Honestly I feel very bad after hearing this, I still remember my childhood days when our house used to be filled with water during raining season, I used to play in the water coming from the ground as a child, but our furnitures got bad quickly. Honestly this was the order of the day, until we destroyed the old structure and built a new one filling it high up (which I think you should consider saving towards to), now I'm much older that's when a non governmental organization did the road reducing the chances of such occurrence, but still didn't eliminate it for some of my neighbors.

Nevertheless I wish you the best in your stay in chennai, I would have loved for you to move temporarily like you stated others do, if the means is available.