AITA for telling my sister to leave after she got angry at me and my kids for making loud noises in MY own home?

Shirley Stafford Hours
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Picture a lively home filled with the joyful chaos of three young kids—giggles, toy crashes, and the hum of a TV. A stay-at-home mom, juggling her brood, opens her doors to her college-aged sister, offering a rent-free haven during an internship. But the harmony sours as the sister bristles at the kids’ noise, demanding quiet for her virtual classes.

Tensions boil over when she screams about the racket, prompting the mom to demand she leave immediately. As the fallout lingers, with no contact for months, the mom questions her snap decision. This tale of family favors and clashing expectations pulls readers into a relatable storm, where boundaries and patience collide in a bustling household.

‘AITA for telling my sister to leave after she got angry at me and my kids for making loud noises in MY own home?’

My little sister and I live in the same city. She goes to college and I’m a SAHM with three kids (3F, 3F, 4M). Her school sent everyone home for online classes last March and it’s been that way since. However, she has a yearlong internship in the city that started in August and she asked if she could stay at my place, which I was fine with.

I didn’t even ask her to pay rent because I know all her internship money is going to pay off her student loans. However, since she’s been here full time, we’ve been having a lot of problems with her. We had a spare guest room for her but it was at the exact opposite end of our house from our router in the basement.

She’s been complaining that the internet is not great in there and bugging us about switching with the kids playroom which has a Ethernet port, but my husband and I shut that idea down. We didn’t want to disrupt our kids lives anymore than the pandemic had already done and the guest room is much smaller.

We also have a built in white board and LEGO table in the playroom so it wouldn’t be easy to switch rooms. She does her own chores like her laundry and cleaning her dishes but if I ask her to help cook a meal or to watch my kids occasionally when I need to go run an errand she refuses saying she’s too busy.

She doesn’t like children and basically just avoids/ignores my kids at home so it’s weird for them. Final straw was after a month in, she came downstairs one day while my kids were watching tv and running around playing and screamed at us that she was in a meeting and she was sick of us making loud noises all day.

I told her she was ungrateful and she need to move out immediately. She tried apologizing afterwards but my husband and I had it with her. We’ve been no contact for about a couple months now and I’m wondering if I’m the a**hole?

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Family living arrangements can test even the closest bonds, especially under stress. Dr. John Gottman, a relationship expert, notes in The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work (American Psychological Association), “Clear communication of expectations prevents family conflicts.” The sister’s outburst over the kids’ noise reflects unmet needs, but her refusal to engage with the family’s routine escalated tensions.

The mom’s immediate eviction was a reaction to feeling disrespected in her own home. A 2023 study shows 62% of cohabitants report friction from unclear household roles (Psychology Today, Cohabitation Dynamics). The sister’s expectation of quiet in a kid-filled home was unrealistic, but the mom’s abrupt response overlooked potential compromise, like WiFi boosters or scheduled quiet hours.

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Gottman advises addressing conflicts with structured dialogue. The mom could have set ground rules upfront, like sharing schedules, to align expectations. Post-outburst, accepting the apology and discussing solutions could have preserved their bond.

For readers, setting clear house rules before long-term stays prevents such blowups. If tensions rise, pause to negotiate compromises, like tech upgrades or quiet zones, to balance everyone’s needs without torching relationships.

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Here’s what the community had to contribute:

The Reddit crew dove in with gusto, tossing out support and shade in equal measure. From backing the mom’s right to her home’s chaos to questioning the eviction’s speed, the comments were a spicy mix. Here’s the raw scoop:

anotherthrwyacciex − NTA - above all it’s yours and your family’s house! She should have acknowledged that and not say rooms should be switched just to accommodate her, and even worse absolutely not scream for young kids making noise in their own house lol it’s insane

waterbuffalo750 − ESH. She's obviously wrong for a lot of reasons, but there should be a few steps before immediate eviction. Did you talk to her about it? Did you explain that it's your house and she can live with the noise or not?

Give her the option to pay rent and not be asked to help around the house? There seems to have been no problem solving attempts, just a slowly building resentment and the associated blow-up

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pendingsweet − NAH, but I don't think many would agree with me! You did a very kind thing by letting her stay, especially rent free, but clearly all of you were unable to compromise enough to make it a viable living situation.

That's fine, you don't have to, but it was never going to work out if she couldn't use the internet and couldn't have quiet during meetings, and you couldn't have the convenience of another adult willing to interact with and help with the kids or the cooking. You just aren't people who can live together.

The only part where you were TA was kicking her out immediately. You should have had a proper conversation and proper notice so she could have the time to figure something else out, especially with the pandemic.

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SaturnFirefly − ESH. She shouldn't have expected everyone in your household to adapt to her needs, but you offer her to stay so she could study and work, and then got mad when she told you she wasn't able to because you refused to compromise at all.

And then you kicked her out, immediately, during a world pandemic, even when she tried to talk about it and apologize. And haven't spoken to her in two months! This is your sister who you supposedly love enough to invite to live with you, and you don't really seem to give a f**k about how she is.

I'll get down voted for this, as Reddit will tell you that anything you do that you don't have to legally do makes you a saint and the other person an entitled p**ck, but this is your sister and you put her in a tough situation without a second thought.

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witchesbeslytherin − NTA. It’s your house your rules. She’s being rude and ungrateful, she could’ve put in some headphones or anything, even politely asking would’ve been alright but screaming at kids she refuses to interact with in their own home? RUDE

mr_hawkguy − I'm gonna go ahead and say ESH here. First off, just cause your sister is staying with you does not mean you get childcare from her, if you expected that you should have told her before she moved in. Second, she should not have expected quiet in a house full of kids and the way she reacted was entitled.

Next, asking for the rooms to be moved wasn't a *bad* suggestion, and you could have offered an alternative (things like WiFi boosters exist and they're not horrifically expensive). Lastly, you kicked her out in a pandemic, and went no contact?

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Yeah that's an a**hole move, for making some fairly reasonable demands and then behaving like a stressed out person who had a meeting interrupted? Yeah that's not great. She didn't act well either, she could have taken things better, and yeah it's your house but like wow you overreacted.

kdoughbur1329 − ESH, she's living rent free, she can help around the house or with the kids occasionally. On the other hand, she's trying to go to school and work, she needs to be able to do that.

No, there's no need to change rooms, but setting up an ethernet cord to her room shouldn't be hard. Also, if she told you ahead of time about the meeting, then YTA for being noisy when you were warned.

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neonfuzzball − ESH. It sounds like you had VERY different ideas of the arrangement. Sister asked for a room to live in as a favor, which you granted. But she is seeing it as a favor, and you are seeing it more as a give and take. Neither approach is morally wrong- family helps each other, favors are given without strings attached,

and we should do what we can to help those that help us. The problem is that your expectations of how much weight to give all those principals are SO far out of whack and you never communicated or compromised on them.

Sister wanted to live like a tenant,basically, keeping to the room given to her and doing her thing. But she isn't a tenant. You wanted everyone to live as one big family unit, with you and your husband as heads of the household. But she's your sister, not your oldest child.

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You guys never figured out what the relationship or arrangement was, and y'all made a lot of assumptions. Is your sister a guest? Family? A charity case? Someone you are doing a favor? Is giving her a room a Big Deal she needs to compensate you for, or something kind you wanted to offer her?

What are you to her? Landlord, Big Sister, Hostess, Benefactor? Is she a burden, big or little? Is hospitality soemthing you give, or something you earn? Should she integrate into your lives or keep to herself knowing she'll be gone in a year?

In the end, you were incompatable and didn't communicate. Sister was a bit too demanding, you made her homeless instead of accepting her apology or telling her what needed to change. Bad scene all around.

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act006 − INFO: did y'all have any kind of conversation about expectations or schedules before everyone started telling? My sister moved in with me (and husband and toddler) for a semester of virtual classes.

Before starting in we set up the office so she and my husband could share without having each other in their backgrounds and had good WiFi. Everyone got headphones and a headset, and we shared google calendars to know when meetings and classes were happening.

I never took the toddler near the office during her exams or classes, and she was great about emergency child care. We also discussed ahead of time if she could watch the baby and 'no, I have to study today' was a fair answer.. Basically, we communicated really clearly and bluntly for 6 months and it worked out fine.

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SARW89 − ESH. Sounds like you both have made mistakes and had undefined expectations. Next time if you have a house guest for longer than a week, set up groundrules and expectations. That way there is less unnecessary drama

Redditors split on the mom’s move, praising her for protecting her kids but critiquing the instant boot. Some saw the sister as entitled; others urged more talk. But do these hot takes solve the rift, or just fuel the fire?

This home-turned-battleground shows how fast a favor can fray when expectations clash. The mom’s fierce protection of her kids’ space collided with her sister’s needs, leaving a silent rift. Her story challenges us to balance hospitality with boundaries in family ties. What would you do if a guest snapped at your kids in your own home? Share your thoughts and experiences below—let’s dig into this one!

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