Question about lot The Palm Tree Bar - Roaring Heights

[trickai]

I figured I should make two threads for two different lots rather than one thread with questions about various lots.

This is an odd lot.  It's a bar, but the top two floors seem to be apartments of some sort.  Five apartments spread over the two floors with each apartment being empty except for bathrooms and the cupboards and sinks in kitchens. 

I would like to use these apartments.  One for my sim and the others for NPC's but not sure how to go about doing that.  If someone knows how could you either 

a) give detailed instructions below in this thread

or

b) point me to an article that would walk me through it

A couple of the apartments are quite spacious.  I would like to either be able to buy an apartment, like you usually would, and have the others as NPC apartments (I can lay down furniture in them so they are ready for NPC's to move into.  Or I wouldn't even mind renting them somehow....I know there are a couple of user made worlds that allow a player to rent an apartment or house rather than buying.....although I would prefer to buy.

Any help at all in this would be greatly appreciated.

[DaBossa]

Ive just found this too - and would also like to know the answers.

[Rhoxi]

It's been awhile since I've messed with a lot like that, but here goes! First, make the lot residential (if it isn't already). Then open up the cheats panel and type and enter: testingcheatsenabled true. Then type: buydebug. This will open up a new type of buy objects menu, with a question mark on it.

Look for grey orbs in the new buydebug panel called hidden room marker and public room marker. The orb will not be visible during game play, but it will change the way sims use the room it is in. Place hidden room markers in the rooms you want the NPCs to live in. Then shift click on the doors to those rooms and designate the room for NPCs. NPCs may or may not move into the building depending on story progression, not sure how to force them to chose those rooms though.

For the areas like the bar that you want everyone to be able to use, place the public room marker in the room. For areas you want only your own sims to be able to use, place no markers.