As soon as I read about this series, I had two thoughts. The first was, “Oh, good, Niecy Nash had something to fall back on when ‘Do Not Disturb’ was canceled.” The second was, “Oh, God, I think my office alone could possibly get me on this show.” But as soon as the clips began, I realized that, despite our occasional moments of disrepair, there ain’t no way in hell that the Harris home could ever reach the deplorable depths of the houses that are spotlighted on this series. Some of them are so bad that you wonder how in God’s name anyone could stand to live in such conditions…which, of course, begs the question, “Is it possible that some of these people made their houses look this bad just so that they could get onto the show?”
“If they did, they had a lot to work with,” said Nash. “You know what I’m saying? It means that they had to get the clutter from somewhere. Even if they only pulled it out of the garage, it means that it existed somewhere in their space. The people who I know who did not manufacture their clutter is because it’s very difficult to manufacture clutter and filth on top of it. When it’s dirty and it’s borderline nasty, you say, ‘Baby, these people were already living like this.’ Another thing you can’t manufacture is smell. That will get you. It’s good thing we don’t have Smell-O-Vision; it’s hard on a sister’s nose sometimes.”
“Clean House” is preparing to celebrate its 100th episode (which surprises me a little bit, as I wasn’t familiar with the series until this panel), but as Nash acknowledged, not everyone is always excited about the job of spiffing up that’s been done by the show.
“One of the clients who I get asked the most about was my family where, after the reveal, the lady cried,” said Nash. “Her name was Judge Dragon, and she cried, and she carried on. But Mark Brunetz, my designer with the magic, who I work with, kind of saw that there was going to be a storm coming down the pipe, so we were kind of prepared for her to have a fit. I didn’t know it was going to be that big of a fit, but, you know we do our best, and you can’t make everybody happy all the time, can you? Anybody who’s a parent knows that. We take some bruises along the way, but it’s all right.”
The new season of “Clean House” premieres on The Style Network later in 2009.
