Recruitment consultant Brie Culph works from home while her partner serves away in the navy.
But she takes no comfort from the surroundings of her home in Bellamack, a suburb in the Northern Territory satellite city of Palmerston, which she bought with a $430,000 mortgage last May.
After she had paid $18,000 stamp duty to the NT government, and had the house approved as sound before purchase, Ms Culph received a letter informing her that the house was unsafe to stay in during a cyclone.
"I was very disappointed because the government were aware, the title transfer had been done, [and] I'd paid my stamp duty," she said.
"Then they sent me a letter after all that's done to say 'by the way, the house you've just bought won't withstand a cyclone, don't stay in it'."
Ms Culph, 25, is the third owner of the property, which was built in 2013 under the NT government's affordable housing scheme for low and middle income essential workers.
The NT government letter said her house and the 17 others in the affordable housing scheme were "structurally non compliant and present a safety risk to occupants in the event of a cyclone".
A government report has found the houses have problems, including corrosion on steel supports, and may not withstand winds of 63 kilometres an hour or stronger.
Winds of that speed regularly occur in the territory.
"In our view the only risk management strategy … is moving occupants out of the houses … and demolishing the houses without undue delay," the report said.
Ms Culph said the findings meant she was now constantly worried about the structural integrity of her home.
"I'm always scared when there is a storm because you're not sure if your ceiling is going to be peeled off, or (if) you will wake up and half your house will be missing, or it will collapse," she said.
It's now the middle of the northern Australian cyclone season, but Ms Culph has not had any offer for the house to be demolished or for compensation.
That is even though the NT government agreed to do that for 10 of the affordable housing scheme homes in 2021.
"These houses are a serious safety risk. They need to be fixed, or they need to be demolished," Ms Culph said.
Ms Culph and some other affected households have also been left either uncovered or only partly covered by different government building insurances schemes and Consumer Affairs responsibilities.
"The department backed this scheme for affordable housing and now they're saying 'it's not my problem'," she said.
"There are concerns for not only the people who live in these properties, but the houses in the whole area, because you don't know if there is strong wind, where your roof is going to land. It's a real concern for the public, not just the home owners.
"Everyone is concerned. I don't know why they keep saying there isn't an issue. If they've been able to demolish some of these houses, why not the others?
"I'm locked into a mortgage for 30 years, and it's not as if this house was really affordable … and I can't even rent it out."
The builder, who used a housing system imported from China for the Bellamack affordable houses, has constructed similar properties using the same system in various suburbs in Palmerston and northern Darwin.
He has denied fault and said he followed government-approved plans, and he has declared bankruptcy.
The building certifier has also declared bankruptcy.
A number of defects are visible throughout Ms Culph's house.
It wobbles when anyone walks through the house — including her dog, and when the washing machine is on the structure shakes and judders.
The roof leaks, the bathroom floor isn't watertight, and the flooring is lifting up in many rooms because the base sheets flex as they're walked on.
There are also cracks between the roof and walls, meaning, as Ms Culph puts in, "you can see outside from inside at around four o'clock in the afternoon".
Ms Culph said no government official has ever contacted her to offer to help rectify her home.
"The government have stated that they are working with the home owners, but they have not made any attempt to reach out to me in the year I have owned the property," she said.
However, the problems are not confined to the 18 houses in the NT government's affordable housing scheme.
Dave Cunnington is one of a number of home owners who have commissioned houses privately, using the same building system and builder, since 2012.
He had hoped his property in the nearby suburb of Rosebery would provide him with a retirement income.
But problems have emerged at the property.
He has had to reinforce faulty flooring with extra steel beams, though that hasn't fixed the issue.
"The house also has problems with bracing — it has missing beams that were meant to be put in behind the wall panels," he said.
In 2014, the ABC reported that Mr Cunnington's house wobbled on its foundations when anyone walked through it, and that the floor was breaking up.
That year he also alerted the NT government to safely problems in his and other houses.
Mr Cunnington said if the government had acted, then the Bellamack affordable housing development could have been stopped in its tracks.
"At that point, those houses in Bellamack were just platforms, there wasn't anything on top of them yet, [and] they could have addressed this immediately," he said.
"The problem with all of these houses was caused by the Building Advisory Service — the NT government — not doing their job. It's their responsibility."
Mr Cunnington fought the builder in court until he ran out of money, and the defects remain.
"This house has had yet a third layer of flooring put down to try to make it so it's good to walk on, and the panels are coming loose and bouncing again," he said.
Now that he knows about the cyclone risk, he is extremely worried.
"I have told everyone in here if there is a cyclone they have to get out, and I've told everyone in the neighbourhood about this too, because the debris from this house could fly across the suburbs," he said.
He said he had recently been offered a meeting with NT government representatives, but only if he keeps quiet.
"The government has chosen to have us sign gag orders before they'll even meet with us. What have they got to hide? What are they hiding?," he said.
Palmerston NT Labor government backbencher Mark Turner said he had asked government ministers to demolish the houses and compensate residents numerous times, and had also asked the NT Police and the NT ICAC to investigate.
"Someone with decision-making power needs to show leadership, and I can understand that is it a legal and compensation minefield, but we need to deal with the safety issue," he said.
"I don't want this to end up with a coronial inquiry, or somebody's children in hospital; children have already gone through the floors of some of these properties."
Mr Turner said he did not think the situation would have been allowed to continue for nine years in any other Australian jurisdiction.
"I have looked and I haven't been able to find any other examples where this has happened," he said.
"And as we have seen with the recent earthquake disaster in Türkiye, you can't muck around with building standards; if you do, the death toll can be horrendous."
NT Chief Minister Natasha Fyles is not offering those who have been left hanging with immediate demolition or compensation, and says the process is still being worked through.
"We know there has been impact to homes out there, they were under two different schemes that were provided to support people who had issues, and then that scheme was changed under the CLP government," she said.
"Both departments involved have been working through to rectify those issues, and we will continue working with the remaining residents to resolve this."
The ABC has contacted the NT Director of Building Control for a response.
Some of the affected residents are considering launching a class court action.
