For Des Lawlor, bubbled paint and swollen wood are constant reminders of the pain of the past 12 months.
Mr Lawlor, from Gympie, was among the half a million people affected by the floods that tore a path of destruction through south-east Queensland in February 2022.
Since floodwaters reached a metre above the floorboards of his high-set home, Mr Lawlor feels like he is stuck in a recurring nightmare.
"I've slipped into a pretty bad depression, there are times where I've thought, 'I've had enough of all of this', but I have to stick around and be here for my family," he says.
In a desperate bid to raise and rebuild the home he shares with his wife and six children, Mr Lawlor enquired about the Queensland government's $741 million Resilient Homes Fund.
But he found the devil was in the detail.
"They said, 'Mr Lawlor, we've looked at your application, we've surveyed the area … and you qualify for either the raising of your house or rebuilding with resilient materials'," Mr Lawlor recalls the advice he was given by government representatives.
"I said 'that's great, that's what I want to do,' and then they said 'but the stipulation is that you have to raise the house above the new flood level'."
Mr Lawlor says he was told he would have to raise his home several metres higher than the 2022 flood level of 23 metres to qualify for the funding.
For him, it's an impossible request because he says it's not practical for his family to live in a house so high off the ground.
"The floor level would have to be at the height of the tip of my roof," he says.
"I would need to get so many variations … it would effectively be a three-storey house."
Repair, retrofit or raise
Under the Resilient Homes Fund, people from 39 local government areas can apply to repair, retrofit or raise their flood-affected homes or request a government buy-back, depending on eligibility.
A Department of Public Works spokesperson said as of 20 February, 5,897 registrations had been received from across the state, and 4,906 were still involved in various stages of the program.
In Gympie, 56 residents, including Mr Lawlor, expressed interest in having their house raised, but none had submitted a formal application for a house-raising grant.
Gympie Mayor Glen Hartwig says some residents took matters into their own hands after learning of the "impractical" height requirements.
"I've spoken to one person who went out and raised their home with their own funds because they didn't meet the criteria," Cr Hartwig said.
"They've raised their property to the equivalent flood height of 23 metres, but the criterion for that funding is, I think, 25 metres.
"That would have put their home 4 or 5 metres off the ground, which is just impractical."
Call to reconsider flood modelling
A spokesperson for the Department of Public Works says the Resilient Homes Fund provides assistance to raise homes to the minimum, habitable floor levels that align to local planning scheme recommendations for residential buildings, as set by local councils.
Cr Hartwig is urging higher levels of government to rethink whether "hard and fast" flood modelling was suitable for communities desperate to rebuild.
"A 23-metre flood was the highest flood we have had in living memory, so the chances of that repeating are a lot lower than other floods below the 20-metre mark," he says.
"I think the state and federal bodies need to not just look at the numbers, but look at the social aspect to what you're asking people to do.
"Hard and fast rules generally mean worthy people miss out … and if they don't qualify for that grant funding, they are asked to live how they are until the next flood comes along."
A Department of Public Works spokesperson says homes that remain below recommended levels can expect to experience more frequent flooding.
In these cases, the program provides assistance for resilient retrofitting "to help reduce the cost and burden of future flooding".
It's an avenue Mr Lawlor is now exploring — instead of raising his house.
Between that and a pay-out from his insurer, he hopes to make his family home more liveable again.
"We like it where we are, the kids are close to school, they have friends here, we are happy and just hoping we can get through it, and make the house more resilient," he says.
"It's just going to be a slower build for me … I would have liked to get stuck into it earlier, but just living at times, just getting by, is a bit of a struggle."
