Now that's one impressively messy garage!

Most of us are guilty of stashing something in a closet, attic or garage and forgetting about it.

Not Bonnie Douglas. She keeps a listed dubbed "Things I haven't seen since Connecticut."

Six years ago Douglas came to Hampton Roads with a previous employer for what she thought would be a few weeks' long gig. Those weeks dragged into months, then years. Today, Chesapeake is home.

It's where her stuff is, too, much of it packed into a 24-by-14-foot garage, awaiting the day she has time to sort through it all.

Douglas' mess is so impressive that it scored the win in Home's Messiest Garage Contest. In honor of National Clean Out Your Garage Day, Sept. 12, we invited readers to submit photos of their dirty little secrets for judging.

Douglas' space - with its packed-to-the-door-and-rafters mix of furniture, dog cages, clothes, knickknacks, coolers, bikes, building materials, bedding, lawn mowers, laundry baskets, holiday decorations, assorted boxes, old carpeting, errant ladder and who knows what else - emerged victorious.

"It is bad, isn't it?" Douglas admitted. "It's a nice garage. Someday I'd like to make stained glass out there."

To help her get started on the cleanup, Douglas' prizes are a new Dirt Devil Power Flex 2-in-1 stick/hand vac, a Quickie brand Microfiber Twist Mop and heavy-duty work gloves from Wells Lamont.

Heck, if we can find it in our crammed closets, we might throw in a book on de-cluttering, too. But the labor's on Douglas; we have our own messy garages to contend with here at Home.

- Victoria Hecht, Home editor