HOUSE CALLS Home Services

Every one of the 39 ratings on HOUSE CALLS Home Services' Google profile lands at five stars, and neighbors on Nextdoor already call the business their go-to handyman resource — the kind of streak that's hard to fake for a one-person operation working Essex County, Massachusetts. That person is Michael McDonagh, who runs the business himself and goes by "The Doctor of Fix-it." By his own account, he started it after people kept asking him, during hikes around the area, where to find a handyman they could actually trust. The praise isn't a recent blip: 14 written reviews collected between 2021 and 2025 across four different sources average out to a strongly positive 0.88 sentiment score, and the same reputation for going the extra mile shows up in an older review that predates any of them. Nothing in that stretch flags a bad job. The one thing worth keeping in mind: this is McDonagh working solo, not a company with a bench of technicians, so booking depends on his own schedule rather than a dispatcher's. For homeowners across Essex County who want one dependable person for the odds-and-ends list — repairs inside and out, plus the occasional errand — this is the profile of a business people recommend quietly rather than loudly. Confirm his availability and the job's scope before locking in a date.