An NYC pad is a hot commodity. But one health aide is taking things too far. She took over her 103-year-old patient’s Upper East Side apartment, refusing to leave, and threatening to flush the woman’s ashes before letting her daughter inside.
The squatters are claiming they have “succession rights” to the woman’s East 86th apartment because they were like “family” to the dying women.
The aide, Tatiana Abello, and her mother and sister have been living in the woman’s $2088 a-month rent-stabilized two-bedroom apartment since the patient, Verra Katz, died in August of 2021. It’s unclear if they have been paying rent.
Similar apartments in the building are now going for around $7000.
Abello had been caring for Katz, a one-time big band singer who performed under the name Verra Stuart.
She eventually brought her mother and sister to the 12,21 square foot apartment from Columbia.
“I loved these people. I had a relationship with them because they took care of my mother,” said Verra’s 65-year-old daughter Skylar.
Skylar stayed in touch with the Abellos deciding what the exit plan would be and buying them gifts and dinners. Then one day, she came to the apartment to find a slider bolt on the door.
They refused to open the door and also refused to let the police in. The police let the matter drop as they will typically not interfere with housing disputes, leaving those matters to the courts.
“They were threatening to flush my parents’ ashes down the toilet,” Skyler claimed. She accused the Abellos of refusing to return her parents’ remains.
Skylar took the Abellos to Manhattan Housing Court where they agreed to hand over the ashes of Verra and her husband Ralph Katz, an editor for the New York Times who passed away some time in 2023.
But the proceedings were inexplicibly dropped after the ashes were returned, leaving Skylar locked out of the apartment.
Skylar is now suing the Abellos to reclaim the home. She is also requesting that they pay rent on the apartment.
But the Abellos are claiming they are now “legal, rent-stabilized tenants”. Their lawyer is arguing that they have succession rights due to the “loving, family-type relationship” they had with Katz.
“They were never on the lease. They never paid rent. How do you ‘love’ somebody and you’re going to flush her down the toilet?” Skylar argued.
She also stated that she has no idea what happened to her parents’ belongings as social media posts show the apartment empty of her family’s furniture and mementos.
“A lifetime of belongings, mementos, my dad’s bylines, books, a great vinyl collection” were some of the items Skylar noted to be missing.
“If this could happen to me, it could happen to anybody who retains health home attendants,” she said.
