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'Clean House' and Clutter

Clips from the "Messiest Home 2" episode of "Clean House."

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In each episode, the homeowners must be cajoled into letting go of some object they cling to, often because it belonged to someone who has died. In the final few minutes, the homeowners take off their blindfolds for the "reveal" and wind up crying, usually because they are happy. The rooms all look like the love children of Pier 1 and Real Simple magazine.

"Clean House" is addictive, not because of who's on it, or what happens, but because of what you see in the margins of the camera's frame: real-real life, bad taste, the stuff of stuff that comes from having too much stuff. You start out asking What have we become as a society? and get all the way to Look what they did! Pretty!

The Shock of It All

The first day of the "Messiest Home" shoot at the Wheeler place is necessarily dispiriting: It is cold and raining buckets. In their sit-down interview for the camera, Phil and Mindy present a united front; before taping even began, they agreed to not say bad or blameful things about each other.

The condition of their house approaches an area that "Clean House" usually tries to avoid -- a level of filth that suggests psychological disorder. "Clean House" walks the line of becoming a show about hoarders and crazy cat ladies and Unabombers. "We're very careful about that," says executive producer Gina Rubinstein. "But it's hard to know until you're in it -- why do they live like this, how did it get this way?"

Mindy is a crier, which the producers like.

Angie Brown, the no-nonsense show producer, who is never seen or heard on camera, is tasked with the Mike Wallace-style interrogation tactics that will tease out a confessional narrative: Why would an adoption agency let Mindy and Phil have a baby if they've never cleaned their bathroom? How come Phil never gets around to selling items on eBay that he's keeping for the express purpose of selling on eBay? Why does Mindy keep a complete set of "Baby-sitters Club" novels for young girls? ("It reminds me of being young. . . . I didn't have a lot of friends," Mindy will say. "Every character is special to me. They're real to me.")

By midday, Nash and the cast members are shooting the scenes where they arrive and get their first look at the mess. Phil and Mindy's German shepherd, Zeus, was raised and trained by the Philadelphia fire department, leading designer Brunetz to quip: "When your search-and-rescue dog can't get through the house, then you have a problem."

Phil and Mindy reluctantly show them the hall closet. It's so bad that the producers, who are outside in their own "video village" trailer watching a live camera feed, yell "Cut!"

"They've got to be more horrified," says Esquire Jachem, the supervising producer, from his seat next to Brown, over the microphone.

"The problem," says Renee Simon, a vice president for the network, also sitting in the video trailer, "is that it's so awful in there that everyone just looks -- too shocked. They're too still."

That may have something to do with what's in the closet: There's a large hole in the floor, and a nasty stench. Phil and Mindy explain that the litter box for their two cats was down in the hole. "Where are the cats?" Nash asks.

And here is where we learn that the cats have been gone for a couple of years. Yuck! In the production trailer, there are screams of both repulsion and delight: Desiccated cat poop is good television.