The Latest on Dan Powell? He Just Launched Another Business: Poopy Monster

Brockport resident has worn different hats over the years—handyman, home inspector, contractor, real estate agent, home surveillance operator. In 2025 he got into the poop-scooping business

By John Addyman

 

Got poop?

Empty house that needs watching?

Questions about a property you want to buy?

Things you can’t fix yourself?

Need someone to help you find your next house?

How about someone to manage some business offices?

You’ve got a need?

 

Dan Powell is your guy.

Your dude. Your rescue. Your trusted source.

“Everything that’s happened in my life had gotten me to where I am in my life,” he said.

Yep, he has moved from career to career, never letting go of what he learned at every stop along the way. He’s the kind of businessman who sees opportunity, steps up and finds himself moving successfully in endeavors he never thought about before.

First, he started college and worked for a plumber and developer.

Then came a 25-year stint with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, starting in the jail, then court security, then prisoner transport, then road patrol and finally, director of training. That was career No. 1.

All that didn’t keep him busy enough.

“I grew up with the trades in college and while I was with the sheriff’s office, I remodeled my kitchen,” Powell, 57, said, unwinding the beginnings of a long tale. “My supervisor saw the photos I had and asked, ‘Do you do remodeling? Do you do plumbing? I have a side project.’

“So we started doing side work together, remodeling. We would do anything, kitchens, baths, windows, doors, roofing, any job we could get. We’d work 30-40 hours outside sheriff’s work.” That was career No. 2.

But one thing led to another and he’s got a precise memory for when things veered. Career No. 3 was approaching after sheriff’s and remodeling work.

“We got a call for a kitchen remodel. I was standing in the middle of the kitchen and the floor was bouncing. I knew something was not right. I asked the homeowner, ‘Did you just buy this house?’ They had.

“Didn’t you have an engineer’s inspection?” I asked.

“They had, but the guy didn’t go down into the crawl space. ‘He was wearing a suit and tie,’ they said.

“I’ll go down in the crawlspace,” I told them. I literally crawled through the cobwebs and all the junk and dirt to get under the kitchen. There was tons of insect damage. I knew it was bad. I crawled back out.

“A light bulb went off in my head. This was back before home inspection laws. I thought, ‘Man, I would have put a Superman’s suit on and gone under there if I had to. They paid $350 for that inspection! What do I need to do to do that? I can go into crawlspaces…

“I started to look into house inspections. I tried a correspondence course. I got referred to my first client. In my mind, I’m the king of home inspectors because I took a correspondence course. I get to the first home inspection, I’ve got my logo, T-shirt on, tool belt, rulers, ball-bearings so I can test the flooring if it’s level. The realtor shows up and asks, ‘Who are you?’

“I’m the home inspector.”

“He said, ‘You ain’t no home inspector. If you are, what’s your fax number?’

“I didn’t have one. I did the home inspection; it was a very humbling experience. I needed a lot more training. So, I researched actual schools for home inspection. I took a couple of weeks’ vacation and went to Building Specs school in Annapolis. I came back to Rochester and opened up an office. I was a licensed affiliate of the company and I started to do home inspections.”

At this point, something else that surfaced to help him slide into another new career, a mentor. And in his case, a local legend.

“I ran across Phil Nothnagle at the courthouse,” Powell explained. “I told him about my home inspection business. I told him I carried a separate insurance policy that covered brokers; if I made a mistake, it would hold brokers harmless. He invited me to one of his managers’ meetings. I did a presentation there. He gave me the seal of approval and my business went through the roof.”

That home-inspection business led Powell to team-up with Gary the Happy Pirate and a TV show, “Out and About Home,” available solely on cable access TV. “I’m in my 20s and I’m not into this TV nonsense,” Powell said. ‘I had to put make-up on. I was always late. It wasn’t my passion.”

HDTV network was interested in Powell’s show and called his producer. A meeting was set up.

“I didn’t show up,” he said. “I didn’t want to interview with those people. That’s not what I wanted to do. I was a young man who was very stupid. I didn’t go to that interview and my whole life might have been different if I had.”

For the home-inspection business, which was prospering, Powell brought his remodeling partner aboard and a childhood friend who was a carpenter and a Kodak engineer and a Gates cop. The five of them did 1,000 inspections in a year and business was so good, Powell had a decision to make.

“We were too busy,” he said. “I was well along in my sheriff’s career and I wanted to retire from there. I ended up selling my home-inspection business.”

Career No. 4 opened up, still while he was with the sheriff’s office. Powell opened a Got Handyman? business while he worked on a real estate license.

 

Did this guy ever rest?

With another mentor at Nothnagle Realty, Powell started selling real estate in 2008. Career No. 5.

When he retired from the sheriff’s office in 2015, he became the director of training at Nothnagle as the company transitioned into Howard Hanna Realty.

“Then I got promoted to director of strategic growth for Buffalo and Rochester,” he said. “My job was to work with managers, to recruit, to help offices grow, to help with training, any way I could help offices grow.

“I had another mentor at Howard Hanna, a regional vice president, who left Hanna and went to Hunt Real Estate. He recruited me to manage five offices for them. I’m still in that role.”

And not just that.

“I have a home-watch company, ‘Home Watch USA,’” he said. Career No. 6. “How I got into it, I had five listings during the winter months. Vacant listings. I told these folks, ‘You need to watch your houses’ because they had bought their second homes and had moved in, leaving their first home vacant. ‘You need to check your houses. This is Rochester. You can’t leave your houses unoccupied.’

“I found myself checking on houses. I thought, ‘There has to be a service like this’ and I looked up Home Watch, it is a big industry in the south because people have their second homes or condos down south. Up here, people had their families or neighbors doing favors, checking on their houses.”

Changes in home insurance policies made his new company a go.

“In the fine print, if you leave your home unattended for a period of time, in Canada its 48 hours, you have to have a professional check your home. In New York and U.S. it’s not that stringent but it could become so,” he said. “When I checked my policy, I found that if I’m gone for more than 12 days, I have to have the house checked. My home inspection background fit perfectly.”

His law enforcement experience in doing searches also helped.

“This is a very personal business,” he explained. “You’re in their house. It’s not like cutting the lawn, where you show up and go. It’s not like that. You’re constantly talking to people and whatever they need, you’re there for. What I found happening was that they were saying to me, ‘I need my gutters cleaned. My sink trap is leaking. Do you know anybody can fix my outside faucet?’”

“In 2025, I got into poop-scooping,” he said. Career No. 7.

“This is the most interesting thing I’ve done. We have clients who break their arms, who have problems with spine injuries. We have people who love their pets, they want their pets, but they can’t go outside to take care of them. I’m not looking at the dirtiness of the job, I’m looking at how I’m helping people, I’m helping people at the same time that I’m operating a business, if you want to look at it like that,” he said. “What I have always found with my home inspection business, and every business I’ve had, is that a lot of times the people who need your service the most are the ones who can least afford it. I’m not here to try to take advantage of people, I’m here to help if I can help, and if I can’t, I try to go the extra mile. I care. I guess that’s actively the best way to live my life on earth, in searching for God’s purpose, if you want to call it that.

“I started Poopy Monster originally for the elderly who needed help because they were handicapped and wanted a pet but just couldn’t get out to take care of it. Now what I’m finding out more and more is that younger people have two jobs and don’t have time to take care of pets. I’ve actually had a lot of response. I have family members helping me on the weekend and I am hiring people.”

As the master of Poopy Monster, Powell visits yards and employs a find-and-remove cleaning grid that mimics the methods used by police to search a field for evidence.

Looking at all these careers, a pattern emerges, it’s pride of the outcome. And Powell doesn’t waste a second asking himself what his customer would want as the outcome of his work.

“I was standing inspection in the sheriff’s office and the superintendent, who was a retired Marine, told me, ‘You must be the shiniest deputy I’ve ever seen. You are so shiny. Flip your belt buckle.’ “I didn’t shine the back of my belt buckle. He told me, ‘Obviously you shined the outside of your belt buckle for me; shine the inside of your belt buckle for you.’ That stuck with me. Even when nobody is watching you, you do the right thing.”