Islington Home Repairs is the domestic side of Matrix BAU Property Solutions Ltd, run by Tony from an office on Caledonian Road. The wider business has spent years on larger contracts — refurbishments, external works, commercial conversions — and that is still going on. This is deliberately something else.

The reason it exists is straightforward. The jobs homeowners actually need doing are small: a leak, a door, a room that needs painting before someone moves in. Those jobs sit badly alongside a scaffolded programme with a site manager, and they get pushed down the list. Run separately, with people whose whole week is small work, they get done properly and quickly.

Practically, that means shorter lead times, no minimum charge, and someone answering the phone who has actually been to the kind of property you are ringing about.

A narrow Victorian hallway taken back to bare plaster and rebuilt: wall panelling, new skirting and architrave, built-in shoe storage, herringbone flooring and recessed lighting. The stairs were re-carpeted and the whole run redecorated. Five working days.