month 02
Working from Marmion Avenue: what is kept here, and how the district is covered
The registered office of JAN & BAKHT LTD is 46 Marmion Avenue, London E4 8EP. It is where the files are, where the keys are, and where the post arrives. February appears at the top of this page because the inspection round is the month the office turns itself inside out: everything on the shelf gets used, and everything in the cabinet gets signed out.
The office, and what it is for
This is a working office rather than a shopfront, and there is no counter to call at. Correspondence is dealt with by email to landlords@janandbakht.life, which is read on working days; anything that has to be on paper is sent to the registered office and is scanned onto the file when it arrives. Documents that have to be signed in person are arranged by appointment at the property concerned, which is usually where everyone needs to be anyway.
The key cabinet
Keys are tagged by number and never by address, and the register that connects the two is kept separately from the cabinet. A tag carries a number and nothing else, so a key found on a pavement tells a finder nothing and tells this office everything.
Every key leaves the cabinet against a signature: who took it, which tag, which day, and when it came back. Contractor keys are issued in the morning and returned the same afternoon. A key that does not come back the same day is treated as lost at the end of the day, which means a lock change and an entry in the repair log, not a week of hoping.
What is held on the shelf
A small stock, chosen so that a second visit is not needed for something that costs less than the journey. Alarm batteries in both common types. Radiator bleed keys and a stopcock key. Washing machine and tumble dryer filters in the fittings that recur. Door furniture: handles, latches, escutcheons, a few cylinders of the pattern most often found. Sealant, PTFE tape, washers, and a set of lamps in the fittings used in the communal parts.
Nothing on the shelf is a substitute for a trade. The point of it is the small failure found during an inspection — a dead alarm, a dripping tap, a loose handle — which is dealt with before it becomes a report.
Getting about the district
The office sits in the E4 postcode district, in Chingford, in the London Borough of Waltham Forest. The geography decides how a day of visits is built: Epping Forest lies to the east and north-east, the Lea Valley reservoirs to the west, the A406 runs south of the district, and Chingford station is the end of the branch line, so trains come in from one direction and go back the same way.
In practice that means visits are grouped by street and by day rather than taken in the order they were asked for, because the forest and the reservoirs make for long detours and a short distance on a map can be a slow one on the ground. Parking is restricted on much of the district in working hours, so a visit that needs a van is booked where the van can stand. Bin collection days differ street by street, which is why the day is written into the tenant's note at handover rather than described in general terms.
Post, email, and which goes where
Email for anything that needs an answer: a repair, access, a question about a term, an enquiry about an interest that is on the market. Post for anything that has to exist on paper — a notice served on the company, a document that needs a wet signature, anything from a solicitor or a local authority. Both end up on the same file, scanned and dated, and the date recorded is the date of arrival rather than the date of reading.