I'm pretty much at my wit's end on this one. My Sim family lives in Moonlight Falls and everything was going fine until they became celebrities. I lined the edge of the lot with fencing and put in the large electronic security gate and that's when my problems began. I soon found out that you can't put the mailbox inside the gate, but if you put it outside, all interactions between Sims on the first floor of the house take place in the front yard. They seem to follow the gate itself. (I tested this by putting the gate in a far corner of the yard and made two Sims talk -- sure enough, they both went in front of the gate.)
The Sims in the front playing with the children walked out from the kitchen with them and put them in the snow to have their birthday, meanwhile the kids were complaining that they were freezing. The Sim and dog coming out of the door were in the living room when I made them try to interact, but they too
MUST go to the front yard to talk, when they were standing next to each other.
Here's the layout of my house. Pretty much gutted everything in the middle testing a large living room to see if that was part of the issue.
My only other option is to put the mailbox next to the house and tell the postgirl to go screw herself. Can anyone help me please?? My town is in the middle of winter and the house is built on a foundation, which means that the kids are stuck on the second floor. If I try to have them come to the first floor to hang out with the family, they're spending the day outside in the snow while the rest of my Sims watch TV in the warmth of the house, since they can't climb stairs.