beds are optional, too. Eventually they'll just pass out.

Sims can sleep on couches and lounge chairs, which can both run cheaper.

What’s with the stupid “teens and under have to be related to an adult” rule, anyways? I feel like I’ve heard the answer before but it still makes me REALLY MAD. There are a lot of situations where teenagers live alone, or their family options in the CAS editor just doesnt cover what they live with. What if they lived with their grandparents or something? AAAA

A fridge is enough - they can live on cereal, lunch meat sandwiches and chef's salad I often use a fridge without a stove in owned businesses.

Or, A juicer. Your sim needs to garden, but this is all.
(I know, I am repeating myself, I cannot help it I am a juicer addict)

A few years ago the Principal of New Desconia School and his partner moved in when the school was still very incomplete. The idea was that they would supervise the completion and "fitting out" of the school. The new school was a large and impressive-looking building from the outside, so they got out of their taxi and confidently walked up the front steps and went in the font door. Then they just about went mad! The whole of the ground floor was just a great big empty barn of a place; there were no internal walls, no wall-coverings and no floor-coverings. The only thing there was a wide staircase leading up to the first floor (using UK naming conventions). Both their Environment bars went bright red. I had to take them by the hand and lead them up those stairs and across to the front gable on the first floor, where I had set up a nicely appointed Teachers' Flat for them. Only when they got inside their Flat (which had paint on the walls and carpets on the floor) did they calm down.

For "normal" living with a hint of comfort I regard the minimum as a fridge, a stove, a sink, a surface to prepare food, a toilet, a shower, a cheap dining table, cheap dining chairs, a 'phone (to summon taxis so they can go out), a bookcase (to study cooking) beds, and a fire alarm. If you don't buy a fire alarm, you can't have a cooker -- building regulations. But, if funds are really tight, then some of that may have to wait till they get their first pay packet. As long as there's someone in the family who can take an adult job, they'll usually be all right; teens living alone often start to grow money trees when they have enough Aspiration points. A sofa or armchairs are also highly desirable, as is a burglar alarm (because it could be disastrous for a poor family to lose everything at this stage. You can save on beds in the first few days if Sims are prepared to sleep "in shifts".

Regarding this last option, this really used to happen in some parts of Glasgow (and probably elsewhere). A lodger on constant nightshift wad considered highly desirable because they would pay you rent, but they didn't need their own bed. They'd simply sleep in one of the family's beds, when the family member got up for work. And I must say that, rather like these old Glaswegian shift-workers, Sims seem remarkably relaxed about getting into somebody else's bed!

I agree with alljoj about the limitations of CAS. I often find myself having to age Sims down, and/or break family ties to get the households I want when Sims come out of CAS. Maxis themselves created pre-made families with all sorts of permutations. I don't know why CAS should be such a straightjacket. It's easy enough to produce unusual households in normal gameplay: Baldrair Bluffs schoolboy Alastair Gunn, whom I mentioned a few posts back (post #3775) became a householder through the simple expedient of his parents moving out while he was at school, leaving him to come home to an empty house. (It was some madcap idea of his father, who thought it would be character-building.) So why can't we make "families" like that in CAS. I wish someone could write a mod to let us do it, but I suppose the fact that no-one has written such a mod when so many people want it, is evidence enough that it can't be done. (Having said all that, I'm still glad that the game made me make a parent for my very first Sim Andrew Jones. Because that parent is none other than Gloria, who has become a star of my game ion her own right, and, as I think everybody here knows, Andrew and his mum absolutely love each other to bits. :lovestruc

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Finally a new peeve, but it's quite a serious one for me. You create a group for an outing that includes the child (or children) of the house. But, when the taxi arrives, the older Sim organising the trip refuses to get into it, because he/she can't leave the children. . . . But, Maxis, the children wouldn't be left, because they'll be going in the taxi too! It seems to be a logic failure on Maxis' part. I wonder if that problem is moddable.

Best to take your children out then call the group.

Do you mean call the group with a mobile 'phone (cellphone)? Mobile 'phones are still so new in my game (I only got University last year) that I haven't got used to them. Also hardly any of my Sims have got one yet. But maybe those who have regular responsibility for children should go and buy them.

I was so annoyed to never find them anywhere else than in one UNI sub 'Hood, that i started adding a cellphone dispenser thing on ALL my community lots.
Now, if ever I send a sim out and they need to call, they can at least buy one!

Every time life gets too busy to check the forums here, I feel so behind... But, eh, I'll post anyways.

@ihatemandatoryregister, Did you ever try the auto save game mod? It works really well if you don't mind pop ups. Or there's the save game reminder if you want to save yourself and just need a reminder.

@Orphalesion, There's some no inheritance mods by dickhurt and cyjon but you could also donate the money away with Monique's computer or introduce an inheritance tax.

@AndrewGloria, I find mobile phones super useful, if only because it allows sims to have multiple lines. So, for example, Gloria could be on the house phone, while Andrew uses his cell phone to chat with his friends. Plus, if a sim in the sim bin has a cell phone, you can call them too. Monique's computer can be used to buy it as well.

And, since this is the pet peeve thread, I have to say that I hate napping! No sleeping on couches for my sims. I've tried to mod it out, but my sims are too strong willed, I guess. Either that or I have a conflict somewhere. Anyway, my sim kids always go for a nap instead of going to bed--drives me nuts. But not as nuts as corner doors. Sims just don't like them and will walk halfway around the house to avoid using them.

Oh, and my test game I have going on in the background just reminded me of another peeve: matchmakers who delivery genie lamps when you're testing cc!

I have the autosave mod! It's just that I'd forgotten to adjust it to save every 6 hours instead of every 24...

Mobile phones are pretty useful for big households. You can see who the call is for even before picking up. Though, as it rings in the shower, I don't particularly care to know where they keep it.

Ah, sims' pockets--one of the great mysteries of the universe.

I don't think I've actually ever seen a sim household where no one could afford a money tree before the first sunset. Those things are ridiculously cheap point-wise and provide quite a decent amount of income, especially if you get two of them! They're outlawed in my more challenge-related hoods as being too cheaty.

I just quit without saving by accident and my college sims had gotten through two entire years. I'm going to die.

@alljoj - may I suggest this? http://simmanipulator.forumotion.com/t25-auto-save-game

Thank you!

I doubt I'm the first person to state this but my top pet peeve is when you delete a grave it deletes the character data... Why did it need to be programmed that way?

(Just for the record I learned about this long ago and don't delete graves.)

True! But then again, why would you want to delete a grave when you have the option to send/move it to a community lot graveyard? It is probably what the game was intended for, since there are some community graveyards filled with dead sims in the vanilla game. Gothier Green Lawn, in Downtown is one.

Well sometimes the graves just disappear along with the character datas (usually caused by certain cc's). Also think back to 2004 when the sims 2 first released, the move grave option wasn't possible from my memory and all those poor pre-made ancestors that got deleted. :/

If you ask me there's really no excuse for this. Thankfully they got smart and seemingly gave them dead tokens in the later hoods, though I'm not sure what happened in Belladonna Cove and how they ended up completely deleting Duarte Gere's wife, and improperly at that...

In your post though, you were talking about deleting the graves as a player decision. I'm not sure about the move to lot option.

Well I'm looking at it from a perspective of not knowing any better as there really isn't a warning that deleting a grave will delete the data and perhaps that's what peeves me the most when I think about it.

Right, I'm sorry. You know what is even worst according to me? They advertised moving sims from 'Hood to 'Hood as something cool and new...What were they thinking.

You have nothing to apologize for.

- and oh gosh don't even get me started on that... xD
They made it way too easy to corrupt the darn game. It's absolutely ridiculous...

A few days ago, kanzen mentioned that doors don't close in a 1x2 toilet room. Is this the same thing as those apartment doors that stay open because of a ceiling light? Because darn it when all of your residents have their doors open due to lights that shouldn't even be remotely close to having such power! I missed it before I moved the residents in and now they'll live in an open commune since no amount of finagling was able to close it.

(Or rather, it sometimes closes when I switch to their households, but it doesn't always carry over when you play another.)

It's even in the base game's manual!