CHESHIRE, Conn. (AP) — A 66-year-old woman described by police as an apparent hoarder was found dead under a pile of debris after the first floor of her Connecticut home collapsed into the basement under the weight of all the clutter, authorities said. 
 
 Police in Cheshire identified the woman as Beverly Mitchell. Her body was found in her home Saturday, two days after a postal carrier called police to request a welfare check because her mail had been piling up for at least a week. 
 
 Police Sgt. Kevin O'Donnell said officers went to the house Thursday, but didn't find anyone and thought Mitchell wasn't home. The first-floor had stacks of clutter to the ceilings along the walls and waist-high piles in other areas, and officials didn't realize until Friday that the floor had collapsed, O'Donnell said. 
 
 After making sure the building was safe to enter, officials cut a hole in the side of the house and began removing debris with a backhoe. Authorities found Mitchell's body on Saturday afternoon. 
 
 Police had been to Mitchell's house many times over the years responding to requests for welfare checks by neighbors and other people, O'Donnell said. Officers had offered her help from local social service experts, but she refused each time, he said. 
 
 "It's unfortunate because ... we've tried all along to get her assistance, but she was a very private and solitary lady," O'Donnell said Sunday. 
 
 O'Donnell said officials didn't realize the extent of the clutter in the home until they went inside on Thursday. 
 
 Police were still trying to find relatives of Mitchell on Sunday. 

 BOSTON (Reuters) - A 66-year-old Connecticut woman was found dead in the basement of her home after the first floor collapsed under the weight of a waist-deep pile of newspapers, bottles and other household detritus, local police said on Sunday. 
 
 Police in the suburb of Cheshire, Connecticut, responded to the home of Beverly Mitchell on Thursday after a local mail carrier alerted them that her deliveries were piling up outside the single-story house. 
 
 They were unable to locate her but concluded that the house was structurally unsound, returning to continue their search on Friday before locating the woman's body on Saturday, said Patrol Sergeant Kevin O'Donnell of the Cheshire police. 
 
 "It appears, at least, that the floor gave way," O'Donnell said. "All the items that she had collected for many years covered her as the floor sank down into the basement." 
 
 O'Donnell said that local authorities had long been aware of the woman's living situation and had sent social services teams to try to help her but were rebuffed. 
 
 The death appears to have been accidental, with no signs of criminal activity, he said. Police believe she had been dead for about a week before they were alerted. 
 
 An internet image of the property, showed a small house hidden behind trees in a suburb some 25 miles (40 km) southwest of Hartford. 
 
 There was no particular pattern to the items the woman had retained, said O'Donnell, who was among the officers to respond to the scene. 
 
 "It's just junk," he said. "She just never threw anything away. Mail, packages, bottles lots of papers, newspapers, magazines, you name it. Piled to the ceiling in most rooms. There was a waist-high layer in the room she had been living in." 
 
 (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Sandra Maler)
– A Connecticut woman died under the junk she had spent many years amassing when the weight of it all caused her home's first floor to collapse. Police found the body of 66-year-old Beverly Mitchell on Saturday after a letter carrier warned that mail had been piling up at her home for more than a week, the Cheshire Citizen reports. After determining the building was structurally unsound, investigators had to cut into the side of it. They began to remove debris using a backhoe, and her body was eventually found in the basement, where it had been buried when the first floor fell in. Police believe Mitchell had been dead for at least a week. The clutter that filled her home was "just junk," a police spokesman tells Reuters. "She just never threw anything away. Mail, packages, bottles, lots of papers, newspapers, magazines, you name it. Piled to the ceiling in most rooms. There was a waist-high layer in the room she had been living in." He says social services had offered to help her many times, but had been rebuffed. "It's unfortunate because ... we've tried all along to get her assistance, but she was a very private and solitary lady," he tells the AP. (Click to read about the unusual case of a San Francisco rat hoarder.)