Three Siblings Planned to Move In Together—Until Pre-Lease Arguments Over Household Rules Exposed Total Impending Chaos
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Finding a great roommate is very important, and for many people, that can mean moving in with siblings, since you already know them quite well.
That is what the three siblings in this story wanted to do, but they are quickly realizing that their personalities clash when it comes to how they want to live as adults.
One brother wants to avoid having set rules so they can just work things out as they go along, but the sister wants strict rules established, which she will undoubtedly use to try to control her brothers.
When you read this story, it becomes very obvious that moving in together is a bad idea, but they don’t seem to want to acknowledge it. See for yourself.
AITA for refusing to have rules at my apartment
I (24m) am moving into a new apartment with my siblings (22m, 19f) to attend the same university.
Living with family can be great.
I was initially only going to be moving in with my brother, but ended up adding my sister to the lease at the last minute so she wouldn’t have to live in the dorms and bring her cat (the university requires first years live on campus unless they are staying with family).
My brother and I lived together for a year earlier in our university career and it was very chill. We never really had strict rules, if something bothered us, we’d talk about it and the few times we didn’t agree I’d usually just take care of it myself.
This only works if everyone is reasonable.
For example, If we left the stove dirty the person who wanted to use it next would just clean it the next time. We got into one fight when he kept drinking my energy drinks, and when I told him to stop he just kept saying he would buy me another one, so I just bought a small minifridge (literally only held 4 cans) and kept it in my room. Problem solved.
I want this to be the status quo going into our new place, just deal with problems as they come up and if the roommate is being unreasonable solve it yourself.
Ok, this sounds like a nightmare waiting to happen.
My sister is demanding that we set strict rules for the apartment.
For some background info on our family, my dad and sister have a big issue with yelling when someone does something wrong. We didn’t really do punishments in my house, we’d just get yelled at, and that was it.
My sister has taken to this habit a lot and it was one of my main hesitations letting her live with us in the first place.
It seems like they know that they are not going to be compatible as roommates.
She picks fights and likes arguing, getting heated, and if we don’t engage in the screaming match, she storms off to her room. This is the major reason I don’t want to allow these strict rules in the apartment.
Setting up strict requirements around things like how clean the sink is and all that feels like she is just setting up reasons for her to be allowed to yell at us for just moving quickly in the morning and forgetting, because that is the only consequence that breaking the rule can be.
Honestly, his reaction to her seems pretty reasonable.
On top of this, she’s using the threat of these rules to demand she get the larger master bedroom with the separate bathroom, which we already decided would be mine in exchange for me covering internet and utilities.
When she brought all this up, I admittedly got upset at her and told her she needed to be grateful that we are letting her live with us at all, because otherwise she would have to live on campus with a stranger and without her cat like I did my freshman year.
Moving in together is a horrible idea.
Not proud of that blowup but her entitlement as the youngest sibling really got on my nerves.
The rules she wants are not crazy, and probably won’t be an issue a majority of the time, but I don’t want this fight’s end to be carte blanche for future fights to be started.
They are all unreasonable to think that this is going to work out.
My brother is pretty conflict avoidant and isn’t really siding with anyone, and my mom just wants me to agree and stop the conflict right now.
Am I being unreasonable?
Honestly, they are all heading toward a big mistake, and they are just hoping that it won’t happen. It seems like they know that this will end poorly, but won’t back out.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.
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Here is a good question.
This commenter thinks he is being unreasonable.
The rules she is requesting aren’t unreasonable. Just add no yelling to the list.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a sister who feels badly about unknowingly encouraging her younger brother to play with bullies.
It is clear that moving in together is a bad idea.
This commenter thinks they should not move in together.
If it isn’t too late, they need to back out of this plan and live separately. It is clear that they will be fighting constantly if they don’t.
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