New York roommates find $40,000 in used couch, return it to 91-year-old widow

For all the screaming and carrying on, their neighbours thought they’d won the lottery. But it was a lumpy old sofa stuffed with $40,000 in cash that had three young roommates raising a ruckus.Here’s the other side of the ticket: they returned the money to the 91-year-old widow whose couch had been given away.“We just pulled out envelopes and envelopes,” said Cally Guasti, a social worker with Family of Woodstock who shares an apartment with two friends in New Paltz, 120 kilometres north of New York City. “My mouth was literally hanging open — everybody’s was — it was an unfathomable amount.”Guasti said Thursday that she and her friends had bought the beat-up couch and a chair for $55 at a Salvation Army thrift shop in March. They noticed the arm cushions were weirdly lumpy. Then, one night in April, one of them, student Reese Werkhoven of New York City, opened a zipper on one arm and found an envelope.It contained $4,000 in bubble-wrapped bills.

Guasti, Werkhoven and roommate Lara Russo opened the other arm zipper and started mining the treasure stashed inside. They counted it up: $40,800.

“We put it all on a bed,” Guasti said. “We laid it all out and started counting. And we were screaming. In the morning, our neighbours were like, ‘We thought you won the lottery.’ ”