Hoarder’s home contains mother’s mummified body

Here’s a story that will make you want to tidy your home: Relatives cleaning up after a deceased hoarder in St. Louis found the mummified body of the hoarder’s mother wrapped in plastic and a curtain.

Looks like it's time for some "spring cleaning."

Police say Gladys Jean Bergmeier, 75, died Feb. 7.  A relative digging through the pack rat’s home found the body, presumably that of the “long-unseen” Gladys Stansbury.

No one in the neighborhood could recall seeing Stansbury in the last 20 years. An orange juice bottle found wrapped up in the plastic with Stansbury’s body had an expiration date of 2003, but forensic specialists think the garbage may have wormed its way into the plastic years after the woman’s death.

“It appears (Bergmeier) couldn’t let go (of her mother),” a neighbor said. “This woman always had excuses as to where (Stansbury) might be. As time went on, people just stopped asking.”

A neighbor told authorities she thought something had happened to Bergmeier when she called after “The Young and the Restless” went off the air Feb. 7 and no one answered.

Another neighbor said Bergmeier became a loner after her husband died in 1989.