"A black hole."

"The worst."

Those are just a few of the words the cast of the television show "Clean House" used to describe 5 Palisade Ave. in Piscataway when it won the Style Network's "Messiest Home in the Country" contest this spring.

It was an honor the homeowner, understandably, was very torn about even acknowledging.

"This is all too embarrassing," said Sue Loria, sitting on her front stoop on a warm spring day as the film crew shot a scene in her cluttered living room.

Should Sue Loria be embarrassed? Judge for yourself when the Style Network airs a two-hour "Clean House" special about the home at 9 p.m. Wednesday. In the mean time, here's the initial reaction that the show's executive producer, Gina Rubinstein, had upon seeing the house for the first time:

"You knew when you saw this one" that it was the winner, Rubinstein said. "You couldn't even walk into the living room."

During a visit to the house on a day early in the show's taping process, a pile of clothes several feet high sat just inside the front door. A competing stack of boxes stood across the entry way. Stacks of magazines filled the upstairs bathroom. The basement, according to a member of the show's crew, was stuffed to the rafters with everything from children's toys dating back to the 1970s to record albums equally as old. Most of the basement's contents were moved to the backyard (a process estimated to have taken several pairs of hands between 10 and 12 hours), where crew members busily sorted through belongings to determine what was worth salvaging, what could be sold and what should be thrown away. Three Portable On Demand Storage units, or PODS, and a large Dumpster, filled to the brim, stood in the driveway.

And there was still much, much more in the house yet to be uncovered.

"You know how people have junk drawers?" asked resident "Clean House" designer Mark Brunetz. "This entire house is a junk drawer."

Sue Loria didn't totally disagree.

" "If you kids had just cleaned up all along, we wouldn't have needed this,' " she recalled telling her daughters Deana, 36, and Suzanne, 24, with whom she lives. Her other children - Kristen, 33, and Vernon, 31 - no longer live in the home, but their mother and siblings say many of their possessions still do.

Her absent sister and brother may have left things behind, Suzanne Loria countered, but it's her mother and Deana who are the primary contributors to the clutter. Deana Loria, meanwhile, acknowledged bringing the contents of her apartment with her when she moved home more than three years ago.

The house also contains sentimental items belonging to Sue Loria's late husband, Vernon, such as an old jukebox that "Clean House" cast member Trish Suhr said hasn't worked since 1989. Still, the Lorias were loath to part with it.

"His whole thing was music (and) oldies," Deana Loria said of the prized possession. "It was the ultimate symbol of him."

The show's "go-to guy," New Jersey native Matt Iseman, saw things a bit differently.

"They took gathering crap to a whole new level of seriousness," he concluded after poking around. "(We said), 'You need space. Let go of the Olivia Newton-John album.'"

Although only three women live there, the belongings of actually double that number of people are kept there.

"Cleaning out the house for six people is very daunting," Sue Loria admitted, adding that she appreciated the help the show was providing.

Enter the show's host, "Reno 911!" actress Niecy Nash, who has offered overwhelmed families a no-nonsense, no-excuses approach to organizing and decluttering for the past four years.

"I've done 70 to 80 shows, and I've never seen anything like it," she said of the Loria home. "It's so hard to see anything in that house. There's stuff in boxes that still hasn't been opened."

Nash summed up the Piscataway situation in her typical blunt fashion: "Grown adult women have been allowed to be irresponsible, and the mother has given up in a lot of areas of her life.

"But I'm here now, and all that's going to change."

Time for a change

The Lorias may blame one another for the home's disarray, but only Deana Loria can be faulted for the family winning the nationwide contest.

After submitting a tape of her walking around the home and pleading for intervention, Deana Loria said she was shocked when the show called with the good news.

"Is this something you really want to brag about winning?" she said, laughing.

Brunetz said the entire project - cleaning out and remodeling every room in the house - was a challenge on multiple levels, not the least of which was combining and incorporating the tastes of three adult women.

"It needs to be a place that really reflects their style," Brunetz explained, adding that it was equally important for Sue Loria and her daughters to closely scrutinize their belongings.

"(You must ask yourself): "Is it functioning and serving who I am today?' " Brunetz said. "Eighty percent of that stuff is not doing that."

Sue Loria was also concerned about the makeover.

"I have very mixed feelings," she said. "It's somebody else's taste coming into my home. I have definite likes and dislikes.

"I'm hoping that (Brunetz's) gotten an idea of what I'm all about."

In addition to decluttering and remodeling the home, "Clean House" tags unnecessary items for a yard sale hosted by Suhr, a self-described "organized pack rat." Suhr said it's easy to maintain order if you follow one simple rule: "You can't bring anything new in without taking something out."

Suhr said the Lorias were a particular challenge because they had an "I need it" mentality about everything - even items that had been buried in the basement or garage for years.

"If this was a fire, what would you grab?" Suhr said she always asks people. "If you display it and treat it like it means something, then you can keep it."

Easier said than done.

"It's a personal journey," Nash said of the decluttering experience, "not just a home makeover. Your space ... is an outward expression of an inner thing."

It's important, Nash said, for homeowners like Sue Loria to acknowledge the condition of their home, realize how it got that way, and explore any reticence they may have in relinquishing personal belongings.

The process usually comes "with a lot of tears and a lot of tissues," Nash said.

The show's stars do their best to persuade homeowners to give up unsightly or unusable items. But there is an alternative, just in case they encounter homeowners who refuse to part with valuables.

"If they don't give it up, we will display it and incorporate it into the design," explained Iseman.

Moment of truth

In a typical "Clean House" episode, money raised from the yard sale is used to refurbish the house, and the team only tackles two or three rooms. In this special instance, though, the show foot the bill for updating the entire home, and all proceeds from the yard sale in May were donated to the National Stroke Association. Although "Clean House" producer Rubinstein declined to reveal the total spent on the home, she estimated it cost over $35,000.

Deana Loria said she was looking forward to having "a space we can all live in." Both daughters said they were excited at the prospect of entertaining in their updated home. That concept might take some getting used to, though, since they said they were accustomed to telling friends, "We'll meet you outside."

Having the "Clean House" crew filming in their home was also rough on the Lorias.

"It's very difficult" having people in her home telling her what to do, admitted Sue Loria, who also expressed dread about seeing the events unfold on national TV.

"I think it's probably going to be very embarrassing (to watch)," she said.

Deana Loria wasn't upset to learn that neighbors would not be able to see her family's episode of "Clean House" this week because the township's cable provider, Cablevision, doesn't carry the Style Network.

"That's not a bad thing," she said.