'That's where his cat went': Inside a hoarder's skin crawling apartment

Germophobes and those lacking strong stomachs look away now.

A New York City building superintendent uncovered a hoarder’s cockroach-riddled apartment a year after neighbours started complaining about a foul stench.

Martin Fernandez received incessant complaints from residents inside the Lower East Side apartment block about the slovenly neighbour.

But it took 12 months of eviction proceedings before the messy Manhattan resident was sent packing – leaving his junk behind.

What Mr Fernandez found inside the hoarders abode is not for the light hearted.

Walls covered in cockroaches, decomposing food scraps and a dead cat found under a mattress.

“Whatever you've seen, you've never seen nothing like this,” Fernandez says in a disturbing video he filmed upon entering the apartment.

“Oh my god, that's where his cat went. That's nasty!”

Mr Fernandez said the resident “gave up on life for over a year” and went from being relatively clean to something that would “make you gag”.

“When I first started doing work, we gave him a new stove and he was a very clean guy,” the building superintendent said.

The odour was so disgusting, Mr Fernandez’s clean up crew required Tyvek protective suits, breathing masks and gloves before unzipping the protective seal that the super had put in place to contain the smell.

“Courts in New York City are not in your favour and they allowed him to stay for over a year living in those conditions. Of course the system will always find an excuse,” he said during the gut turning video.

“I've never seen a hoarder live in a condition like this like where the mattress is rotted and the guy can sleep there comfortably."

Strangely among the rubbish filled apartment hung a perfectly ironed white tuxedo.