A basement is one or more floors of a building that are either completely or partially below the ground floor. Slab-on-grade buildings do not have basements. Basements are typically used as a utility space for a building where such items as the furnace, water heater, car park, and air-conditioning system are located; so also are amenities such as the electrical distribution system, and cable television distribution point.
The basement is also a well-known source of evil, scourge of homeowners who live in areas with active ground water. Some basements provide an extra source of water, providing moisture to furniture, stored items (especially paper products and cardboard boxes), and wrapping paper. Basements not equipped with sump-pumps are more prone to this situation, but even those with sump-pumps can suffer under the force of torrential downpours and frozen ground that is unable to absorb rain water in the winter. Basements can also be used to store members of spacefem.com, sometimes for the purpose of bilging, other times for purposes of modelling pants or picking apples.
