Police have risked the life of homeless super-hoarder Sonia Gonzalez by confiscating dozens of cartloads of her trash, she has claimed in an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online.

Her mountain of belongings kept her safe at night as she slept on the streets, she said.

And already, just a day after the New York City cops destroyed her stash, she has started building it back up. By Thursday afternoon she had two laundry carts loaded with empty bottles, plastic and other thrown-away items and a dolly topped with a large cardboard box full of more trash.

Gonzalez, 60, told Daily Mail Online she protects herself at night by surrounding herself with the shopping carts she said have been given to her over the years.

‘I put sticks between the wheels so people can’t just move them quickly out of the way,’ she said. ‘I sleep with one eye open so I can hear them coming.’

Sonia Gonzalez, 60, told Daily Mail Online she protects herself at night by surrounding herself with the shopping carts she said have been given to her over the years. Now she feels her life is in danger

Just a day after the New York City cops destroyed her stash, she has started building it back up. By Thursday afternoon she had two laundry carts loaded with empty bottles, plastic and other thrown-away items

Choo Choo also scooped up a dolly topped with a large cardboard box full of more trash

But now, with just much lighter laundry carts that can be shoved aside easily by anyone who wants to harm her, she feels her life could be in danger.

Gonzalez had been dragging her collection – that by Wednesday had reached 20 grocery carts, 14 laundry carts, eight suitcases, two large crates and a dolly – around the city for years. But then officials deemed them obstructive, saying they got in the way of both traffic and pedestrians.

Locals call her ‘Choo-Choo,’ because of the train of carts she had built up over the years, she said.

I’ve been to New Jersey. I’ve been to Connecticut. I’ve been to Massachusetts. I’ve been to Pennsylvania. I’ve been to Chicago. But the buildings aren’t safe there. It’s the way they’re built. So I came back here.

Police officers and sanitation workers threw away nearly all of Gonzalez' stuff by Wednesday night, and were hoping to convince her to seek help at a homeless shelter.

But it was a forlorn hope. Gonzalez insists she is safer living on the streets of Manhattan than going inside a city shelter. ‘I don’t go to those places,’ she said.

She spent Wednesday night in the doorway of an apartment building, made safer by a security guard, lights and a camera, she told Daily Mail Online. But the guard only works Mondays-to-Thursdays, she said, so she has to build her stash up quickly if she is to feel secure by Friday night.

Gonzalez insisted that she is not just a hoarder, the stuff she picks out of the garbage helps keep her safe at night. Looking down at the two laundry carts she had managed to acquire by Thursday afternoon, she pointed out they are nowhere near as sturdy and could easily be moved.

Gonzalez, who says she is married to a man called Mike, who spends six months in Miami and the other six in New York, insists people are out to get her. In her rambling interview, she claimed three men – who she described as a Mexican, a Cuban and an African – were responsible for her downward spiral, which she claimed had gone from working for the Department of Motor Vehicles, to life on the streets.

The men, she claims, had called police on her, claiming she was having sex on the streets. ‘Look at me, she said. I have shopping carts. Prostitutes have cars.’

Choo Choo told Daily Mail Online senior reporter Martin Gould that she had been married twice and lost her four-year-old twins in an automobile accident

She also claimed she had a home in a city building in the Hell’s Kitchen area of the city, but she couldn’t go there because it had been damaged by fire

She also claimed she had a home in a city building in the Hell’s Kitchen area of the city, but she couldn’t go there because it had been damaged by fire.

None of Gonzalez’s claims were able to be easily verified.

She said she had gone for a shower at a city pool, where she had to sign in, when the fire was started. She claimed it was because she had signed in that her enemies knew she was not in the building.

As Daily Mail Online spoke to Gonzalez on New York’s 10th Avenue, several people walked by giving her words of encouragement. ‘They should never have taken your stuff,’ said one young man. ‘Go get more.’

Gonzalez says she was born in Puerto Rico and came to New York when she was 16. She said she has been married twice and had twin boys who were killed in a road accident when they were 4.

She said she has traveled extensively outside of the Big Apple. ‘I’ve been to New Jersey. I’ve been to Connecticut. I’ve been to Massachusetts. I’ve been to Pennsylvania. I’ve been to Chicago. But the buildings aren’t safe there. It’s the way they’re built. So I came back here.’

Wearing at least four layers of thick clothing, topped off by the same blue ’New York’ fleece jacket she had been wearing when cops confiscated her belongings the previous day, Gonzalez said she was on her way to 35th Street to feed the pigeons.

Sonia Gonzalez, 60, lies on the ground on Wednesday as two NYPD officers looks on

Sanitation workers assisted by police threw Sonia Gonzalez' stuff in a dump truck

Gonzalez, right had been hauling her trash train through the city for years

City authorities said they tried to get Gonzalez to seek help with homeless services

‘A friend of mine always used to feed them, but he died,’ she said. ‘They like my food, rice and bread.’

She said she is also trying to get her little dog Baby, out of an ASPCA shelter where he had been placed by animal welfare officials.

‘They wanted to get him away from me,’ she claimed. ‘I put him in his crate but he started growling, so I took him out. Then I put him back in again and it started again and the same thing happened again and again. I thought he was going to have a heart attack.

‘Then I looked at his blanket and it was covered with two gallons of ice. They had poured frozen water on to his blanket, no wonder he didn’t want to be there.’

‘But they shouldn’t have taken him from me.’

Gonzalez said she managed to hold on to a change of clothes during Wednesday’s raid, although most of the rest of her belongings, which included bottles and cans, an air conditioner, shower curtain rods, a wire shelving unit, a Hannah Montana kids laundry hamper and a pair of New Balance sneakers, were destroyed.

During the raid, Gonzalez was heard shouting at cops 'You aren’t listening you son of a b***h!', and at one point lay down on the ground in protest.

Speaking to Daily Mail Online after the raid, she said police tend not to bother her, but sometimes members of the public do phone 911 to complain about her.

When asked why she had such a large number of carts and possessions, Gonzalez said it is so she can sell them and make some money.

Gonzalez speaks to NYPD officers as her trash train is being thrown away on Wednesday

Sanitation workers were assisted by NYPD officers as they threw Gonzalez' possessions in the trash

She mostly hangs out in Hell's Kitchen, on Manhattan’s West Side, but is constantly on the move - always with her belongings in tow. She secures the items to her carts with rope and plastic twine.

Gonzales told the New York Post that people sometimes give her $5 or $10, which she says she takes 'to stop them feeling bad.'

But her hoard has been criticized by nearby workers who have complained she is bringing down the tone of the neighborhood.

One construction worker at 10 Hudson Yards told the Post: 'Someone needs to call Sanitation and have that crap thrown out.

'You don't want to go back to what [the neighborhood] was 20 years ago.'

And a driver moaned: 'This stinks. She needs to move her stuff!'

But according to a doorman who works between 41st and 42nd street, Gonzalez has been hauling her great load for years and he has never seen any police officers address her.

A City Hall spokesman said: 'Because this person’s possessions are obstructing the sidewalk and traffic, homeless outreach teams and NYPD will again approach the client to attempt to convince her to accept shelter in an available Safe Haven location.'

'The NYPD personnel will go through her possessions with her and voucher any possessions of hers of value,' the official told the Post.

'If this individual refuses a Safe Haven location, the homeless outreach teams will continue to engage her over the next few days to convince her to come into shelter.'

Sonia Gonzalez has been hauling her enormous load - which stretches an entire block - around New York City for years

Her collection includes bottles and cans, an air conditioner, shower curtain rods, a wire shelving unit, Hannah Montana kids laundry hamper and a pair of New Balance sneakers

Gonzalez generally moves her carts one or two blocks at a time, as pictured above