Newman police officers Britt and Taz may have stormed the field in last year’s season of The Block, but they have also set the standard for the West Australian contestants in the renovation reality TV show.

With this year’s season in full swing, WAtoday took five minutes to chat to this year’s couple – paramedic Lisa and FIFO worker Rosco – and find out what drove them to apply, and how they managed to upend their life in the space of nine days to go on the show.

WAtoday: Why did you put your hands up for The Block this year and what is your background in home renovations? Has entering the block been an ambition for a long time

Lisa: We put our hands up for The Block because I have a love for interiors, design, styling, coming up with home concepts in my spare time … and then often when me and Ross discuss imaginary house projects, we’re very, very much aligned on what we think is functional, the styles we like.

I thought, what better opportunity to combine working with my best friend and husband, and seeing if we’re actually as good as we think we are at this home designing thing? And also if our relationship is as solid as we hope it might be, because let’s test the boundaries and see. It’s been an ambition for a few years, and it took me a while to convince Ross to come on board and fully apply. It was a labor of love for him to do the audition tape every year, but we got there in the end.

Rosco: It wasn’t worth the four weeks of Lisa being upset at me after not applying. So this year we were like, OK, I’ll just have a go.

This year the timing couldn’t have been worse. We have so much going on at home with a two-year-old, and then we’d just started our own owner-builder up near Bullsbrook on some acreage.

So we just finished up the design process, and we literally just started breaking ground when we got the call from Channel Nine, and we’d already locked in all our trades, so that had to keep going while we’re on The Block as well, which was a little bit crazy.

How did you prepare? Can you prepare for The Block?

Lisa: We definitely didn’t have any time to prepare for The Block. We were thrown in the absolute deep end. The way we prepared for the block was to find a daycare to enroll our son in, give him his trial days, and then have him fully enrolled in the nine-day timeframe.

Plus, getting everything sort of settled at home, with our own respective jobs and leave, and then also the family who were going to be looking after (the couple’s son) Lando, and have our own home build ticking along in the background. So we did no preparation for The Block itself.

Until we sat on the plane, I don’t think we even realised we were going on The Block.

Rosco: We had no idea we were going on it until like nine days before, so there was no preparation, so it was like, on the plane, and ‘oh, what next’?

How did you handle the share house situation this season? Who was the best couple to live with, and who would you not want to share a house with ever again?

Lisa: Our first years of our relationship were all in a share house for the first five years. So, yeah, we handled the situation I think quite well. We’re quite tolerant. We’re used to lining up for a shower and getting soggy clothes out of the washer.

Rosco: It’s the only way to live by the beach in Perth these days, you’ve got to be in a share house, which set us up really well for The Block this year.

Who was the best couple to live with? That one’s easy because it’ll be Adam and Jolene, because they were out the back in the caravan.

Worst couple to live with? Probably house two, they just made us feel a bit uncomfortable. That’s a bit of a teaser for later on in the season. Hopefully you get the reference later on, and you can have a laugh about that.

Lisa, you’re a paramedic, and Rosco, you work FIFO in the Pilbara. How did your career backgrounds prepare you for the challenges of The Block?

Lisa: I feel like my career as paramedic definitely gave me the tools I needed for an environment like the block. There’s a lot of similarities. I definitely work best under pressure and amongst chaos, I thrive in that kind of environment. So the Sunday morning prior to the room reveals, running around, cleaning, styling, making furniture … that was like my favorite two hours of the whole week. Every week, I loved it, and I like crave it.

Ross, you’re more process-driven, methodical.

Rosco: And although, for me, there are emergency situations at work a lot of the times, we have all the tools at our disposal, and even though we’re in a remote location we’ve got everything we need. Whereas The Block, you have to think outside the square and what you would normally do a job with, potentially might not be available in the short amount of time.

Lisa: You’ve got to improvise a little bit more and work on the fly, whereas you’re [Rosco] very used to having every resource at your beck and call.

The Block airs on Channel Nine at 7.30pm from Sunday to Wednesday. Nine is the owner of this masthead.