'AITA for not allowing my GF's sister to use our pool because of her behavior?' UPDATED

"AITA for not allowing my future sister in law use our neighborhood pool?"

So some background. My girlfriend (I’m proposing next month) and I currently an apartment in a very nice neighborhood. We are fortunate enough to also have access to the club house pool which we frequently go to to cool off after we’ve been working all day. A bit on my girlfriend’s sister.

She is a little wild and is known for excessive public drinking and causing scenes wherever she goes. Anyway to the story. Last Monday my girlfriend got home from work and said that her sister wanted to go to the pool while she was at work( her sister doesn’t really work. Only 1-2 days a week and still lives at home) their conversation looked like this

GF: how are you going to get into the pool without a car to get there and without our keycard?

Gf Sister: I will just Uber and I can look around our parents house for that spare key you gave them

GF: I think they lost it but you can try

Now it was a short conversation but a few things.

1: Her sister is a known klepto who steals and pawns stuff in order to go to bars. It’s happened multiple times at her parents house where she has stolen things to make money

2: she does not have a car because she has crashed 5 and cannot have a license for another few years

3: She has only been in our apartment when either my GF is there or we both are for reason number one and has invited random people over while we were there without us knowing.

For the reasons above I expressed to my GF that I don’t think we should allow her into our apartment alone, without one of us present. As well as we could get in trouble with the HOA or Complex if she were to get into it with anyone or anything which could cause issues for us down the road.

Along with this I also said we need to have a conversation with her parents to let them know to either find the key and give it back to us. Or hide it in a spot her sister would never look. My GF kinda shrugged it off and said that it’s not a big deal she can go to the pool it’s not like anything would happen and we wouldn’t get in trouble if anything were to happen.

I feel like if I keep pushing it may cause issues between me and my future sister in law, but selfishly I don’t want her around our stuff but can’t help feeling like an AH. Am I in the wrong?

Edit: I feel I gotta say this because I did paint her in a bad light unintentionally. My GF is nothing like her sister and that’s why I love her. She is hard working, smart, and genuinely a one of a kind person. As for her family (excluding her sister) they are all Hard working genuine people so not sure exactly what happened in the 3 year age difference between the two.

For the most part we are on the same page about her sister. They have had a rocky relationship with her and she wants to believe shes changing for the better. But I think it’s getting harder and harder from my GF to think that. She cut all contact with her at the beginning of the year which was a whole thing but now she’s wanting to be the bigger person and try and fix what she can

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

Creative_Carrot_7514 said:

Dude this sounds like a nightmare. NTA, set boundaries. If the GF can't support and respect them, as well as understand the financial liability her sister causes, DO NOT PROPOSE. Explain where you are coming from, explain this is a hard boundary, and if she cannot respect it and you, that you need to think about the future.

LushieDewdrop said:

NTA. Bro you're not running a community pool or a daycare. She’s got a history of stealing, crashing cars, and bringing randoms over, why would you risk your lease (and your stuff) for that? It’s not even about being mean, it’s just common sense.

BestAd5844 said:

Your guest (even if you are not there) = your responsibility.

NTA, but it is a bit of a red flag the way she is just brushing off and disregarding your concerns for your home. Are you sure you are ready for a lifetime of her and her family excusing her behavior?

Pretty_Little_Mind said:

OP, you can ask your management to reissue you new key cards due to losing one. Ask them to deactivate the old ones. I had to do this with an old key fob I lost for my community’s pool.

Also, being the bigger person doesn’t mean giving in. She was already no contact. Being the bigger person is giving her another chance with the expectation that boundaries are established and respected.. That second part is important for rebuilding trust.

OP responded:

The issue with the first part is that a new key card is something crazy like $250 which won’t kill me but just seems outrageous. My GF is about to get home from work. So we’re about to talk but I will make an update post tomorrow letting you all know how it goes. Kinda nervous but also excited in a weird way. I just think depending on how this conversation goes tells me what I’ll be doing next month

The next day, he shared this update:

First off, I just want to say thank you for everyone’s advice. Especially those who have been in a similar situation.

So last night my Gf got home from work and we had a conversation about the whole ordeal. I started it off with how many of you suggested and I brought up a copy of our lease agreement as well as HOA/club house rules. In both it clearly states that “Any guests who use the facilities provided must be accompanied by the owners of the lease.

Failure to do this may lead to immediate eviction, or financial liability”. After pointing this out my GF said she understood that part, and she has been thinking about how she acted during this whole thing as well. She went on to explain that for once she just wanted to treat her sister as her big sister and not a kid that constantly needed watching.

Well I guess after giving her examples of ways this could backfire on us, the sister’s already thin trust with us, she agreed with me and we decided it would be best to do the following.

1.) Try and find the spare key from her parents house and retrieve it. (My GF is going today to do this)

2.) Contact our landlords and have our locks changed. (This works out because our front door locks are starting to stick)

3.) Set clear boundaries with the Sister. This includes, not being here unless one of us is present, no invitation to random people to come over, if that is done she has to leave, and if anything is not followed then contact will be cut.

My GF already sent her a text message about this and I told her I can be the bad guy if she would like me to. Her mom actually called me today and said that what I did was a very adult way to go about it all and she appreciates me also standing up for my GF to her Sister.

The biggest thing that I also think helped was putting this in future perspective with my GF. I laid out a scenario of when we (hopefully) have a house one day and kids as well. Would we let someone who has a known alcohol problem, as well as issues with stealing and safety watch our children alone? She started to cry and said no.

I explained to her that’s why we need hard boundaries now so that they are not crossed in the future when we have bigger responsibilities. I have a few other things to say so may make an edit but again thank you to everyone for their advice. You really put it in perspective for us.