Marcus Ilott, lead maintenance, since 2015.
One hundred and forty-two houses on a four-week cycle across three boroughs. Some of them he has kept for nine years, and the households have never had to explain anything twice.
Marcus joined in 2015 as our first trade hire, three months after Elio decided that passing repair work to somebody he could not vouch for was no longer acceptable.
Twenty years on building sites came first — most of it second-fixing other people’s mistakes. He took the job because it was the opposite offer: the same forty houses, every month, for as long as he wanted them. Eleven years later he keeps 142 of them and has held nine of the original addresses since the week he started.
He wrote the twelve-page round sequence in 2019, still argues about it in every intake week, and has trained all nine of the specialists who now run rounds of their own.
“Almost nothing fails suddenly. If somebody looks every month, none of it ever becomes a job.”
Recorded in the workshop, March 2026
01 What do people not realise about maintenance?
Almost nothing fails suddenly. A hinge drops a millimetre a year until the door binds; a seal goes chalky two winters before it lets water in. If somebody looks every month, none of it ever becomes a job.
02 First thing you check in a new house?
Under the sinks and behind the WC — if there has been a slow leak, that is where the story is. Then the loft hatch. You learn more in five minutes up there than in an hour anywhere else.
03 What do you carry that most people would not?
A moisture meter, a borescope and about forty pounds of the fittings that fail most often. Nine times out of ten I finish the job on the round instead of booking a return.