As you take your first step into Jung Won-young's home in Seoul, the floor sinks.
Sticky tape has been plastered over the laminate in an attempt to hold it together, weeks after record flooding left it bubbled and cracked.
Further inside the 71-year-old's underground flat, the water damage is much worse.
Black mould scars the ceilings and walls of the two dimly lit rooms that make up his small home.
"It smelled really bad," Jung Won-young said.
"I couldn't cook. I couldn't enter the kitchen. I only had one or two meals a day almost for a month.
"My mental health was devastated."
Mr Jung's semi-basement home is one of about 200,000 in the South Korean capital, known locally as a banjiha.
The homes are tucked under apartment buildings, often with the smallest of windows peering out to the street to provide a narrow stream of natural light.
Parts of these homes are often windowless.
Banjiha were never designed to be lived in, but over the years they ended up housing some of the city's most disadvantaged people.
They have become a symbol of rampant inequality in one of the world's richest cities.
The dangers of living inside banjiha
In August, when Seoul experienced its heaviest downpour in a century, the plight of those living in the dark, damp homes was exposed.
Jung Won-young's home is more elevated than others, but it still suffered extensive water damage.
"I couldn't sleep," he said.
"I spent all night collecting and emptying rainwater with a few buckets."
But it was the death of a family that truly shocked the country.
A 13-year-old girl, her mum, and her aunt who had Down syndrome, drowned in their home as a torrent of water blocked the only exit.
There were near-misses too.
A couple aged 87 and 90 were reportedly saved by their neighbour, who smashed a window to pull the pair out to safety as their home was inundated.
Amid an outpouring of grief and anger, the Seoul government vowed to get residents out of banjiha over a 10-to-20-year period.
These tiny spaces were never meant for living
Banjiha rose to prominence in the 1970s, when the South Korean government pushed developers to build the partial basement spaces to act as bunkers, in case of an attack from an aggressive North Korea.
"It was not for residential areas," said housing expert Park Mi-sun, from the Korea Research Institute for Human Settlements.
"But after rapid development, fuelled by industrialisation, many people moved from rural areas to urban — especially Seoul, which had a lot of opportunities.
"They needed housing. The banjiha acted as affordable housing for the less affluent people."
Banjiha gained international fame when the dark comedy, Parasite, hit cinemas worldwide in 2019.
The Oscar-winning film depicted a poor family scheming to get better jobs and finally escape their basement home.
In recent years, during Seoul's property boom, many of the old structures with banjiha were knocked down and replaced with high-rise apartments.
But the style of home still remains prevalent in several poorer, inner-city suburbs.
Social worker Park Yong-hyun, who works for the welfare group Sinwol Social Service Center, said about 10 per cent of his clients still lived in a banjiha.
"It is a very poor space for people to live in," he said.
"An important thing for human beings is to see the sunlight, but there is a lack of sunlight. In summer, it is very humid.
"The residents have no choice but to live in banjiha. The cost of moving is too much money."
Seoul property prices have soared in recent years, and even renting a home can often require exorbitant deposits to act as security.
Housing expert Park Mi-sun said large deposits often prevented those living in banjiha from being able to relocate.
"It's more than like 10 times, 20 times, or sometimes even 100 times bigger deposit," she said.
The Seoul government has vowed to suspend new residential permits for banjiha, meaning they could only be used for commercial purposes, and find replacement accommodation for those currently living in the semi-basement homes.
For the government to fulfil its pledge, Ms Park estimated an extra 100,000 homes would need to be built.
But she added a lot more work was also needed to understand the individual reasons why many continued to live in banjiha.
Jung Won-young is one of the luckier ones. He expects to be relocated within weeks.
But he fears many others living in banjiha will be left behind, forgotten as the political and media cycle moves on.
"I think the government is only saying that since it's a pressing issue," he said.
"They speak only when they are in a hurry. It'll be forgotten in a little while."
