China woman obsessed with collecting rubbish fills upscale home with junk, triggers complaints

South China Morning Post

07-06-2025

A rubbish hoarding woman who lives alone in an upscale area of Shanghai has sparked an avalanche of complaints from her neighbours, forcing some of them to sell their flats.
Over the past couple of years, the woman in her 60s, surnamed Cheng, has been annoying people with her unsanitary behaviour.
However, they could do nothing to stop her bringing rubbish home and storing it in her flat and in the public corridor, Shanghai TV reported.
She lives in the city's Huangpu District, and her 157 square metre home is worth 36 million yuan (US$5 million).
The corridor outside the woman's home is strewn with all manner of rubbish. Photo: Douyin
'She picks up all kinds of rubbish, from cardboard to bottles and plastic bags to food waste. Her flat is full of rubbish, in the bathtub and on an expensive sofa which was imported from Italy and is valued at more than 200,000 yuan (US$30,000),' a neighbour surnamed Li told the media.