More Awesome Than You!

Before I installed BV I'd been building a neighbourhood. I used a clean template for it and there was 172 character files. I hadn't even made any sims, or run any lot in live mode. Since installing BV I now have 252 character files that I don't want. Is it safe to just delete them from the character file folder? I did back-up everything before installing so I have a cleaner version, but would much rather have a completely empty neighbourhood until I'm ready to put sims there.

If it isn't safe to delete the files, how can I get rid of them?

I am not entirely clear on what you're asking. Do you want to create a completely empty neighborhood? If so you should follow Jordi's fantastic tutorial  Creating a clean custom neighbourhood (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,5861.0.html) and/or use SarakMK's  Empty and Cleaned-up Tempaltes (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.0.html).
If you want to delete unwanted extra character files you should follow the directions in Pescado's  Deleted 2: Electric Boogaloo! (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,6205.0.html) tutorial.
If you want to remove the townies that the Bon Voyage "stealth hood" (when the hood loaded up and said "creating exotic destinations" it was dumping a bunch of new character files into your game) then you should follow my instructions, posted  here (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/smf/index.php/topic,4306.msg261170.html#msg261170). Wait for the page to load all the way, that link leads directly to my post so you don't have to go hunting for it.

If you just delete them and do nothing else then your game could get really messed up. Deleting character files that way can leave behind unwanted corrupt memories, hanging SWAFs and a plethora of other nasties. You may also want to use Pescado's antiredundancy, notownieregen, nostrayrespawn, and noSSrespawn to help limit character files if you don't already do this.  Respectively they deal with NPCs, townies, pets, and secret society members. You can find them all in the  hack directory (http://www.moreawesomethanyou.com/ffs/).

I hope that at least some of that helped!

I used the clean templates when I started this neighbourhood, but I'll try Deleted 2. I haven't added any sub-hoods from any expansion to this neighbourhood. It just makes me grumpy. Bleh. I already use the DC and have since before Nightlife.

I wasn't aware that memories and things occurred in a neighbourhood that actually had never had any sims played in it. Ever.

Take a look at my instructions then. It sounds like all you want to do is get rid of the character files that enterting the hood for the first time after installing BV dumped into your TS2 folder (the stealth hood). It's a pretty easy fix, actually. I reread your first post and I realized that I must not have read it carefully enough the first time, I'm sorry.