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'Clean House' and Clutter

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

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Union rules -- we have to break for lunch. Four of the producers splash across the pike to eat veggie burgers at the diner. An episode of "Clean House" never seems more desperate than on the first day of shooting, when the homeowners start to see themselves as America will see them.

"Phil and Mindy's fortress is being knocked down," Rubinstein says.

"But they are still in denial about how it got this way," Jachem says.

The important thing now is to get scenes of the Wheelers actually learning to clean, and taking sponges and mops in their lazy hands. The episode is a failure if "Clean House" does a makeover but the people don't change. The taping so far portrays Phil and Mindy living in suspended adolescence, where hobbies (ham radio, community theater, scrapbooking, amateur ghost-hunting in a paranormal club) and Phil's back problems won out over basic chores; where money woes somehow led to more shopping, more acquiring.

"It's the land of excuses," Simon says.

'I'm Speechless'

In an empty parking lot a block away, Nash, 38, sits in her trailer wearing fuzzy slippers and a long cardigan, waiting for a production assistant to bring her lunch from Chick-fil-A. All morning she has not been her usual television self. The minute the camera cuts, the Niecy persona is replaced with the dour demeanor of a CVS cashier. She's done six seasons of this show, along with a recurring part on Comedy Central's "Reno 911!" and a starring role in a prime-time sitcom debuting this fall. (At her first meeting with the Style Network, Nash says, the creators were thinking of calling the show "House Colonic": "I said, 'Change the name and let's go.' ")

The Wheelers' house clearly sickens her. "I think it's the worst I've ever seen," she says, "and come to find out, the entry did not tell us the full story about how bad it was. In a sense I'm speechless, because I have never seen two adults living in what I deem as squalor."

She is the picture of the put-out diva. She has two makeup and hair guys -- known on the set as "the vanities" -- and submits to this interview while tapping on her BlackBerry with her fuchsia Frito-size fingernails. "I've seen a lot, honey. I have been to the mountaintop of clutter and looked over and I still ain't seen anything as bad as this."

She says it's always the same story: "If I have learned one thing, it's about brokenness, in every house. You have to get in there and figure out what's really broken. We can turn around three times and make the magic happen, but if we don't fix what's really broken, then it's not going to solve the problem."

And Away It Goes

Somehow the problems are solved, at least to the satisfaction of television. After the "moment of truth" segment earlier in the week, where Nash issues the homeowners the thorough scolding that viewers depend on, Phil and Mindy are filmed scrubbing their bathroom and kitchen.

Five days into the shoot, the clutter is sorted and hauled out of the house, where it is arranged on tables under tents for the big yard sale, the most cathartic part of "Clean House." Hundreds of people show up on Saturday morning, even though it is still wet and cold outside, to paw through the detritus of Phil and Mindy's problems, to frown at the little Halloween decorations, the plastic chip-and-dip platters, the useless computer parts and the "2001 Snowflake Teddy" stuffed bear with the Santa hat and a tag that reads To Mindy, from Nanny & Pop Pop; someone buys the couple's old washer, but hardly anyone wants their furniture. Many of the yard sale shoppers simply want a glimpse of Nash, Brunetz, Suhr and Iseman. Some have driven 50 or 100 miles for this brush with minor celebrity.

Phil and Mindy's junk becomes some other problem for those who paw through it and acquire it (one woman waddles off to her minivan carrying their board games), and for the dudes who pull up in the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? dump truck to haul away what's left.