Stop Your Foolishness, Niecy

As a person who's somewhat, shall we say, organizationally challenged (i.e., an unmitigated slob), I get a certain masochistic pleasure from the makeovers on Clean House. Despite the show's sophomoric attempts at humor, I enjoy Niecy Nash's folksy but tough-love approach, and generally the designs by Mark Brunetz are both functional and attractive.

Usually, I can get behind the show's portrayal of the homeowners' being unreasonable. Take, for example, the Isakawa family's mishegoss over the never-used ping-pong table (and thanks for nothing, Mark, for your shit-stirring when they finally got it sold).

But what got me, in that same episode, was Niecy and Mark's attitude toward the mother Cathy's books: their blank incomprehension that a person might actually want to keep her books and read them again. They made her feel like a freak and a bad mother because she resisted giving up her collection for the pittance that used books bring at yard sales, compounded by their emotional blackmail that they would furnish her daughters' bedrooms if she complied. Sure, the books needed to be out of the kitchen, but apparently it never occurred to them to buy her some freaking bookshelves.

Deal with the literateness of it all, Niecy.