Oregon couple ‘squats’ in million-dollar Central Park pad after tenant dies: lawsuit
That’s one way to get an apartment steps from Central Park.
A pair of alleged squatters from Oregon have commandeered a two-bedroom, rent-controlled co-op worth nearly $1 million on Manhattan’s ritzy Upper West Side after the longtime tenant died, according to court papers.
Sheila Upjohn, 72, of Salem, has been living in the roughly 1,100-square-foot pad on the ninth floor of 46 West 95th Street since 98-year-old resident Mary Etta Tanuma died in April 2022.
The landlord said Upjohn and Tanuma aren’t related, and Upjohn has no right to the home — but a relative said the two women were as close as family gets.
“Sheila cared for [Tanuma] for two years at home,” said Upjohn’s sister, Michelle Cassidy. “She brought her out of a nursing home during COVID. . . . she took care of [Tanuma] like she was her mother.”
Cassidy, a former resident of the building, lived next door to Tanuma since 1995 and introduced the older woman and Upjohn, a nurse who moved east for school and work and lived on and off with Tanuma since 1997.
“This is legit, a real thing. This isn’t my sister moving in with her in the last year of her life to try to grift her,” Cassidy insisted.
Tanuma, a loomer who made textile samples, had no other family and changed her will in 2017 to leave everything to Upjohn, Cassidy said.
Tanuma described Upjohn as “my friend” in her will, which bequeathed her furniture, paintings, jewelry, furnishings and household goods, Manhattan Surrogate Court papers show.
Weeks after Tanuma’s death, Upjohn sent the landlord, 46 West 95th Street Equities, a letter claiming she was “entitled to succeed” Tanuma’s residency in the apartment, the landlord said in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit seeking her ouster.
Upjohn later moved her husband, disbarred Oregon attorney Donald Upjohn, 81, in with her, according to the litigation.
The couple are living there “without any right to do so,” the landlord alleged.
Aside from a stint in a nursing home, Tanuma, who had no spouse or kids, lived in the apartment since the 1960s, and was paying just $1,800 a month — less than half the market rate.
Judith McGrath, 83, a neighbor listed as executor of Tanuma’s estate, said she didn’t know Tanuma or the Upjohns.
“What will?” said McGrath when asked about Tanuma’s estate, adding, “I don’t know anybody by that name.”
The landlord called the Upjohns’ scheme a “bold attempt to game the system and take advantage of the Rent Control Law for their own personal benefit.”
The landlord has demanded the Upjohns fork over $3,500 for every month they’ve lived there and wants a judge to force the couple out of the apartment and to pay for “unlawfully” occupying the place.
“New York City property owners face a continual challenge from tenants who unlawfully occupy apartments and refuse to vacate,” said the landlord’s lawyer, Michael A. Pensabene. “This is a clear attempt to violate the property owners’ rights and we are confident that we will prevail in court.”
A lawyer for Upjohn declined to comment.