Stuttgart  - A woman, 85, who could not throw anything away spent days trapped under a collapsed pile of yellowing paper in her apartment, police in the German city of Stuttgart said Monday.

After her rescue, she was taken to hospital suffering from severe dehydration. It was not clear how many days her ordeal lasted.

The building's landlady called police after the tenant failed to answer her doorbell. Officers said gnats were flying around the paper and other stinking rubbish that filled the home almost to the ceiling.

The pensioner said an unstable pile fell on her while she was looking for something in the stack, and she could not dig her way free. dpa