Thanks guys the stratup.cheat file did it. The townies are back fighting, playing pranks and generally annoying my sims. And I'm asking myself why I wanted them back.
Thanks for the fast help.

Jordi I wanted to try your suggestion but I couldn't find a userstartup.cheat file only some globalstartup.cheat files.
Is that a sign that my game is totally screwed up or do I need to do something to get the game to generate that file?

Also might updating my video drivers actually help for once in this case?
My graphic card is a  NVIDIA GeForce FX5700LE.

No as far as I know nothing was changed.

Mary-Sue Pleasant owns a level 10 home business in my game but suddenly instead of the hordes of townies normally buying flowers only two customers showed up. It's the same on community lots there are the normal NPCs and 2 townies. I removed all of my downloads and tried again but still the community lots and businesses are deserted.

Any idea what could have caused this problem or how to fix it?

I've seen elders spin up that want before, but never a teen...maybe he thought Marsha would like him better with a new face?

5 "update your video drivers"