The decomposed body of an elderly woman was discovered under mounds of trash in her home in southwest suburban Worth, officials said.

Margareta Scheibe, 72, was found by police and firefighters Tuesday afternoon at her home in the 10800 block of Oak Park Avenue, according to authorities. The woman died of heart disease and there was no sign of any trauma, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Rubbish was piled to the ceiling and spilled out onto the front yard of the bi-level house located on a quiet residential street across from a public park.

A dilapidated shed filled with broken lawn mowers and yard equipment is in the backyard and two trash-filled vehicles could be seen in the driveway. The view of the house from the street is obscured by several large evergreen trees in the front yard.

The stench inside the house was unbearable, even for officers with the hazardous material masks, a Worth police source said. Yellow crime scene tape surrounded the property while an officer in a squad car guarded the front of the home.

Authorities were first contacted by a friend who hadn’t seen or heard from Scheibe in more than a month, the police source said. She had lived in the house with her 46-year-old son.

Police and fire department personnel, dressed in white hazmat suits, went inside the home on Saturday and spent four hours searching through heaps of garbage, old broken toys and stacks of  newspapers, but did not find Scheibe, according to police and neighbors.

Many areas of the home were inaccessible because of the stacks of garbage, the police source said.

Several neighbors, who asked not to be identified, said they saw police talking with Scheibe’s son on Tuesday. No charges have been filed, the police source said.

One neighbor said Schibe never threw out newspapers and would collect them from local restaurants or scour parking lots for them. "She never even put the trash collection bin out on garbage pick-up dates," he added.

Another neighbor said, "(Margareta) would never let anybody inside the house for any reason."

Neighbors said dozens of stray cats lived outside the house and roamed into their yards.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com