P. A. Darcy Co.

The reviews of P. A. Darcy Co. divide by the size of the job. The five-star accounts are small and specific: an attic stair ladder, a crumbling plaster ceiling, a question about taking columns out of a basement. The one-star accounts are kitchens, bathrooms and basements, and money that went in before the work stopped. Seven reviews posted between November 2022 and December 2024 describe deposits taken or jobs left unfinished. A December 2024 reviewer said Paul Darcy took a check to start a kitchen remodel and then slowly stopped returning communication. A Porch reviewer the same month described a $1,500 deposit for renovation work after water damage in the kitchen. A September 2024 reviewer said their daughter paid $1,600 for plans that never materialized, with no answer to phone, text, email or mail. In an October 2023 BuildZoom account, a customer said their kitchen, bathroom and basement were gutted and never finished, the crew showing up three days across three weeks. Then came the winter of 2025. Nine one-star reviews posted between 20 February and 9 March 2025 point readers to a Boston Globe article about the company, and several of those writers say they read about it rather than hired them. A Reddit post in December 2024 made the same allegation: deposits taken for home repairs, then no work and no replies. One customer wrote in an October 2023 update that after they went to court over a deposit, they received a letter saying that if they did not take their Google review down, he would contact their employer. A February 2025 reviewer wrote that other homeowners have taken him to court. The other side of the ledger is real, and it is mostly small work. Four five-star reviews, the most recent in August 2024, describe attic ladder installations — including an April 2022 job where the crew picked the ladder up from the store and pulled the permit with the Westwood Building Department, and another that April where the call came back within ten minutes and the work was finished inside a week. A November 2022 reviewer said he returned to correct a problem when they called about it. In an October 2021 BuildZoom review, a church contact said he arrived with a structural engineer, at no charge, to assess structural damage. The Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration 194642, held by Paul Darcy, is active; the company's site also lists a construction supervisor number, CS-115905. The Better Business Bureau grades the business B-, with one complaint on file. Google's average is 3.6 across 52 ratings, while Porch shows 4.4 across 55 — a good deal higher than its own one-star account of that $1,500 deposit. For a single-visit job of the kind its five-star reviews describe — a ladder, a ceiling repair, a structural opinion — that is the work this company's satisfied customers write about. For a kitchen, a bathroom or anything that starts with a deposit, weigh those unfinished-job accounts first, tie every payment to work already completed, and put the schedule in writing before any money changes hands.