Are You the Asshole for Refusing to Let Your Sister and Her Kids Move into Your House?
As a 25-year-old electrician with a stable job and a tiny house in the city, you’ve worked hard to create a comfortable life with your partner, Thea. However, when your sister Lucy, a waitress with three kids, asked to move in, you declined. Are you at fault? Let’s break it down:
**Your Situation**
– You grew up in a trailer and prioritize safety and space in your home.
– You and Thea are child-free and happy in your minimalistic living situation.
– Your sister Lucy, a single mother, is struggling financially after her husband left her.
**The Request**
– Lucy begged to move in with her kids, offering to compromise by letting your reptiles stay in your room.
– She didn’t mention paying rent or helping around the house.
– You suggested she start an apprenticeship for better income but declined her living with you due to space constraints and safety concerns.
**The Fallout**
– Lucy insulted your professions and shared her side online.
– Family members guilt-tripped you, claiming you owe your sister assistance.
In this dilemma, you prioritized your safety, space, and boundaries. However, are you the asshole for not accommodating your sister and her kids in need? The answer is complex and subjective. What do you think?
#FamilyDrama #SisterConflict #TinyHouseLiving #SafeSpace #FinancialStruggles #BoundariesDebate
NTA
While she’s not an AH for asking, she is an AH for blasting you online. I’d probably just block any family that hassles you over this. You made your decisions in life, and she chose to have 3 kids while working as a waitress. It’s not your fault she’s playing the game of life on hard mode.
“How could I let a single mother and 3 kids be homeless,”
Sounds like they are volunteering to take her in. She should reach out to them. /s
“I need you to get rid of your pets so my kids and I can mooch off of you” is basically what your sister said to you.
You made a great life for yourself. You should be so proud 🙂 it’s a shame your sister is in this situation but she has no right to make demands on you. NTA.
NTA it’s your home and your decision.
A 2/1 home isn’t designed for that many people. There are other ways you could help besides disrupting your entire life.
NTA.
Automatically anyone asking YOU to change your entire home and life and then upon being rejected and calling you and your partner’s jobs “Dirty blue collar trash” is automatically an AH.
The “Dirty blue collar trash” jobs are what allowed you and Thea to buy land and build a home. The very same home she wants to live in!!! Also, to have the gall to ask you to just give up your animals or keep them in your room so her and the kids can move in is rude AF.
You also offered her an opportunity to make more money for herself and her kids and she snubbed you and the idea. She’s not looking for a hand up but a hand out.
NTA. Your sister isn’t looking out for her kids. She’s trying to make you and Thea support her. What happened to the buyout? Why can’t she rent? I assume the dad pays child support? It is a very difficult situation and if you can give her some financial help, do that instead of letting her live in your house.
NTA,
>She said we would have to get rid of our reptiles or keep them in our room, her sons could have the other bedroom, and she would sleep in our kitchen on an air mattress. She said nothing about paying us rent or helping around the house.
She will never leave. And this is ridiculous to demand.
>And left our home. She posted about how we wouldn’t let her stay online, and now my relatives are messaging me about, “How could I let a single mother and 3 kids be homeless,” How “they’re your blood,” and “You owe your sister better than that.
So how many of them have opened up their house to her?
If your sister’s ex, bought her out of their house, WHAT did she do with that money? She should have gotten an apartment
Well message every single one saying you should have let her stay , that you will let her know their place is available. 2 bedrooms is way too small for all those people. She is 34, she needs to figure things out. She needs to get a job. I am sure she is getting child support too. What did she do with the money that she got from the buyout? I am assuming she has shared custody and doesn’t have the kids all the time. She could be working 2 jobs then. She could have a part time job when the kids are gone as well as a full time job.
If you let her in, she will never leave. NTA
NTA. Your home is not suitable for 4 more people. Also, though she probably insulted you in anger, the feelings must have been in there somewhere already so screw that.
Funny how your dirty, blue collar trash jobs have allowed you to get your own home in a nice area… but I digress.
But aside from that, your home is way too small for them even if you were inclined to want them.
However it seems your relatives have strong views about looking after blood so problem solved. You can offer to pass on their numbers.
NTA
If someone called my profession, that paid for the lifestyle I’m living now, “a dirty blue collar trash job,” they can be homeless for all I care. Family or not. NTA.
NTA. Your sister is throwing a tantrum because you’re successful and she’s made poor life choices. You and Thea both work hard and deserve to enjoy your home exactly the way you want.
NTA. You should be so PROUD of the GREAT life and the great job you have with Thea and your pets! Seriously good for you and I’m not saying this at all in a condescending way I am genuinely cheering you on. It wasn’t an ah move of her to ask but it sure was of her to insult your very respectable careers and ask you to get rid of your lovely pets. Very rude. She could have a respectable trade making a good deal of money but she threw that in your face and insulted you? NTA! Also if her husband bought her out why isn’t she having a tiny house built?
NTA, and let her know your “dirty blue collar” job provides you with a house and stable income that doesn’t depend on a spouse.
Her elitism has her scrambling for a place to live.
Maybe her “clean white collar” job can support that.
NTA. You owe her nothing, let the relatives that are bitching take her in.
Your “dirty, blue collar money” built the house that she so desperately wants to live in, she can go fuck herself.
NTA
No. It takes time to buy out a house and guess what? She has that money and *blew through it*.
So she’s bad with money AND entitled. She did that fully expecting your guys to cover for her.
It sounds like *this has been her plan for awhile because it takes times, weeks and months of time for something like that to finish. She was planning to parasitize you a long time ago.*
>I told her we didn’t have the room and that I was sorry, but I could hook her up with some journeymen I know and she could get started on an apprenticeship that pays better than her current job if she needed extra money.
Which is entirely fair and more than she deserves after how irresponsible and selfish she has shown herself to be.
She’s a martyred mother type that acts like the use of her vagina makes her the second coming of Jesus.
NTA. You don’t have room and you can’t just conjure up space out of nowhere.
And even if you did have room, what’s she done with her half of the house equity? That should be quite enough for a deposit to get her and the kids a semi-decent (if small) place of their own.
(Also, it’s mind-blowingly hypocritical of her to call your and Thea’s skilled trades “dirty blue collar trash”, when she’s working as a waitress. Because that’s quality white collar work, right?!)
I came here to say one thing. I have a JD and the debt to go with it, so I am certainly white collar, and I like to think I am as smart as the average lawyer. (Please place lawyer joke of your choice here).
I have also personally witnessed plumbers, electricians, builders, and damn near everyone else who has mastered a trade do things I have no idea how to do. They are masters of what they do, and I fucking respect it. Such people are professionals, and should be respected just as much as anyone else who has take. the time to learn a skill and practice it.
And quite frankly, a lot of the “trade” skills are far more practical than what I have learned.
I will never, ever use the phrase “dirty blue collar trash” to refer to those jobs, or the people who practice them, and anyone who does so is a gold plated asshole in my book.
NTA. My sister and I actually have a solid relationship and get a long fairly well. She and her fiancé were buying a home and due to a bunch of stupidity on the part of their builder, they both sold their old houses before their new house was ready. It was only supposed to be for a week so my husband and I let them and their two 5 year olds stay with us. A week turned into a month and it was the absolute longest month of my life and after a while we thought it would never end. We had no privacy and since it was December the kids ended up on Christmas break about two weeks in. Guess who became the babysitter? All in all it was an incredibly stressful time and it wasn’t even that long. Again, my sister and I have a good relationship but if she came to me asking for an indefinite stay? I would have to decline. Also, your sister isn’t homeless. She’s living with your mom.
Respond to every member of your family in a joint text to them all “
when your sister showed up telling you what would be happening in your own home and telling you what you will and will not be allowed to have or do in your own home. When she hadn’t even asked could she live with you, just demanded that this is going to happen and we need to not only change our lives but our home so she gets what she wants. Just to add at no point did she even suggest she’d clean up after her own kids nor do any of the basics in a house she does not see as hers, despite it will be her and her kids mess. Never mind all the extra costs which she thinks we should also pay for all whilst actively telling you your jobs are crap and your mugs and trash for working them. So she turns up and verbally abuses you whilst informing you of what she’s going to do to your house and how she’s and her kids are going to take over it completely. All without showing you simple decency and a shred of respect. Hell no!
That anyone who is shouting “but she’s family” don’t worry we will personally extend your invitation to help her. Once shes abused their kindness, their home and trashed it whilst expecting them to financially support her and her kids completely, all whilst verbally abusing you and putting you down in your own home. Then and only then will they have a right to a say or to complain.
That you fully expect she hid all that when telling her story to manuipulative each of you to get on board her harassment. That truth was you might have let her stay and helped her before she went and treated you like crap. Her informing you that she would have the only say over your own home effectively but now you would no longer even bother answer your door to her. So please don’t get involved or attack you for her awful actions having consequences.
NTA. “Can I add four people to your household?” is a yes or no question. The answer was no with a solid suggestion for help. The end.
How on earth did the ex husband end up with the house and leave his kids homeless? He’s the one who needs to step up.
The classic response to meddling relatives: “If you’re so worried about her, then YOU take her in!”
NTA
NTA. I don’t know how large your home is in terms of area, but 6 people and 1 bathroom? No way. It was your sister’s responsibility to secure safe housing for her kids and herself, her failure to do so is her problem, not yours.
Oh, and for the record, being an electrician or plumber isn’t “blue collar trash.” Both trades can make serious bank, which is why you and your partner are able to own your own land and home.
As a kid and grandkid of tradesmen [electrician and carpenter] what she said are fighting words. NTA OP and I envy you for having a plumber as a partner as thats the one thing i refuse to mess with