ARLINGTON, Virginia: Sam Shipkovitz's home was his castle - a place where he could pile his possessions from floor to ceiling and answer to no one. Unfortunately, his local hoarding taskforce saw things differently. The latest victim of "America's neatness police", Mr Shipkovitz, a patent lawyer, returned home one day to find the locks on his apartment door had been changed. A bright yellow sign said: "Unfit for Human Habitation". While his friends considered him a likeable eccentric with a penchant for accumulating junk, to the taskforce Mr Shipkovitz was a danger to himself and his neighbours. In Arlington, the local taskforce has investigated 34 hoarding cases in the past year, almost all of them after tip-offs. In January, over in Washington state, Marie Rose, 62, was found dead after suffocating under piles of clothes, apparently while looking for the telephone.