Imagine agreeing to let some family members move in with you while they’re going through a tough time. What would you do if your daughter’s cousins stole things out of her room and broke them? Would you brush it off as teens being teens, or would you get a lock for your daughter’s door?

In this story, one dad was in this situation and took the second option, but his wife and brother-in-law both think that was a really bad idea.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for telling my wife the lock on my daughter’s door does not get removed til my brother inlaw and his daughters are out of our house?

My brother in-law (Sammy) lost his home shortly after his divorce 10 months ago. He moved in with us and brought his twin daughters (Olivia & Sloane18) with him a couple of months ago.

His sister (my wife) and I have one daughter (Zoey 16) and she and her cousins aren’t close but get along fine.

Olivia & Sloane have no respect for Zoey’s privacy, none.

He’s not exaggerating.

they used to walk into her room and take everything they get their hands on. Makeup, phone accessories, clothes, school laptop etc.

Zoey complained a lot and I’ve already asked the girls to respect Zoey’s privacy and stop taking things.

My wife and Sammy saw no issue with this. After all, they’re girls and this’s typical teenage girls behavior.

I completely disagreed.

The most recent incident prompted the dad to buy a lock.

Last straw was when Zoey bought a 60$ m.a.c makeup-kit that looks like a paintset that she saved up for over a month and one of the girls, Sloane took it without permission and ruined it by mixing shades together while using it.

Don’t know much about makeup but that’s what Zoey said when she found the kit on her bed, and was crying.

I told my wife and she said she’d ask Sloane to apologize.

But I got Zoey a lock after I found she was moving valuable belongings out the house because of this incidence!!!

Sammy wasn’t apologetic at all.

Sammy and his daughters saw the lock and weren’t happy, the girls were extremely upset.

Sammy asked about it and I straight up told him.

He said “my daughters aren’t thieves!!! it’s normal that girls of the same age borrow each others stuff” he said Zoey could easily get another makeup kit for 15 bucks from walmart and shouldn’t even be buying expensive – adult makeup in the first place and suggested my wife take care of this “defect” in Zoey’s personality trying to appear older than she is.

He accused me of being overprotective and babying Zoey with this level of enablement.

His wife turned against him too.

I told him this’s between me and my wife but she shamed me for putting a lock on Zoey’s door for her cousins to see and preventing them from “spending time” with her saying I was supposed to treat them like daughters, then demanded I remove it.

But I said this lock does not get removed til her brother and his daughters are out of our house.

She got mad I was implying we kick them out and said her family’ll hate me for this.

He made a very good point!

So I reminded her that I let Sammy and his family move in which’s something her OWN family refused to do so she should start with shaming/blaming them for not taking their own son and nieces/granddaughters in.

If it wasn’t for her family’s unwillingness to help we wouldn’t be dealing with this much disturbance at home.

Everyone’s been giving me and Zoey silent treatment and my wife is very much upset over this.

He stood up for his daughter and helped her protect her stuff. Maybe it’s normal for teens to borrow each other’s things, but only if everyone involved is okay with it. Not when it leaves one teen in tears.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person urges him not to back down.

It really is weird that his wife isn’t on her own daughter’s side.

This person points out the difference between borrowing and stealing.

Another person urges him to kick the relatives out.

Helping family isn’t always a good idea.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.