killed in the Cudgera Creek Estuary at Hastings Points.

Photographer Joe Earl, of Redlands Bay, said it was one of the worst things he’d ever seen and the smell was “horrendous”.

A blackwater event has killed thousands of fish, prawns and other marine life in the Cudgera Creek Estuary at Hastings Point. Supplied: Joe Earl

Tweed Council Shire’s waterways program leader Tom Alletson confirmed a blackwater event had killed thousands of juvenile fish and prawns.

GOLD COAST ON TRACK TO RECORD WETTEST MONTH EVER

Tweed Council Shire’s waterways program leader Tom Alletson confirmed a blackwater event had killed thousands of juvenile fish and prawns. Photo: Supplied

“The cause of the fish kill was a total absence of dissolved oxygen within the waters of the creek,” he said.

“The floodplain of Cudgera Creek, like that of Cudgen (Kingscliff) and Mooball (Pottsville) creeks, has been inundated by stagnant floodwaters for more than a week.

“Beneath this shallow water, thousands of tonnes of vegetation is decaying and consuming oxygen. As the deoxygenated water drains off the floodplain and into the creeks, it displaces all the good quality water and fish cannot breathe. The weekend’s hot weather has exacerbated the loss of oxygen.”

Redlands Bay photographer Joe Earl captured this shot of a dead stingray at Hastings Point.

He said there was a “significant risk” that a similar event would play out at Kingscliff and Pottsville. People have been advised to avoid swimming in creeks for a week after heavy rainfall or if water quality looks poor.