it is the space people enter and leave the house through, and that's about the worst space to still be a mess.
most of that stuff actually needed to be in there, but boy, was it a mess. so we literally took everything out (except the washer, dryer, and freezer, and the one shelf unit i'd already done, which is to my left as i took the picture). everything. the shelves got washed off, the floors and walls got swept (i lost count of giant spiders at about a dozen...but there might have been some girly shrieking from time to time as i stumbled across yet another one), and the ragged 