The more we hear about the White House party crashers, The Salahis, the worse they sound. Michaele is starring on the new Real Housewives of DC and in the press tour she’s shown that she’s a real piece of work. She regularly hogs the spotlight, upsetting the other castmembers, and was recently in a feud with Whoopi Goldberg that she and her husband played up for maximum publicity.

The Salahis also have very shady business dealings, and have declared bankruptcy along with being sued over a dozen times. They also started a charity through which they’ve been accused of embezzling funds. They sound like scam artists, and husband Tareq is even feuding with his own mother over a family winery he allegedly ran into the ground.

Now Star has an interview with a former employee of the Salahis who worked with them in their home in Virginia. The conditions were disgusting, according to a woman who was willing to go on the record with her full name and photo. The home was filthy and papers and junk were stacked around. Of course the Salahis ended up owing this woman $800 in wages, just like all the other employees and vendors they’ve bilked over the years.

Alex was hired after answering a classified ad in April for a job as agreet and driver with the Salahis’ wine tour business. “Tareq interviewed me, and although I got the job, he seemed genuinely perturbed that I didn’t know who he or his wife was,” she tells Star. “He actually asked me, ‘Don’t you recognize us?'”

Shortly after, Alex became Michaele’s personal assistant. “Over the enxt three months, I scheduled their appointments, answered phone calls, worked as their event coordinator, and was their personal driver – all at $10 an hour.” Alex says the Salahi’s home was “an absolute mess when I started working there in April.” Though the house looks spotless on RHODC – which was filmed in 2009 – “it was almost like a hoarder’s house, with paper stacked up everywhere.” There were also dog hair and dead bugs that seemed to be all over the floor – and old food would be sitting on the stove for weeks!…

Part of Alex’s job was helping Michaele, 44, pick out her day-to-day wardrobe – a task that proved messier than she could have imagined! “Michaele constantly sprays herself with orange self-tanner, and it gets all over everything, especially her clothes. And since she borrows a lot of her outfits from boutiques and then returns them after she wears them, it creates friction with the store owners…

“My first impression of Michaele was that she was really frail – and I never saw her take a single bite of food the whole time I worked for her,” Alex claims, “She would only sip hot chocolate.”

“It was like pulling teeth to get my pay from them.

“Last June, I worked the entire day of their annual polo tournament, organizing the event, helping to set up the equipment, dealing with the media and driving people around. At the end of the day, Michaele and Tareq left me and three other girls in the dark to break everything down and clean everything up.

“At that moment, I was owed $800 in salary, so I texted Tareq and told him if he didn’t come back and pay me, I was just going to leave. He kept ignoring me – so I left. And a few days later, I got an e-mail from him saying I was not to contact them again. I feel totally used!”

[From Star Magazine, print edition, August 30, 2010]

Yesterday we reported on a story from In Touch where Michaele claimed she ate just one bowl of cereal and a salad with chicken for the entire day. If this former employee’s story is accurate, she might not even eat that much.

This is frankly kind of fascinating, and reminds me of this very well-to-do woman I saw on Oprah years ago who was so well put together but lived in the most disgusting conditions. I also enjoy watching Clean House, after which I end up throwing out crap and straightening up. (The latest Messiest Home in America was particularly disturbing.) On Clean House, Niecy Nash explains that clutter is an outward manifestation of an inward condition. I guess in the Salahi’s case they’re dirty, disgusting people with no sense of personal responsibility. (Not that I would say that about everyone that keeps a messy home, but in this case it seems accurate given all we know about them.)