Flatmates find $40k inside old couch

Three university flatmates in New York have found piles of cash worth more than $40,000 in a couch they picked up at a thrift shop.

Reese Werkhoven, Cally Guasti and Lara Russo were watching a movie together at their residence in New Paltz, north of Manhattan, last month when they felt something weird in the cushions of the couch.

They had bought the sofa at a Salvation Army store for $20 about two months before.

Mr Werkhoven, a university student, stuck his hand under the sofa's arm and pulled out a plastic envelope of bills worth $700.

"I almost peed," Mr Werkhoven told a student-run news site at the State University of New York.

The trio continued digging through the couch and uncovered more buried envelopes, adding up to US$40,000 (AUD$42,750) in bills.

But their dreams of using the pay to take holidays or pay off student loans came to a halt when Ms Russo found a woman's name on one of the envelopes.

"We all agreed that we had to bring the money back to whoever it belonged to," she said.

The next day they matched the name with a phone book listing and called.

"I found something that I think is yours," Mr Werkhoven said. "I found a couch."

"Oh my God, I left a lot of money in that couch," the woman replied.

The three flatmates friends then delivered the cash to the woman, who gave them $1000 as a reward.

The woman explained that she kept her and her husband's savings in the couch for 30 years.

After the husband died, the woman had back surgery and her daughter got rid of the old couch, which the woman slept on, and replaced it with a new bed.

The daughter did not know about all the money stuffed inside, she said.

Sources: The Little Rebellion, CBS

Author: Erin Tennant, Approving editor: Simon Black