New York woman Chava Stirn spent three years sharing a cramped apartment with the corpse of her dead mother, eating with her at the dinner table and sleeping next to her every night.

According to the New York Post, the 28-year-old laid her mother’s bones out on a garbage bag in the kitchen of their Brooklyn apartment, choosing to eat her meals and sleep near the remains.

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The young woman also chose to dress like her late mother, wearing the same outfit and shoes her mother was wearing at the time of her death.

“It’s a scene right out of Psycho … This is one of the weirdest cases I’ve ever seen,” a law-enforcement source said.

“She may have been living there with the mom’s remains for two or three years … It’s a horrible scene.”

Neighbours of Ms Stirn were not aware of anything suspicious until the superintendent was called to investigate a leak in the apartment on Monday.

Ms Stirn reportedly refused to let anyone inside the apartment.

The cause of her mother’s death is not known.