History ScrappyMechanic / Thesims

** This pack adds zombies which never stop coming and constantly attack your furniture. It is pretty much impossible to have a garden without freezing the lunar cycle (the closest option you have to turning the zombies off entirely.) Try to outsmart the zombies by growing plants in indoor planters? Then you can enjoy the zombies standing at your doorstep all night complaining that they can't get inside to eat them. A simple trick to safely garden is to build a perimeter or fence, then add a fence door. Left-click the fence door, left-click to "Lock...", and choose "Everyone but me" or "Everyone but my household."

** Comparing them to other supernatural beings who are more [[GameBreaker game-breaking]], mermaids are this for some players. Starting with the fact that becoming a mermaid is a tough task on its own, mermaids don't do THAT much and are extremely needy. They need to be hydrated all the time, or they'll faint or even die on you...like vampires, but much worse. Mermaids also get hungry pretty quickly for some reason and a usual meal doesn't refill their needs as much - you need kelp or raw fish for them to have in their inventory. Best part? When you leave them to play on their own, they still try to eat ''human'' food and stay hungry all the time, only decreasing their bladder motive. They also don't run for some water to swim at instantly and wait for themselves to faint. Also if you bought Mermadic Kelp for 25000 Lifetime Happiness points and left your troublesome mermaid without the salty water for only 2 days, it will turn 'human' again. Buying some 'Permanent Mermaid' award for another 5000 points? Your Sim will never be human ever again -- as if the word "permanent" didn't give you enough of a hint.

* Starting from ''Free Time'', Mr. Humble will give you a new computer. Always nice - but he does this for ''every family'' you create. Needless to say, mods were instantly created to disable this since the very high end computer messes up "rags to riches" scenarios. Some are also annoyed by the ProductPlacement aspect of it (the computer includes a copy of the then-upcoming ''The Sims 3'').

* The ''Free Time'' expansion adds some cool new items and the hobby system into the game. The problem is, once you Sim gets some hobby enthusiasm, 90% of their wants will roll up to be hobby-related. Have a new baby? Trying to get up the career ladder? Making a best friend? No aspiration points from those, because your wants are all "talk about hobby," "read hobby page in the newspaper," "practice hobby," etc.

** If you call the firefighters for no reason, you get a fine, which ''is'' logical. To check whether they have been summoned for a valid reason, the game checks whether there are burned appliances in your household. Therefore, if you have replaced the destroyed furniture before their arrival, the game will consider that they have been called for no reason; same thing if a Brave Sim extinguished the fire themselves, since putting out the fire would then be so quick that it wouldn't have time to damage anything. To add insult to injury, 9 times out of 10 it happens because a Sim burns their meal while cooking and pre-generated houses have a smoke detector installed in the kitchen which automatically summons the firefighters (who seem to be unable to differentiate being called by an actual person and being called by an automatic alarm). To make things even more more frustrating, this very event usually happens with a new household, when you're already low on cash and are struck even harder by a §500 fine.

** The Sims 3 Store has not been well received, due to the rather pricey items (most of which are essentially priced custom content), GameBreaker items, and the fact that it requires online registration of the game to log onto, which leaves several players who are unable to register their game online out. This is most likely the reason The Sims 4 removed the feature as a whole.

** By becoming a celebrity, even by accident, ''even with the celebrity spawning turned off'', your Sims are potentially subject to scandals that give them a negative moodlet. Oh, and they also damage their relationship with every sim the affected sim is acquainted with regardless of the absurdity of the claim. This can often lead to half the town hating your Sims for no real reason. You can offset the loss by personally interacting with ''[[ContinuingIsPainful each individual sim]]'' to assuage the rumors, and to [[RandomNumberGod sue for slander]]. This is exacerbated by the fact that some of the "legitimate" scandal types [[FridgeLogic make no contextual sense]]; for example, Woohooing with a member of "the Occult" ([[HollywoodSatanism i.e. any kind of supernatural being]]) will shame you in the public eye even if half the population have some kind of supernatural affliction or another, or if your Sim is one themselves, or if both your Sim and their partner are.

** The Memory System. It's a return of the Memory System of ''The Sims 2'' in which Sims get memories added to their book whenever something significant happens in their life. Instead, Sims get memories for almost everything they do. Went to buy something? Memory! Just unclogged a toilet? Memory! Passed by the library on your way to work? Memory! It doesn't help that you get an incredibly annoying pop-up saying that your Sim obtained a memory every time this happens. Fortunately the developers had a heart and allowed you to disable the pop-ups, but not the memories. But wait! [[FromBadToWorse It gets better!]] Inactive Sims also gain memories. And memories take up space in your save file. If you've noticed that your game is loading/saving slower than usual after installing ''Generations'', it's probably the game trying to process all of your memories. It's not surprising that within a week or so of this new system, [[GameMod mods]] immediately popped up to stop the memories. With the ''Seasons'' patch, they finally allowed disabling memories.

** This pack adds the attraction system. Said mechanic also adds the submechanic of your Sim receiving love letters and gifts from other Sims in their mail or calling them on dates. Couple that with the unbalanced romantic reputation system, and your actually faithful Sim can still be considered cheating. The gifts and letters also tend to come in unnecessarily large numbers. There are mods that completely disable this.

** The "Heat of the Moment Kiss" interaction. If the receiving Sim reacts positively to it, then the two are automatically marked as being in a relationship. The issue is the player has no control over how their Sim reacts to it. A Sim who is already seeing someone can be kissed out of nowhere, return the kiss, and suddenly be romantically involved with another person without the player having any control over it.

** The graduation ceremony. It lasts for a very short amount of time (less than 5 hours) and the pathing is ''legendarily'' bad, with 20+ Sims all trying to go through one door one at a time. It's not unusual for a Sim who lives farther away from the annex to be unable to attend because of the pathfinding log-jam, which can have effects ranging from them not getting their diploma and bonus trait to ''crashing the game'' due to script errors.

** Comparing them to other supernatural beings who are more of a [[GameBreaker gamebreakers]], mermaids are this for some players. Starting with the fact that becoming a mermaid is a tough task on its own, mermaids don't do THAT much and are extremely needy. They need to be hydrated all the time, or they'll faint or even die on you...like vampires, but much worse. Mermaids also get hungry pretty quickly for some reason and a usual meal doesn't refill their needs as much - you need kelp or raw fish for them to have in their inventory. Best part? When you leave them to play on their own, they still try to eat 'human' food and stay hungry all the time, only decreasing their bladder motive. They also don't run for some water to swim at instantly and wait for themselves to faint. Also if you bought Mermadic Kelp for 25000 Lifetime Happiness points and left your troublesome mermaid without the salty water for only 2 days, it will turn 'human' again. Buying some 'Permanent Mermaid' award for another 5000 points? You'll never gonna be 'human' ever again.

* The somewhat sudden change on mood influenced by many, many factors including room decoration, traits, and lot traits, might make it harder to accomplish whims that you want. It also extends on aspiration goals, as some including having to do a particular thing with the correct mood (such as one of the cooking aspiration need to be accomplished while "inspired" and Computer Whiz has one of the objectives being having to play videogames for two in-game hours straight while "focused"). The fact that some of the "Very" variants of the moods (such as "Inspired" and "Very Inspired") resetting the mood-based whims didn't help either.

* The random holidays from ''Seasons''. The calender shows what happens in the next 7 days, and the permanent holidays for each season are always visible. The random holidays only pop up if they are within those next 7 days, and some of them are annoying. Neighborhood Brawl has every Sim taken over by a brainbug that causes them to Fight any Sim of their same age-group they interact with on that day. Fortunately, the player can stop the holiday from occuring before its day or choose to End Holiday Early. Unfortunately, not completing the obliged tasks for the holiday, even by ending it early, will result in a depressed “Failed Holiday” moodlet that lasts most of the next day.
** On the subject of holidays, the [[TheScrappy Gnomes]] who appear during Harvestfest. Giving them a gift they do not like will cause them to [[AgonyBeam zap]] your Sims, resulting in a drop in the need meters and they will proceed to ''trash your house'' if you decide not to beg for their forgiveness. If they ''do'' enjoy the gift, they will “[[StopHelpingMe reward]]” your Sims with seeds packets, regardless of whether or not the Sims in question even have any interest in gardening. And they will ''continue to flood your house with seed packets'' even long after the holiday has ended. [[TakeAThirdOption Ignoring them completely]] will not fulfill the holiday obligation, resulting in the above-mentioned “Failed Holiday” moodlet the next day. Sims with “mean” or “evil” traits can [[TakeThatScrappy destroy the gnomes]], but unless they have one of those traits, it’s mostly a matter of choosing what the player deems the lesser of the three evils. However if you destroy a gnome, the rest will get angry and trash your house anyway and even if you destroy them all ''[[RespawningEnemies they come back.]]''

* Neighborhood Actions Plans in ''Eco Lifestyle.'' In theory, they allow you to vote to change your neighborhood, with NPC voting allowing for chaotic and unpredictable results. The problem is that most N.A.P.s are minuscule or just minorly inconvenient, rather than any real game changer. One of them, Sharing is Caring, is a GameBreakingBug: sims have no limits as to how much they can steal with this trait, so they can clean out lots within a few sim hours. Removing certain items will outright break most community lots and make them non-functional. The only way to stop Sharing is Caring from ruining your game, is to disable the NPC voting feature altogether.

* If your Sims left the lot for any reason, time was frozen on the home lot... but their ''needs'' weren't. This can lead to your sims coming home depressed and tired (or even [[SugarWikiFunnyMoments falling asleep on the street]]) when [[OhCrap they have work and school tomorrow]].

** Witches may randomly start casting spells on yous Sim if you interact with them. This can range from giving them a Frog head, to causing them to instantly fall in love or become the most hated enemy of who ever they interact with next. This is every bit as infuriating as it sounds. With a a sim whose already in a relationship falling in love with somebody else, becoming the enemy of a good friend, or even their partner.

* Some lot traits can be a real pain, especially if they are fixed and can't be removed. Have fun keeping your Sims happy in a place infested with rats and power outages.

* Foldable beds, because they can [[OneHitKill instantly kill your sims]] if the fates didn't align. Spent a lot of time creating a sim and they then immediately go crush themselves before you remembered to save? Tough luck.

** The ability for parents to punish their children for poor behaviour. The problem is, this system is far too sensitive. [[DisproportionateRetribution A whoopee cushion can cause a child to be grounded for two days]]. When grounded, they are literally not allowed to leave the house under any circumstances, not even to go to school, unless you decide to let the punished Sim "off the hook". It should be noted that skipping school also causes grounding. So your child is grounded, then their parent will not let them go to school, [[{{Hypocrite}} and then extend the grounding, since they skipped school]]. Worst still, not going to school will result in the kids' grades dropping and [[MortonsFork being grounded]] '''again!'''

** The ability for parents to punish their children for poor behaviour. The problem is, this system is far too sensitive. [[DisproportionateRetribution A whoopee cushion can cause a child to be grounded for two days]]. When grounded, they are literally not allowed to leave the house under any circumstances, not even to go to school. It should be noted that skipping school also causes grounding. So your child is grounded, then their parent will not let them go to school, [[{{Hypocrite}} and then extend the grounding, since they skipped school]]. Worst still, not going to school will result in the kids' grades dropping and [[MortonsFork being grounded]] '''again!'''

* Put a stereo in, and you better get used to the music - because it's ''not'' turning off (unless you turn off Free Will in the options menu, so they won't try to turn the blasted thing on again).

* Whims being clogged up by wants of buying certain items. Owning a pool, buying a Bee Box, Thermostat, or Umbrella Stand (Seasons), keep popping up. Even if the player buys the item in question, but places it in the Household Inventory because they may not want to have it in the house, the Whim to buy that very same item will pop up again.

** If you call the firefighters for no reason, you get a fine, which ''is'' logical. To check whereas they have been summoned for a valid reason, the game checks whereas there are burned appliances in your household. Thus, problem: If you have replaced the destroyed furniture before their arrival, the game will consider that they have been called for no reason; same thing if a Brave Sim extinguished the fire themselves, since putting down the fire would then be so quick that it wouldn't have time to damage anything. To add insult to the injury, 9 times out of 10 it happens because a Sim burns their meal while cooking, and since pre-generated houses have a smoke detector installed in the kitchen which automatically summons the firefighters (who seems to be unable to differentiate being called by an actual person and being called by an automatic alarm). And to make things even more more frustrating, this very event usually happens with a new household, when you're already low on cash and are struck even harder by a §500 fine.

* Many players who like role-playing or want to replicate their own family have noted that the [=CAS=] is surprisingly limiting when it comes to building "unusual" households. Half-relatives, ex-partners and other similar things can't be created in [=CAS=], and requires either mods or extented gameplay to happen. In fact, some games explictly ''block'' otherwise available options if it sees it as "unusual" [[labelnote:For example]]''Sims 3'' doesn't allow you to have a 2-person household that consists of a young adult and their underage relative - either you create an unwanted parent [[RedShirt just to kill them off immediately]], or make them roommates before turning them siblings with mods[[/labelnote]]. As such, creative people and those who actually have such families have to go through extra steps to express themselves.

** On the subject of holidays, the [[TheScrappy Gnomes]] who appear during Harvestfest. Giving them a gift they do not like will cause them to [[AgonyBeam zap]] your Sims, resulting in a drop in the need meters. If they ''do'' enjoy the gift, they will “[[StopHelpingMe reward]]” your Sims with seeds packets, regardless of whether or not the Sims in question even have any interest in gardening. And they will ''continue to flood your house with seed packets'' even long after the holiday has ended. [[TakeAThirdOption Ignoring them completely]] will not fulfill the holiday obligation, resulting in the above-mentioned “Failed Holiday” moodlet the next day. Sims with “mean” or “evil” traits can [[TakeThatScrappy destroy the gnomes]], but unless they have one of those traits, it’s mostly a matter of choosing what the player deems the lesser of the three evils.

** The "room" meter that affects your Sim's mood depending on what they think of the decor. Almost always keeps the Sims away from obtaining a perfect mood, and even in a very well-designed house, they still have it half-red. Thankfully abolished in ''Sims 4''. Since "moodlettes" co-exist and are not mutually exclusive, a house in disrepair will contribute to discomfort moodlettes, but it's no longer a ''need'' to have a spacious house (and you can get positive moodlettes for environment through decorating rather than trying to expand).

* The "room" meter almost always keeps the Sims away from obtaining a perfect mood, and even in a very well-designed house, they still have it half-red. Thankfully abolished in ''Sims 4''; since "moodlettes" co-exist and are not mutually exclusive, a house in disrepair will contribute to discomfort moodlettes, but it's no longer a ''need'' to have a spacious house (and you can get positive moodlettes for environment through decorating rather than trying to expand).

* Comparing them to other supernatural beings who are more of a [[GameBreaker gamebreakers]], mermaids are this for some players. Starting with the fact that becoming a mermaid is a tough task on its own, mermaids don't do THAT much and are extremely needy. They need to be hydrated all the time, or they'll faint or even die on you...like vampires, but much worse. Mermaids also get hungry pretty quickly for some reason and a usual meal doesn't refill their needs as much - you need kelp or raw fish for them to have in their inventory. Best part? When you leave them to play on their own, they still try to eat 'human' food and stay hungry all the time, only decreasing their bladder motive. They also don't run for some water to swim at instantly and wait for themselves to faint. Also if you bought Mermadic Kelp for 25000 Lifetime Happiness points and left your troublesome mermaid without the salty water for only 2 days, it will turn 'human' again. Buying some 'Permanent Mermaid' award for another 5000 points? You'll never gonna be 'human' ever again.

* The ability for parents to punish their children for poor behaviour. The problem is, this system is far too sensitive. [[DisproportionateRetribution A whoopee cushion can cause a child to be grounded for two days]]. When grounded, they are literally not allowed to leave the house under any circumstances, not even to go to school. It should be noted that skipping school also causes grounding. So your child is grounded, then their parent will not let them go to school, [[{{Hypocrite}} and then extend the grounding, since they skipped school]]. Worst still, not going to school will result in the kids' grades dropping and [[MortonsFork being grounded]] '''again!'''
* Teens cannot drive unless being taught by an adult in the household (before, the teen was automatically able to drive, even right after aging up from being a child). This can be annoying, as sometimes the teen and/or adult will not follow the other to the car, thus rendering the entire situation completely pointless.

* The Memory System. It's a return of the Memory System of ''The Sims 2'' in which Sims get memories added to their book whenever something significant happens in their life. Instead, Sims get memories for almost everything they do. Went to buy something? Memory! Just unclogged a toilet? Memory! Passed by the library on your way to work? Memory! It doesn't help that you get an incredibly annoying pop-up saying that your Sim obtained a memory every time this happens. Fortunately the developers had a heart and allowed you to disable the pop-ups, but not the memories. But wait! [[FromBadToWorse It gets better!]] Inactive Sims also gain memories. And memories take up space in your save file. If you've noticed that your game is loading/saving slower than usual after installing ''Generations'', it's probably the game trying to process all of your memories. It's not surprising that within a week or so of this new system, [[GameMod mods]] immediately popped up to stop the memories. With the ''Seasons'' patch, they finally allowed disabling memories.
* The Romantic Reputation system, which causes spouses to declare Sims a cheater simply for ''interacting with another Sim''. It gets quite juvenile in some situations. For example, did a Flirty Sim decide to bat an eye to your Sim? Your Sim's spouse will then call you a cheater and proceed to reject all social interactions with you and even [[DisproportionateRetribution break up with you]] afterwards.
* Then there are celebrities and vampires, which quickly become an uncontrollable plague. Thankfully, ''Supernatural'' and its accompanying patch give you the option to prevent them from spawning.
* By becoming a celebrity, even by accident, ''even with the celebrity spawning turned off'', your Sims are potentially subject to scandals that give them a negative moodlet. Oh, and they also damage their relationship with every sim the affected sim is acquainted with regardless of the absurdity of the claim. This can often lead to half the town hating your Sims for no real reason. You can offset the loss by personally interacting with ''[[ContinuingIsPainful each individual sim]]'' to assuage the rumors, and to [[RandomNumberGod sue for slander]]. This is exacerbated by the fact that some of the "legitimate" scandal types [[FridgeLogic make no contextual sense]]; for example, Woohooing with a member of "the Occult" ([[HollywoodSatanism i.e. any kind of supernatural being]]) will shame you in the public eye even if half the population have some kind of supernatural affliction or another, or if your Sim is one themselves, or if both your Sim and their partner are.
* There's also the ice cream truck introduced in ''Pets'', which will frequently park in front of your home lot and stay there for hours like a stalker. Also the paparazzis from ''Late Night'', though they won't bother you unless you're a celebrity.
* If you have a pet bowl Sims will autonomously refill it, sometimes even when it's not completely empty. This is extremely annoying if you want to give your pets gourmet food since Sims will always fill it with the bog standard food, even if they have the gourmet food in their own inventory.
* ''Supernatural'' adds zombies which never stop coming and constantly attack your furniture. It is pretty much impossible to have a garden without freezing the lunar cycle (the closest option you have to turning the zombies off entirely.) A simple trick to safely garden is to build a perimeter or fence, then add a fence door. Left-click the fence door, left-click to "Lock...", and choose "Everyone but me" or "Everyone but my household."
* ''Seasons'' continues the downward spiral of Scrappy Mechanics, with the attraction system. Said mechanic also adds the submechanic of your Sim receiving love letters and gifts from other Sims in their mail or calling them on dates. Couple that with the unbalanced romantic reputation system, and your actually faithful Sim can still be considered cheating. The gifts and letters also tend to come in unnecessarily large numbers. There are mods that completely disable this.
* The mechanic whereupon a new neighborhood is automatically populated with expansion and patch content buildings (Showtime venues, consignment stores, etc) when created. These new buildings occupy empty lots, seldom (if ever) match the neighborhood theme and are often placed haphazardly, either facing away from the street or smack dab in the middle of a large lot. This can leave a simmer spending several minutes after loading a new neighborhood rooting out, deleting and then repurposing the resulting empty lots so their towns don't look ridiculous. There is no way, official or not, to turn this feature off, unlike other scrappy mechanics.
* The babysitter. ''Good lord.'' Picture this; your sim is a single parent with a baby and has to go to work to earn money, so naturally you call for a babysitter. The babysitter will be there for a while, but then a pop-up will suddenly appear where she says that she needs to go because she has another client, '''in the middle of your working hours!'' Not wanting to have the child taken away by the social worker, you have to get home as fast as you can to take care of your child, interrupting your work day and earning less cash! To make matters worse, the babysitter might even have done nothing but stare at the baby for the short time s/he was there, thus also leaving your baby with a terrible mood by the time your sim makes it home. Being a single parent (or two working parents) makes it incredibly hard to NOT lose your baby to the social worker...
* ''Generations'' gives parents the ability to punish their children for poor behaviour. The problem is, this system is far too sensitive. [[DisproportionateRetribution A whoopee cushion can cause a child to be grounded for two days]]. When grounded, they are literally not allowed to leave the house under any circumstances, not even to go to school. It should be noted that skipping school also causes grounding. So your child is grounded, then their parent will not let them go to school, [[{{Hypocrite}} and then extend the grounding, since they skipped school]]. Worst still, not going to school will result in the kids' grades dropping and [[MortonsFork being grounded]] '''again!'''
** Also in ''Generations'', teens cannot drive unless being taught by an adult in the household (before, the teen was automatically able to drive, even right after aging up from being a child). This can be annoying, as sometimes the teen and/or adult will not follow the other to the car, thus rendering the entire situation completely pointless.
* Story Progression can cause problems. The idea behind story progression is that when you are not playing a family, they will continue to progress (i.e. go to work, get jobs, etc.). However, this can mess up a lot of things. Sims can get in relationships, get married and break up, among other things. Story progression has even been known to cause babies to disappear from NPC households. A frighteningly-common scenario is that you're highly invested in the Newbie family, go play with the Goths for a day or two, and progression has caused the Newbies to move out entirely.
* In ''University Life'', EA somehow decided it was a good idea to add a University Mascot (AKA some idiot dressed as a llama) to spawn whenever you start a new game. The mascot will stay on your lot for hours on end, even if you completely ignore him/her, as you cannot ask them to leave like you can with other Sims. The mascot also spawns if you travel to another subworld (i.e. ''go to University, the place he/she is promoting in the first place'') and come back home. Naturally, there have been mods created to prevent the mascot from spawning.
* Comparing them to other supernatural beings who are more of a [[GameBreaker gamebreakers]], mermaids are this for some players. Starting with the fact that becoming a mermaid is a tough task on its own, mermaids don't do THAT much and are extremely needy. They need to be hydrated all the time, or they'll faint or even die on you...like vampires, but much worse. Mermaids also get hungry pretty quickly for some reason and a usual meal doesn't refill their needs as much - you need kelp or raw fish for them to have in their inventory. Best part? When you leave them to play on their own, they still try to eat 'human' food and stay hungry all the time, only decreasing their bladder motive. They also don't run for some water to swim at instantly and wait for themselves to faint.
* And also if you bought Mermadic Kelp for 25000 Lifetime Happiness points and left your troublesome mermaid without the salty water for only 2 days, it will turn 'human' again. Buying some 'Permanent Mermaid' award for another 5000 points? You'll never gonna be 'human' ever again.

* The mechanic whereupon a new neighborhood is automatically populated with expansion and patch content buildings (Showtime venues, consignment stores, etc) when created. These new buildings occupy empty lots, seldom (if ever) match the neighborhood theme and are often placed haphazardly, either facing away from the street or smack dab in the middle of a large lot. This can leave a simmer spending several minutes after loading a new neighborhood rooting out, deleting and then repurposing the resulting empty lots so their towns don't look ridiculous. ''There is no way to turn this feature off'', unlike methods to circumvent other scrappy mechanics.
** There may a mod that curbs this mechanic.

** On the subject of holidays, the [[TheScrappy Gnomes]] who appear during Harvestfest. Giving them a gift they do not like will cause them to [[AgonyBeam zap]] your Sims, resulting in a drop in the need meters. If they ‘’do’’ enjoy the gift, they will “[[StopHelpingMe reward]]” your Sims with seeds packets, regardless of whether or not the Sims in question even have any interest in gardening. And they will ''continue to flood your house with seed packets'' even long after the holiday has ended. [[TakeAThirdOption Ignoring them completely]] will not fulfill the holiday obligation, resulting in the above-mentioned “Failed Holiday” moodlet the next day. Sims with “mean” or “evil” traits can [[TakeThatScrappy destroy the gnomes]], but unless they have one of those traits, it’s mostly a matter of choosing what the player deems the lesser of the three evils.

** On the subject of holidays, the [[TheScrappy Gnomes]] who appear during Harvestfest. Giving them a gift they do not like will cause them to [[AgonyBeam zap]] your Sims, resulting in a drop in the need meters. If they ‘’do’’ enjoy the gift, they will “[[StopHelpingMe reward]]” your Sims with seeds packets, regardless of whether or not the Sims in question even have any interest in gardening. And they will ‘’continue to flood your house with seed packets’’ even long after the holiday has ended. [[TakeAThirdOption Ignoring them completely]] will not fulfill the holiday obligation, resulting in the above-mentioned “Failed Holiday” moodlet the next day. Sims with “mean” or “evil” traits can [[TakeThatScrappy destroy the gnomes]], but unless they have one of those traits, it’s mostly a matter of choosing what the player seems the lesser of the three evils.

* The random holidays from ''Seasons''. The calender shows what happens in the next 7 days, and the permanent holidays for each season are always visible. The random holidays only pop up if they are within those next 7 days, and some of them are annoying. Neighborhood Brawl has every Sim taken over by a brainbug that causes them to Fight any Sim of their same age-group they interact with on that day. Fortunately, the player can stop the holiday from occuring before its day or choose to End Holiday Early.

* Doubling as [[TheScrappy The Scrappies]], the street musicians introduced in ''Unleashed'' (W. C. Friendly and Giuseppi Renni — the former appears on community lots with an espresso bar, the latter on ones without), due to their habit of blocking doors and stairs while performing and taking their sweet time to perform before moving out of the way, which often causes Sims who were about to leave the lot to have their motives severely depleted by the time they manage to go home, at least if the player doesn't just quit to neighborhood in frustration first.

* Hope you enjoy the gesturing in Bon Voyage, because once you install it, that's all they'll do. Unless you get a mod.
* The Free Time expansion adds some cool new items and the hobby system into the game. The problem is, once you Sim gets some hobby enthusiasm, 90% of their wants will roll up to be hobby-related. Have a new baby? Trying to get up the career ladder? Making a best friend? No aspiration points from those, because your wants are all "talk about hobby," "read hobby page in the newspaper," "practice hobby," etc.

* There's also the ice cream truck introduced in Pets, which will frequently park in front of your home lot and stay there for hours like a stalker. Also the Paparazzi from Late Night, though they won't bother you unless you're a celebrity.

* ''Supernatural'' adds zombies which never stop coming and constantly attack your furniture. It is pretty much impossible to have a garden without freezing the lunar cycle (the closest option you have to turning it off entirely.) A simple trick to safely garden is to build a perimeter or fence, then add a fence door. Left-click the fence door, left-click to "Lock...", and choose "Everyone but me" or "Everyone but my household."