When police called at the home of former "Scrabble" factory worker Reg Fox on an un-related matter, they couldn't believe their eyes.
Reg, who has worked at the plant in Llandovery for 35 years, had hoarded an estimated one million plastic tiles, and bosses have estimated that he must have been stealing them at the rate of over one hundred a day for all that time.
It is not known at the moment why Mr Fox, 57, who is on remand for an unrelated incident outside a greengrocer's shop, apparently developed an obsession for the letters. They were organised into nouns and consonants in different rooms.
When they were removed they filled 42 sacks and will eventually be returned to the factory. There, Reg Fox's supervisor Philip Zylgy said his sympathies were with the family.
Carol Vorderman is 53.