A Mummified Body Found in a Sydney Home Is Being Treated as ‘Suspicious’

While emptying a hoarder's home on Sydney’s lower North Shore, cleaners have discovered a mummified body wrapped in carpet. Police say the body had been there for a "considerable time" and are treating the discovery as suspicious.

The house, in the upmarket suburb of Greenwich, had been vacant for around a year after its reclusive owner died. A guy named Bruce Roberts lived there for some 40 years, and the house was known around the street for being unkempt and “full of junk.”

One neighbour told the ABC that Bruce was in his late 50s or early 60s, but somehow seemed “childlike.”

"He had the same brown jacket on, he was childlike in a way, he just had no expressions, nothing," she told ABC reporter Mark Reddie. "You'd say hello and he'd just mutter 'hello', or just not notice. He lived in this tiny little house on the corner, it's completely overgrown and you can see rubbish in the garden."

It took a year after Bruce’s death for cleaners to start clearing the place out, which is when the decomposed and unidentified body was found. One neighbour told the Nine Network that the cleaner who made the discovery was “a bit shaken and we were, obviously, too.” She added: “It was very creepy.”

It’s now a question of whether Bruce Roberts had anything to do with this person’s death.

A post mortem on Friday is being conducted to identify the gender and cause of death. Police are urging anyone with information to come forward.