Additional Owned Homes and Babysitters

TreyNutz

If my sims buy a nicer house as an additional owned home and start living there without actually going through a move, will baby sitters come to the lot where the babies and toddlers are, or will they show up at the old (still primary) home?

From what I understand the mail will go to the old lot and my sims will route there if I use the return home commands. I think I can manage that temporarily. But if baby sitters aren't going to come to the right lot then I'm going to have to rethink things for my current household.

Thanks for any help.

igazor

The rule is that the game will figure out where you want Service Sims and other visitors to go and will send them to the exact opposite place.

Just kidding. But I'm pretty sure they will always go to the designated front door of your primary lot. Would be interested to hear if others have different experiences. Technically though, your sims will be living on both lots. Maybe you could try bringing the young ones over or teleporting with them to the first lot before calling on babysitters, assuming you aren't planning to strip it of all furniture or something like that?

TreyNutz

igazor wrote: »

The rule is that the game will figure out where you want Service Sims and other visitors to go and will send them to the exact opposite place.

Just kidding. But I'm pretty sure they will always go to the designated front door of your primary lot. Would be interested to hear if others have different experiences. Technically though, your sims will be living on both lots. Maybe you could try bringing the young ones over or teleporting with them to the first lot before calling on babysitters, assuming you aren't planning to strip it of all furniture or something like that?

I guess I'll have to try it and see. I could teleport the 2 toddlers, and soon to be 2 babies to the old lot. That's not a bad idea; I even have some of the baby playmats to use. Then again maybe I should just cut my losses on the homeworld university term and re-enroll them later. I'm having a problem with the Meet & Greet anyways occurring on a Monday and canceling them out of class. Enrolling on a Saturday would fix that issue.

I'll have them buy the new house, settle in it, then call a baby sitter and see what happens.

TreyNutz

@igazor , I have the answer. I had my sims purchase the house as an additional owned property and then I settled them in just by using the go here command. They currently have 2 toddlers. Once at the additional (second) property there was no option to call a baby sitter. I could hire a butler, a maid, call the fire dept, police, hire a repairman, get pizza delivered, but the baby sitter was not on the list. I checked twice. I stared at the screen and scrolled up and down repeatedly. I went and got my glasses. No, not those, my reading glasses, which I don't really need...

So, I of course wondered what would happen if they both just left the lot. I saved (as) and then sent them both to the spa. The game demanded that one of the stay or call a baby sitter. I opted to use the baby sitter. The game proceeded to teleport the toddlers to the old (primary) lot. They were whisked away before I knew what was going on. Then the game teleported a baby sitter into the house who promptly walked out the front door thinking he was walking into the house. Poor confused guy.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I might have them drop out of the current term at the homeworld university, or I might try to play it through, always keeping one at the house at all times. The thing is that they have a garden at the old house I was hoping to harvest until all the plants died and if I need one of the adults on the lot at all times I'm not entirely sure I'll have much time to tend to that garden.

The simplest thing to do would be to just cut my (their) losses with the university term. The more challenging option would be a lot more interesting though.

IreneSwift

In the situation you've described, I would temporarily move my household to the new lot. Then the old lot becomes the second home until such time as you move them back. The first home doesn't have to be sold, no furniture has to be moved, and it doesn't cost anything to move from one owned home to another, once you own both of them. It doesn't even take any of your sims' time to do it, because even if they are at the first house when they make the phone call to move to the second, the game will not force them to travel from the original primary residence to the second. That only happens when they no longer own the house.

It makes things easier in other ways too, because then they don't have to go to the first house to get the mail, all cooking options are available at the new house, and they can open a bookcase so you can move books into or out of your sims' personal inventory. In case you've never tried opening a bookcase in your household's second home, that's one of the things you can't do.

TreyNutz

IreneSwift wrote: »

...It doesn't even take any of your sims' time to do it, because even if they are at the first house when they make the phone call to move to the second, the game will not force them to travel from the original primary residence to the second. That only happens when they no longer own the house.

That hasn't been my experience. Once they call to move to the new additional owned property the game automatically sends them to the new primary house. I've never tried cancelling that though.

Anyways, part of the issue that igazor knows about because it's in a post I made on Chatterbox, is that both adult sims are enrolled in a homeworld university. It's Tuesday in my game, they enrolled for 2 weeks on Sunday. Moving to the new house causes the game to drop their enrollment. That's the real issue. I could refund them the tuition, but they've worked to get their academic performance up, and one is already on the Dean's List. It would be a shame to give that up. I'm trying to move them to a larger house and keep their current homeworld university enrollment. edit: which the game doesn't allow. So I'm trying to find a compromise.

edit1: @IreneSwift , oh, you are right about the bookcase. I had to move it back to the old house to get toddler books out. Oh well, only a week and a half before they can do the in-game move.

edit2: I didn't realize they would route to the old house to give birth. The guys are alien pregnant so the hospital isn't an option.