Well, they are from the Happy Holidays pack which is shipped with the game in some cases, but if you dont have it then we can rule that out.
Not that I know of. Ghosts can haunt objects and if they had died by drowning they can flood the lot. I think ghosts emit particles in TS3, not TS2, so I cant think of ghosts doing this.
With Pets, Sims can spawn a food box to feed womrats , cats, dogs or birds. This drops a pet food effect and can sometimes cause it to get stuck on Sims' hands. It's kind of earthy coloured, I dont know if this could be it because you said it was like a party balloon.
Could you send a screenshot of the back of the house? I'll see if there are any other objects that cause colourful particles.

Having a bird on the lot can seem to trigger a visual bug where the food "confetti" from the cage and/or sim when they interact with it. Not sure if it was patched out at some point, though - haven't checked if it still happens in UC (my old game was maybe a bit iffy on the patching, as in I can't remember if I did it...).

There's a neighborhood deco item effect that has some popping effects, but I'm not sure if it shows on lot view (check if there's a blue effect box near the house in NH view.

Pretty sure the party effects come with the holiday packs, and I don't think they throw off any particles on their own without sims interacting with them. There's fireworks (cone-shaped, small?) and a sparkler (in a box with some other things), but you'll have to put the items out for sims to interact with them.

Sims also do some party popper things when there's a birthay celebration (I think? Been a while since I did birthday parties...) but you'd know about that.

Balloons are the only things I can think of that do random popping with confetti on a lot, but you'd see the remains of the balloon.

Is there a way to load up a household without clicking on the lot, via console or something?

Is there a way to stop a career (specifically, a custom one) from appearing during the job search on the newspaper or the computer?

This happens to me as well, but I cant remember if patch notes mention it. I'll try to recreate it once again. I think it's continuous(?), it isnt just for one second.

@Bulbizarre the load lot cheat does that. See this post: Loadlot Cheat

Yes! Read the instructions.

Cross-posting in here: Is it safe to age down an adult who has received the extra wants slots from the Bat-box upgrading a pre-University Sim to teen? My teen party house needs more family friends for a promotion to afford to party, I don't want to risk not making that friend requirement before work when playing them, and I'd feel horribly wrong trying to have my self-insert befriend kids half my age.

I think there was a mod that fixed that, not a patch. Can't think of one, though. But yes, it's definitely the bird cage and stuck VFX, it's the first thing that popped in my mind when I read confetti on unpause! It also happens when I zoom in quickly from afar.

One time I thought the bird was throwing up. I then zoomed in and realized the cage was bleeding pet food.

It might cause complications, which is not the same thing as harm.

But honestly I don't see a reason to. Just make friends. People need friends in all age groups throughout their lives; it is a weird (and I believe peculiarly American) modern irrationality, and an unhealthy one to boot, to treat intergenerational friendship as somehow icky. Read some biographies and memoirs. Scientists grew up making friends with adults who did science; queer teens in homophobic families regularly have their lives saved by making friends with older queers and joining queer networks; craftspeople and chefs and fashion designers and inventors get their start learning basic skills and having their interest encouraged by older friends. The way sims make friends across age-lines spontaneously is charming and delightful and it makes me weep that the society I live in has made people second-guess this natural and necessary process.

Are there any small beach lots on here to download? The ones in the game are a little bigger than what I was looking for but the search didn't turn anything up. I know someone made mini community lots once so I was wondering if they had mini beach lots.

The ghost died of old age. Interesting about the pets stuff, but there's no pets on the household, just the ocassional stray. Wish I could offer a screenshot but I redesigned the house. I can say that at the back (outside) there was a tombstone, couple flowers, a chess table and fences. And the room next to that zone was a simple bathroom, with no special objects.



Sadly, I'm confident it's a no to any of that. But thank you for the input! I've played again for a couple of times, even paying attention to the toilet like @simsample suggested, but the effect hasn't happened again.I'll let you guys know if I see it again.

A screenshot of the lot or around the area where you think you've been seeing the effect would've been helpful. It's possible we can help solve the mystery if we know which items we've got to work with.

I think pets growing up + giving birth also have "popper" effects, and those can happen quite randomly if you don't pay much attention to them. Strays won't do that, but they sometimes dig holes in the backyard, which if you don't look directly at it potentially could look like a color effect paired with a colorful background.

Hmm, I really don't know either. Rather mysterious. If I ever come across that bug/thing, I'll take a screenshot. It's pretty weird! :D

I edited the userStartup.cheat file while the game was running. Will nothing bad happen?

Pretty sure it should be fine, but I don't think changes will apply until you restart the game. If you've edited any cheats/aliases you're planning to use in this game session and the new ones don't work, try the old ones (or the full cheat code, those should still work).

Worst case, the file didn't get saved because it was used by a different process (Sims2.exe). Average and best cases: nothing happens.

Beach lots have really finicky terrain requirements, I don't think it's possible to make them any smaller.

How does the game vanilla select the Sims appearing in the welcome wagon?

I'm using twojeffs' Welcome Wagon Dialog. In Welcome Wagon - Make - Standard and Welcome Wagon - Make - For Singles I notice a thing (forgot the word) called 'Sub - Can Person Visit?' which makes me think that's why it always sends unemployed Sims (or, recently, none at all).

Is it ok to age the Dining Podium Host from elder to an adult, using the SimBlender ?

Yes. You can also make a new adult host.

It sends sims who are home at the time of move-in. Which includes unemployed sims, but probably also includes people who work at night, or who have Monday off.

Alright. This is more or less what I had back then. The orange room used to be an office with a desk, computer, bookcase, nothing else. Iirc it happened first near the chess table/where the bathroom at the right is now, and again around he bathroom. And I think that's about it

- Ghostly activities (not sure which ones, though)
- Woohoo in the closet?

Wow. I didn't know that !
How is this done ?

And, can you make your own servers as well ?

I've been creating my own townies and downtownies for a while now.
Would love to create my own restaurant hosts and severs.

I have all the stuff and expansion packs installed except Holidays.
Also have the hacks needed so only one maid per neighborhood and one host is spawned per podium.

The cafe I'm running is not sim-owned.
It's on a commercial lot and is spawned by placing a dining podium.

Thanks in advance.