Okay, so I’m finally playing the Sims 2. My Sims are all extremely pissed off at me. They keep pointing at the kitchen table, which is laden with a dirty dish which they all refuse to clean up, including the maid. All of the Sims are showing a white or grey rectangular object in their thought/word balloons as they yell at me. The dish is starting to get flies, but the exterminator isn’t coming until morning. WHAT THE &^%$#(& DO THEY WANT? What is the mysterious grey object?
This may be a GQ question. If so, please forgive me. I was doing badly enough before I hit this snag and I am desperate. :smack:
Maybe your dishwasher’s facing the wrong way so they can’t put the dish in it?
Usually the thing that blocks the way is what’s in the bubble. If there’s something grey in front of the washer (say, the washer’s been turned so it’s facing the refrigerator instead of an open space) they’ll complain about the fridge instead of the washer.
It sounds a lot like there’s something in the way that’s preventing them from getting the dishes. Since they apparently didn’t have a problem sitting at the table getting the dishes dirty in the first place, it may be a bug.
I had this happen with my sims at one point, the solution I used was to use the moveobjects cheat (Shift+Ctrl+C, then type “moveobjects on”), then moving the table to a new location, or rearranging the chairs. Be sure to turn moveobjects back off (“moveobjects off”) or else you can get some weird effects when placing new stuff.
Prepare yourselves for a bravura show of ignorance:
Yes, it does look like a dishwasher.
No, I didn’t know I HAD a dishwasher. I didn’t install one. Maybe it came with the house. I was under the impression that the Sims had been washing the dishes in the sink. I shall investigate…
Sounds like there’s a wall in the way of the object they want to reach, the object is probably facing the wrong way. Sims can wash dirty plates in any type of sink, you don’t really need a dishwasher.
And Mr. Kobayashi is the WINNER! Thank you! I purchased a dishwasher (which I could NOT afford. My Sims are going downhill fast!). The dishwasher availed me nothing, and did not actually resemble the rectangle, which looked like – you guessed it – a WALL. Although the wall did not appear to be in front of the plate, the Sims obviously saw things differently.
At any rate, I went into buy mode and picked up the plate (despite the game’s admonitions that this was impossible as it was “in use” – presumably by the flies). I “put” the plate on the floor (not my choice. That’s where it was when the game put its’ foot down and refused to let me move it further). When I went back into live mode – voila’! My cleanliness-minded Sim jumped on that thing and had it in the washer before it knew what hit it.
This game is hard enough without having it CHEAT on me.
No problem. Incidentally, exterminators won’t rid your dishes of flies, you (or the maid) just have to wash them. Exterminators get rid of cockroach infestations resulting from squalid living conditions. Make sure you do clear up dirty dishes, I’ve heard that swarms of flies can eventually engulf hapless sims, leading to an untimely death.
Sadly, I hear it’s really, really hard to get them to die that way. One person tried locking them in a house with dirty dishes piled in every available space and still couldn’t get them to die by flies. Apparently it’s an extremely rare event and even if you have every requirement covered it may not trigger.
On the other hand, I reckon you must be able to electrocute them. I was watching my Sim upstairs in a house and there was a repairman downstairs fixing the dishwasher. When he came upstairs to fix the toilet he was charred and his hair was black and burnt. I so wish I’d been looking downstairs when that happened!
My ten-year-old daughter wanted a family with kids living with an elder. Apparently you can’t do that. So she made an adult “ugly” (and with the Sims 2, you can make some really odd-looking sims), she named her “Soon to Die” and gave her a horrible personality. Then she put a gas grill indoors and had this Sim cook.
I wonder if cruelty to your Sims is a warning flag, like cruelty to animals? :dubious:
