Woman Backed for Banning Sister From Staying Over After She 'Trashed' Home

A woman has shared how she has refused to allow her sister to stay with her again after she left a mess in her home.

Redditor u/WarmParsnip4633 explained: "I moved to Australia five years ago to move in with my long-distance Australian boyfriend at the time. He's now my husband and I'm now officially an Australian citizen."

But when her older sister Becky came to visit from the U.K. with her husband and children, the woman was horrified by the state their spare bedroom was left in.

"The day after they left, I noticed that Becky and her husband completely trashed the spare room. There was food wrappers, crumbs, and plastic bottles all over the floor, food stains all over the bed, weird marks on the furniture that definitely weren't there before and there was an awful rotting smell in the room that we can't get rid of," she explained.

Upset, she sent her sister pictures of the room and told her that it was unacceptable.

"Becky said she was sorry and said that she and her husband were in 'holiday mode' and just wanted to relax," wrote the poster. "I told her that me and my husband aren't her maids and said that she and her family are not allowed to come back next year."

Dr. Reenee Singh, a family and systemic psychotherapist with the Association for Family Therapy and Systemic Practice (AFT), told Newsweek: "Conflicts about cleanliness or living standards are common in families, especially where one family member has moved away, to another country/culture or married into a different class or cultural background."

But the rest of the family did not understand the woman's upset. The poster explained: "Becky said I'm being irrational and that it's just a little mess. I told her I don't care and that it's mine and my husband's house and we don't want it to be treated that way.

"Becky got our parents involved and they accused me of thinking I'm better than everyone and said that I'm being unfair to Becky."

Online, Reddit users sided with the woman and said that Becky was wrong to have left such a mess.

"If Becky did that to a hotel room she would be forced to pay for damages," said one commenter. "Anyone complaining can pay for your sister's future hotel bill."

Another Redditor said: "Not wanting your place trashed means you think you're better than everyone? I guess we know who the golden child is."

"In this case, it may be helpful to have had a discussion about boundaries and expectations of cleanliness with her sister before she came to visit, explaining the rules in her house. This doesn't have to be done in an aggressive way, but can be a friendly and amicable but firm discussion," suggested Singh.

"While they're on vacation mode, you're not. That's your home. You bought those furnishing & home with your hard-earned money. She behaved like a pig & left a sty," said another reply.

Singh also questioned if there could be something more to the argument: "I wonder if other issues came to the fore—perhaps a sense of loss from the sister and parents about their sister and daughter living so far away in another country and having changed and become a clean and orderly person. It is difficult to leave home and to maintain a sense of separateness from one's family of origin, but the poster has to remember that she is entitled to her own space, her own family, and rules about how she wants to live."

Newsweek has reached out to u/WarmParsnip4633 for comment. We were unable to verify the details of this case.