Yup, they are not custom content: that stuff is entirely contained in game files (those installed by default). Just for the love of details, they should be in c://Programs/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/SimsD/Sim006.package or similar (one of those Simsxx numbered packages).

Try to reinstall the game, maybe somehow those files got borked; they are not related to your hoods, or saved games, only to base installation

The dripping sink should be related to the age of plumbing stuff; replacing them with new ones usually resolve the issue. On a side note, I remember that Inge at simlogical made a hack which will stop any dripping sound.

As far as I have understood, the hood generation should work like this:
- In .../Programs/EA Games/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods/ there are the three presetted hoods (N001 = Pleasantview, N002 = Strangetown, N003 = Veronaville). These are the templates.
When the game loads the first time, it will copy those three folders in .../MyDocuments/EA Games/The Sims 2/Neighborhoods/, and these will be the pre-made hoods at start.

- When you create a new neighborhood, the game will copy all townie resources and files from .../Programs/EA Games/The Sims 2/TSData/Res/UserData/Neighborhoods/N001/ (Pleasantview) to create townies and NPCs: that's why in every new neighborhood you make you'll have the same Marsha, Komei, Kayleen Langerak and so on.

- Every EP will add a new subneighborhood. I'm not sure about their exact location in Windows, 'cause I have a slightly different installation, in Mac, but I think somehow you can figure it out. My templates are in [.../Programs/]EA Games/The Sims 2/Expansion Packs/[name of EP]/TSData/Res/NeighborhoodTemplate/.
They are:

• U001 (Sim State University)
• U002 (La Fiesta Tech)
• U003 (don't remember the name - the third Uni subhood)
• D001 (Downtown - in Nightlife)
• B001 (Bluewater Village - in OfB)
• P001 (in Pets)

Along with the addeed playables, U001 should contain all pre-made dormies, D001 all DownTownies, B001 I'm not sure there are new special townies and P001 all the strays.

When you add a Uni subhood, the game will copy all dormies and special NPCs from U001 template, when you add a downtown, the game will copy all downtownies and special NPCs from D001, and if you have installed Pets, also all strays from P001 (And I think also NPCs). Don't know about OfB.

- The trick of empty templates is that they are an exact copy of N001, D001, U001, B001 and P001, but without all characters and related characters data and resources. When the game will look in templates for townies/strays/etc. to copy, will found nothing and then will go ahead.

EDITED TO ADD:
Yes, because when you create a new hood the game will perform a task such as "search for a folder named N001 with neighborhood ID 0 in that location and then copy all townie characters from there". That will fail as soon as it will not find a folder named N001  .

I just add a personal experience: when you turn a CAS sim into townie or downtownie (e.g. with Inge's shrub) it will have no job at first, but when loaded the next time (as walkby, etc.) the game will automatically generate a random job and level for it, and the necessary skills: there's an apposite function which handles this issue (if sim is townie and without job, then... etc.).
It should generate random badges also (if you have OfB), but I have witnessed only the job one, so for badges I'm not entirely sure.

In this case, you shouldn't need to perform any additional setting, unless of course you want to specifically set a job/level/skills/whatever for some of them.
I did this in my hood, where all Maty's self-sims are townie: Pescado townie was pre-setted General (that was mandatory). Erm... sorry, KevinTMC... team mascot  .

Lately I put a bit more attention on flashing blue accessories, and I think I've spotted a sort of pattern. Apparently, my sims with flashing blue stuff (earrings and necklaces) have one or more of:
- custom hair
- custom eyebrows
- maxis eyebrows but with different genetic color (e.g. black eyebrows on genetically blond sim)

All the sims with binned hair and maxis eyebrows genetically matching, if they have blu stuff at start, a simple makeover with no other changes seems to fix the issue forever; on the other hand, sims with custom hair and/or eyebrows may retain the flash crap, or it will return later.

So far, the only exception were 3 drow sims, who have custom hair, custom eyebrows and custom skintone (genetic 0): they didn't have the "flashing blue 2: the return" issue.
All my other sims have no custom skintones, but only default replacements.

I don't know if all this makes sense, and I have not yet deepened the tests, but it might be a possibility.

Yup! I sometimes take a walk with my cat, with leash. Almost no training, though, but my cat is a dumbass, and maybe this helped a lot.

From Pico's Multiwear Sims2 Fashions

http://sims2.picolink.nl/welldressedgranny.html

Yes, thanks, I use those keys; the strange fact is that it worked only if I enter it when in a lot, and not if it's in the userstartup file. But I remember this by the first times I've tried, and didn't bother too much to investigate.
If it happended only to me, then very probabily I've mistyped it, or that was an Aspyr bug. For sure now I'm curious and will try again.

This is not an important post, but just to confirm that the etimology is correct: italian "fare" is derived directly by latin "facere", and "malef-" is the most common latin prefix (maleficium, maleficus, etc.), but "malif-" is also used, only less often: derived italian words are e.g. malefico and maligno - similar meaning and roots, but different prefix.

In my experiments, the 45 degrees cheat and the moveobjects cheat didn't work in userstartup - as a "global" cheat, but only in each lot. Maybe that would explain something.

Hmm... after Pets all accessories were flashing, but one necklace. Changing appereance in the mirror solved the issue, in all cases. I haven't put attention on vampires, though. My version is Mac, i.e. not patched.

Lol, your game is much more interesting than mine  .
It can be the custom mesh; I have a dining set I love, too, but for some unknown reasons is weird. Often the sims remain imprisoned between two chairs, when getting up, and I have to constantly turn moveobjects on to unstuck them. Sometimes the family goes for breakfast in the morning and find a stuck visitor who cries like a baby, with all its motives in the red, poor thing.

To test that lot and family in a test hood without moving the lot, and scrambling the game, you shoul try this:
- in neighborhood view, package the inhabited lot.
- quit the game, move you Downloads folder elsewere, e.g. on the desktop.
- Go to PackagedLots and install that lot the usual way
- Restart the game, without the original Downloads folder. In this way, the game should create a new Downloads folder with that lot content only.
- Create a new test hood, place the lot in there from lot bin and go ahead with the test.

To restore, delete the test hood, delete the lot from lot bin, and replace the Downloads folder it with the original.

In TS2 for Mac, only English "international" (i.e. EN_US), French, German and Japanese are available, as localizations, and English is default. If your system is in french, german or japanese, then the corresponding localization will show, otherwise you'll have always the EN_US.
If you want to change the language of TS2 on Mac, you have to change the language in system preferences, or in locale files, then logout, login again and you'll see the game in that language.

Hint: unless you really know japanese, don't try it: it took me half an hour to figure how to logout  .

simDNA is a command cheat, very handy. You can also use simoutfit, for what the sim has, besides of its dna.
You need to have the boolprop testingcheatsenabled true in the userstartup file, otherwise it will not work. After this, when you're in a lot

simdna <name of sim> will give you its genetic specifications
simoutfit <name of sim> will report what the sim wear, hair and skintone included (and that can be different from genetics).
I' ve noticed that in Pets the simoutfit command is different: it doesn't accept the name of sim, but reports the selected sim anyway. The main problem is, to me, that the report message is so huge that the close button is not available on screen, and has no timeout, so you have to play with that message on screen until you exit the lot.

On Macs it's better to reinstall, because the archive of EPs is in .pax format and it's much more a pain to uncompress and such. Definitely takes less time to reinstall the game, and it's even harmless. Move your EA Games/The Sims 2/ folder out of Documents, reinstall everything and re-put it in place.
Oh, and yes, set all game files read only.

In my first six months of play, it was a pain, and because of corrupted game packages (now I know, but in that time I was totally puzzled). First, Don Lothario got green legs; then the Grim looked exactly like yours. Then I could have wedding parties no more because of some (not custom) corrupted formal dress, that keeps crashing the game. Then became corrupted a female elder swimsuit, and my solution was to remove hottubs and pools when some female sim grew elder. In the end, whenever a child talked to someone else, both in person and on the phone, the game crashed. I raised a bunch of kids who had no contact whatsoever with anybody, and the only way to raise their social bar was chatting on the computer or with the social bunny. Not a funny way to play.
Trust me, reinstall.

The mismatch between hair and eyebrows should be related to hair not binned, i.e. custom. What you do in CAS will became genetic, yes; that's why I would suggest to create the sim in CAS with genetic hair only and change them to custom (if you want them) only when in game, with a mirror, otherwise that custom hair will be genetically transmitted and will make a genetic mess in offspring.

Sim wolves seems to be like real world cockroaches; I wonder if the Exterminator may help.

I agree; in addition, consider also that Pets is the only EP for Mac shipped in the same date of Win edition. Usually Mac editions ship later, and they have the most blatant bugfixes incorporated. If you don't take into account brand new and exclusive bugs addeed by Aspyr, of course .

The gender you change in SimPE (or via Insimenator) changes only their behavior, and some (not all) related animations, but that sim will retain all the skins of original gender, for every life stage. You need to apply a surgery, also, possibly from a "BodyShop cloned clone": export the sim (sim A) with SimPE surgery tool, open it in bodyshop, clone it and then change its gender, save this clone (sim B); re-open SimPE, re-apply surgery on sim A from sim B; commit & save.

As an additional check, open the character file and check if all the skins in property sets are correctly genderized (i.e. ambodynaked -> afbodynaked etc.). You should have at least 1 property set for every life stage.

I can witness OfB for Mac seems good, except for the resurrect-o-nomitron, but if you don't have Uni this shouldn't bother you. I've just installed Pets, but I'm not sure the game is good and stable like pre-pets. So far, no major issues, but I'm keeping an eye wide open on it.

Me too don't understand why they didn't port stuff packs; I've heard it's because of some copyright agreement issues, but don't know anything else.

Whoa, I raised Madagascar cockroaches when I was at University, I didn't know they eat cornmeal. Ours were fond of food for goldfish.
In any case, if you raise the insects yourself, or if you consider only vegetarian species, they are for sure one of the healtier and most nutritive food available.
And that comparison between lobster and insects is true: they taste like scamps minus the fish smell.

I also had odd behavior, when installed NL only - odd things disappeared after Uni installed.

In addition, I would suggest, in the meantime, these tasks: try disabling audio (ported audio stuff is often borked) and/or quicktime, in some way, better if in system than in game only; start the game with command key pressed and untick "optimized rendering" in the window; eject DVD after the game is loaded - there are rumors of issues with mac disc copy protection.
I'm not sure if these can help - probably not - but may reveal some hints.

Odd; the only items I can't delete in this way are foods.

If you don't want to get the money for items in inventory, drop them on the ground and then put on them a FFS nuker: they will be burninated with no refund.

It's an old problem, I don't think it's related to the hack; when sims die, no relationship flags are cleaned, so they remain in love/engaged/married/etc., hence the lack of propose menu.
You can fix it in SimPE, in Relationship plugin untick the corresponding flags. Or, I made a tool specifically for this issue, on MTS2 here. Perhaps it would be quicker than SimPE.