The squatter, Ellie Mae McNulty, also allegedly harassed a man with stage IV cancer and an elderly widow
Credit: getty
NEED TO KNOW
- Jason Gurvitz rented a spare bedroom in his Malibu home to Ellie Mae McNulty, who was later revealed to be an alleged serial squatter
- “It genuinely felt like she had invaded our home and was terrorizing us, but she did it with a smile,” he says in the new Hulu docuseries Squatters: Get the F*** Out of My House
- McNulty also allegedly harassed a man with stage IV cancer and an elderly widow
A man and his roommate decided to rent out the spare bedroom in their three-bedroom home in Malibu, Calif. At the time, they didn’t know it would turn into a nightmare.
The new docuseries Squatters: Get The F*** Out of My House dives into people's experiences with squatters. The series, executive produced by Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa, premiered all six episodes on Thursday, June 4.
In episode 2, "The Parasite of Malibu,” Jason Gurvitz opens up about dealing with an eccentric woman named Ellie Mae McNulty.
Gurvitz says he and his roommate, Kesia, made an online listing for their spare bedroom. Kesia later told him McNulty had responded to the listing and was going to move in. According to Gurvitz, McNulty, an aspiring actress, told them her uncle was helping her with expenses and would send the deposit money.
Credit: ABC News Studios
In the meantime, Gurvitz and Kesia allowed her to move into their home.
“She was quiet. She didn’t cause any problems. It wasn’t until about seven days after she moved in that I asked Kesia, ‘Could you please ask Ellie again about the security deposit?’ And she gave us an excuse, that her uncle was away and he couldn’t do this. She was just evasive,” he recalls in the episode.
As time passed, Gurvitz and Kesia began confronting Ellie “more aggressively." But, he claims, she always responded calmly.
“No matter how angry we got at her, she just stayed the same. It was like she was this Chucky doll. Like she had so much power over us that the more angry we got, it made us weaker. It genuinely felt like she had invaded our home and was terrorizing us, but she did it with a smile,” Gurvitz says.
After about a month, Gurvitz says, McNulty started acting more “hostile,” and that’s when he realized they had a squatter in their home.
California law states that if someone has lived in a property for over 30 days, in some cases, they have to be removed through a formal eviction proceeding. When Gurvitz did research into the laws, he learned that the eviction process could take over six months and cost him over $15,000.
He was eventually able to get McNulty out of the home by using a loophole. After McNulty tried to get a temporary restraining order against him for allegedly slandering her online, he called the Los Angeles Police Department and requested a civil harassment restraining order against her. When the police convinced McNulty to step out of the home for a chat, he managed to lock her out.
McNulty didn’t respond to the docuseries producers' request for comment.
Credit: ABC News Studios
Gurvitz was later contacted by a journalist for a Vanity Fair article. The story was published in January 2025 and dubbed McNulty a "serial squatter.” It featured a 65-year-old man named Alden Marin, who was diagnosed with stage IV melanoma and who claimed McNulty harassed him.
He said he invited her to stay at his condo for a few days in 2021 while she waited for her next residence to be ready for her to move in, and then she refused to leave. He claimed in the article that she verbally abused him and never paid rent. At one point, he alleged, she told him she was waiting for an inheritance from her grandmother so she could get a new rental.
Months later, Marin was taken to a psychiatric unit, where he was diagnosed with “major depression and a possible psychotic break,” per Vanity Fair. In a court filing reviewed by the outlet, he attributed his mental state to “the threatening presence and worsening conditions and abuse imposed by the Respondent, causing extreme pressure on me as I merely attempted to live in my own house.”
While Marin was in the hospital, McNulty allegedly changed the locks of his home. Eventually, a judge ordered her to leave the house.
Vanity Fair reported that she also allegedly took advantage of an elderly widow who rented McNulty a room in her Santa Monica home. According to a source cited in the VF story, the widow paid her "tens of thousands of dollars" to leave.
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The outlet reported that McNulty had been involved in at least four tenancy lawsuits.
Squatters: Get the F*** Out of My House is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+.
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