Make New York Post a Preferred Source A Manhattan spa owner is being rubbed the wrong way by a 24-hour massage parlor allegedly operating as a brothel directly above her — with horny men blundering into her salon daily.
And the spa owner isn’t the only one fed up at 226 Fifth Ave. — the building’s owner has filed a lawsuit to evict the shady business, Executive Spas, due to its sleazy ads in online sex blogs and escort sites, and other complaints.
Ekaterina Durova, 38, owner of Katya Young Studios, which is located on the third floor of the trendy NoMad building, said she’s had it with the X-rated antics overhead, filthy common areas and bodily fluids in the elevator, along with repeated threats from the burly Russian-speaking bosses upstairs.
“It’s a nightmare for me that never ends,” Durova, 38, told The Post. “I’m afraid all the time.”
Durova claims the fourth-floor operation, Executive Spas, employs a revolving door of busty beauties who arrive with suitcases, stay briefly and then disappear, only to be replaced by fresh faces.
“They come and go,” she said of the women. “I tried to speak to one of them about the noise and she was half naked and seemed disoriented — and they speak Spanish.”
For four years, Durova’s women-only sanctuary has pampered roughly 300 clients a month with facials, lymphatic massages and skincare treatments. The treatments run from $150 to $350.
But things took an ugly turn in May 2025 when Executive Spas moved in.
“Their business is open 24/7 and there are men constantly roaming the halls, mistaking my business for Executive Spas,” Durova said. “My clients are sometimes in bathrobes when they barge in,” as the third-floor elevator opens directly into her business and not a hallway.
“One of them screamed at me in Russian, ‘You are a bitch! I will destroy you,'” said Durova, who was born in Russia but married a US citizen.
Durova, a licensed esthetician who does treatments alongside her team of 10 employees, says she’s dialed 911 more than 200 times.
“The police sometimes come and sometimes ignore me,” she said.
According to Durova, and her signed court affidavit, cops raided the alleged den of iniquity on Oct. 15, 2025, allegedly hauling away several women.
Executive Spas continues to advertise on internet sites such as bedpage.com in the “Escorts section.”
She’s been complaining to the landlord since June 2025, and after discovering ads on bedpage.com that October, made a report “of prostitution activity creating an unsafe environment” to 311, the Department of Buildings and Consumer Affairs officials.
Her 311 calls were taken seriously and sent to the NYPD for further action, according to the 311 site.
The NYPD has not responded to The Post’s inquiries about the spa raid.
The building’s owner, 226 Fifth Ave LLC, has gone to court to evict the fourth-floor spa, which is listed in court papers as “Health Spa NYC LLC”, sending it a legal notice the lease would be terminated on May 5, after failure to fix “lease violations and remain in breach of the lease,” according to court papers.
The violations include advertising on “a website used as a sort of Yelp Review for illicit prostitution parlors … linked to the tenant … which gives Landlord a good-faith basis to believe the premises is still being used for illicit purposes,” state the court papers.
The “spa” has argued it’s a legit business and is fighting the eviction.
But Christopher Eng — a private eye hired by the landlord — tells a different story.
He visited the alleged cat house a few weeks ago, according to his court affidavit, and was greeted by a scantily clad woman who collected a $200 cash “house fee” before escorting him into a private room, he claimed in court papers.
After asking him to strip naked and lie facedown, she gave him a light massage before touching his “intimate parts,” according to his sworn affidavit.
The woman then offered sexual intercourse for $400, two encounters for $800, or oral sex and dancing for $300, Eng said in the affidavit.
Eng stopped the transaction and left, he swore in his court affidavit.
