Mummified body of Valerie, 71, found under mattress in home she shared with her daughter

smell coming from the house for a while because it’s not looked after and their two dogs and a cat use the garden as a toilet.

“But it got bad over the summer and the smell started coming through the air-conditioning vents when I put the heating on for my daughter as it turned a bit colder.

“I had ventilation put in because I thought that was the problem but it just masked the smell.

“The dead woman had dementia and the daughter told me in August that she’d died after breaking her hip in a fall a couple of weeks earlier.

“I assumed she had died in hospital. It blows my mind to think that poor woman’s body could have been in that house for nearly a year and the smell was that.

“I woke up about 3am on Saturday and saw forensics in the house. The dead woman’s daughter was at the police station yesterday because I saw her when I had to go and give a statement.

“She wasn’t in handcuffs. I don’t know what happened afterwards but the dead woman’s daughter is back at the house now.”

Another Brit on the estate said: “I think Louise worked in digital recruitment but she started having financial problems and I heard the bank wanted to repossess the house because they’d stopped paying the mortgage but couldn’t because there was an elderly lady with health problems living there.

“You assume wrongly or rightly, of course, that the body was left there for economic reasons and maybe the daughter was still claiming a pension her mum might have had.”

There was no answer at the property yesterday. No one from the local police was available for comment.