Oh, basements in such locations are rare here. Even along Water Street in the downtown of St. John's, the tides often actually flood into basements, twice daily. There's very little one can do to keep them out. So people just don't have them.
At higher elevations, lots do... but generally only built into the hillside. It costs a fortune to dynamite into the bedrock (we only have a few cm of topsoil on top of solid bedrock, hence the nickname The Rock) so very few private homeowners (or even corporations) are willing to do it.
Normally you get semi-blasted into the hillside. So you have windows on the basement floor and it's only half below ground on the uphill side, and on the downhill side it has a ground-level entrance. That requires only a little blasting, depending on how steep the hill is. VERY common in St. John's.
They look like this, technically still basements:
Probably about half of the homes in St. John's that look like they're two floors from the front are actually 3 and usually 4 floors high in the back. On every street that runs along the hill instead of up/down it, that's the case.
Often to the annoyment of modern people: typically in St. John's, the kitchens are in these basements.
The servants cooked, not the family of the house.
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The shape of the blocks reminds me of Winnipeg.
) is mostly rowhouses...
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