The floodwaters rose into the second floor of Cass Thurston's rental home in Graceville, destroying furniture and personal items and carpeting the backyard with mud.
"The house is probably a write-off because the walls are all swollen, the kitchen's completely destroyed, and bathrooms," she said.
When the ABC met Cass during the clean-up effort in Brisbane's south-west, she acknowledged that she and "thousands of others" would need to look for a new rental property.
But a few days later, after considering the stress of trying to find somewhere in an extremely tight rental market, she and her family — who were already building a new home in a different suburb — have instead decided to spend the next year or so living with family.
"There's people worse off than us right now, who don't have places to go and they're living out of evacuation centres — and my heart goes out to them," she said.
Even before the floods there was a crush on rentals across Queensland amid a booming property market.
Tenants Queensland CEO Penny Carr admits it is a major concern.
"We've had quite a lot of calls already from people who either have to temporarily, or maybe in the longer term, have to get out of their property and they're struggling to find somewhere," she said.
"It's pretty grim for people out there at the moment."
Ms Carr says vacancy rates are very low, although in south-east Queensland they are highest in Brisbane's inner city.
"People, since COVID, haven't really wanted to pay the higher rental in the inner city, so those rental costs have reduced a bit — but they're not affordable still," she said.
"But it is the one place where there's rental stock and you've got to think, I wonder if we can get that stock on board, at least temporarily somehow.
"I think the thing that distinguishes this flood at the moment is that the vacancy rates started off so low … that's making it even harder than it would have been back in 2011."
Aimee McVeigh from the Queensland Council of Social Service said it was not yet possible to judge the extent of the damage and how many people would be unable to safely return to their properties.
"We have services in Gympie who were telling us, prior to the floods, they were handing out tents for families and people to live in," Ms McVeigh said.
"Now they have run out of tents, and besides, living in a tent during this type of situation — or at any time — is completely inappropriate.
"There is almost zero rental availability across the state and it is particularly acute in places like Gympie, Maryborough, Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast."
Ms McVeigh said it was time for the community to step up.
"If people have vacant properties, places for people to live, they need to come forward and provide those options to Queenslanders who are in absolute crisis."
More than 245 households in emergency accommodation
Stakeholders met with the state government in Brisbane this week.
Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch said emergency housing was available and more than 245 households were being supported with emergency or temporary accommodation across Brisbane, Ipswich, Toowoomba, Logan, the Gold Coast, Maroochydore, Maryborough and Gympie.
"Assistance is also available through referral from our officers on the ground at evacuation centres and Queensland Government Community Recovery Hubs as they open across the next few days," Ms Enoch said.
"Temporary accommodation options are available and we have expanded access and eligibility for products such as rental grant and loan products in flood-affected areas."
The state government says QBuild teams are rapidly assessing and making repairs on damaged social housing properties.
"We're reaching out across our networks to identify available accommodation, including the Wellcamp quarantine facility and hotel rooms that were previously used for COVID-19 quarantine," Ms Enoch said.
