Sims' Haunted Mansion--er, at least the bedroom

[Regina]

In a way this is actually hilarious but at the same time I'm stumped about whether this is a normal thing or something way bizarre happening on this lot.

Some sim-days back, Leo the vampire became so despondent over all of his lady loves finding they didn't have his undivided attention that he decided to take a stroll through the backyard to see if he could sort things out.  Unfortunately, this was during daylight hours and, well, he ended up toasted in the back yard.

Since that time he's been about as happy as a ghost can be (looks fairly miserable if you ask me, but that's really beside the point), roams around the lawn and house at night and tries scaring other sims silly.

Then one night all of a sudden the hauntings stopped!  Leo simply refused to come out.

About this same time every time Alistair or Amy went into their bedroom, whether day or night, they would suddenly jump in surprise.  When I checked their queues there'd be an icon there that at first showed their bedroom lamp, and a mouse-over displayed 'Be Surprised'.

After a few sim days of this I tried selling the lamp but had to use moveobjects on to get rid of it.  From then on, when they got the 'Be Surprised' action in their queues it would show various images, sometimes a puddle of water, sometimes weeds in the yard, even the gardener's truck and maid's van.  But no matter what, every time they went into their bedroom something in there would give them a surprise.

One evening the family was sitting with their evening espresso, I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye and decided to investigate.  I found a Townie standing in their bathroom.  I wondered at the time, where on earth he could've come from.  This isn't someone the family has even interacted with, much less made friends, and have certainly never greeted.  To top it off, there weren't any interactions available between my other sims and him.  I decided to use Inge's teleporter-plus shrub and clear him off the lot, which worked.

Oddly enough, within sim minutes, Leo was haunting again.  So at last, everything seemed back to normal.

NOT!  Yet again, when Alistair and Amy went into their bedroom for the night, they both jumped in surprise, only this time instead of odd things in the icon there was a cartoonish-looking ghost icon.  Leo was nowhere near the bedroom--he was down in the basement doing his best to scare Bianca.

In reality, this isn't the complete summation of the very bizarre things that happen in this room.  If one of the sims is in there and I click something out of the room for them to do, they'll perform the action while in the bedroom.  For example, if I tell them to harvest and water the money trees outside the bedroom door, they'll stand in the middle of the bedroom going through the animations while the money disappears from the trees.  If they're about to prepare a meal, they go through the animations of removing the food from the fridge, using the "counter" to prepare, then walk from the bedroom to the kitchen stove for cooking.  One time Amy was standing beside her side of the bed which is on the opposite side of the room from the armoire and I told her to change into everyday clothes.  Standing right where she was, she reached out, opened the armoire and spun around to change into her regular clothes.

I'm thinking this bizarre behaviour possibly could be caused by one of the mods in my game but honestly it's almost too hilarious to try to pinpoint!

[Assmitten]

And that is when the game gets really interesting--randomness like that. Poltergeist! Polterlamp! Polterpuddle!

Thanks for the story. 

[Kochanski]

I had exactly the same problem a while ago. This thread solved it for me.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=89.0

[vector]

On a semi-related note, how long are vampires supposed to last in the sun? I moved in Calista the gardener and used the sim modder to make her a vamp. She didn't have a house or anything to hide in, so crept about doing the "agh it burns! it burns!" thing for a long time. Her needs tanked, as they should, but she didn't actually DIE like I wanted her to. Her hunger motive just hung with enough fill to stop her dropping dead. Bug? Strange artifact? Luck? (Not all that lucky, since she died by flies for her stubbornness, but still)

[Brynne]

I was just about to say I had the same problem, but Kochanski beat me to it with the link.
It's hard to describe the thing about performing actions in the wrong room, isn't it? For me, one "haunted room" was the living room. The sims would perform the dishwasher actions from there, pantomiming opening and closing it, and putting dishes in. Very funny to see. Also funny to see my sims jumping up in surprise at the lamp, the homework, each other...

[Kochanski]

The best bit for me was watching the fridge door open on it's own and the dustbin lid lift off alone.

[Dark Trepie]

Kinda ironic that all this spooky behavior is going on with Halloween only a few days away...   

When I first read the topic I thought the poster was talking about ghosts hanging out in the bedroom, because all of my ghosts always seem to congrigate in the bedroom for some reason and start cheering when they get to the bed...  The worst case was Mortimer haunting Adrian's room, (his son with Dina).  Adrian was a fortune sim and had fears of seeing ghosts.  He went into asperation failur so bad that he started spinning up fears of running away.

I would ask if JM's Ghostbuster still works.  But I've since fixed all of those problems by making Pleasentview Memorial Cemetary.

[Regina]

Kinda ironic that all this spooky behavior is going on with Halloween only a few days away...   

You know, I was thinking along those same lines! 

In reality, while I was typing this out I thought, 'Oh my!  No one who reads this is going to believe this is actually going on in my game!  They're going to think it's some kind of hoax!'

It looks like I'm not the only one who's had this level of hauntings, though. LOL

Okay--looks like the Lot Debugger should fix this.  I guess I'll give it a whirl.  I have to admit it's rather hilarious, but at the same time it's going to get annoying eventually.  I'd considered completely tearing down that bedroom but there's really no other good spot on the house to put one without going upstairs and my computer gets bogged down enough with two floors, never mind a third.

how long are vampires supposed to last in the sun?

I don't know exactly, but it wasn't very long.  His bladder motive bottomed out first, and the others weren't far behind.  It's supposed to just take until all their motives are down far enough and then they're toast, er at least a pile of ashes.

[Andygal]

I've only had two vampires, so I don't know but their needs do tank pretty damn fast when they get caught outdoors in the daytime. Add that to my bad reaction time and you have an eventual recipe for toastage. Hopefully it won't happen before I can get the former Grand Vampire married (the other one I cured after a day because I didn't particulary want him as a vampire, he didn't particulary want to be a vampire and nobody else particulary wanted him to be a vampire).

[Regina]

Leo was my first-ever vampire, and I figured he was just perfect for the occasion.  He was a pizza guy with a Romance aspiration.  He'd become friends with Alistair.  Well, Alistair's one of those Knowledge sims and you know how they are--they always like to have some ghost-life about the place.  So it seemed like the perfect fit!  Leo could move in with Alistair.  During the daytime he'd stay home and take care of Alistair and Amy's kids and clean house.  He learned to paint, too.  Then of course the wander lust started calling him and in the evenings he'd head Downtown.  He didn't end up with the most active love-life but by the time he died he'd 'made out' with five different sims.

Leo was a great learning experience for me where I learned things like how NOT to let your sim get caught while romancing several sims. LOL  For instance, don't take your current girl to a restaurant where your other girl works.  And don't invite another girlfriend to your house for a date immediately after returning from one with another girlfriend.

[Hairfish]

I had exactly the same problem a while ago. This thread solved it for me.
http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php?topic=89.0

Thank you for that link! Shortly after getting the base game on Day One, I replicated my own house, with my own family. The third generation is living there now, but I haven't played them in ages because I was having the exact problems described by Misty and others...only, in the kitchen. I renovated the kitchen, tore it to the ground even, and the problems kept up. The worst one was Sims getting into bed from the kitchen ~ they lie down in mid-air, then blink into the bedroom and sleep properly.  Or maybe the worst is having Sims reach through their butts to pick up plates...

NOW, finally, a way to fix it!

I've used the Debugger on other lots, but never knew it could banish stuck gosts. (I'll bet it's the ghost of my own Sim-self that's causing all the problems, too.  )



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[cabelle]

I keep telling myself not to drink my tea while I read stuff here but do I listen? *wipes tea off monitor* Thanks for the good laugh!