Magic Burglar - warning

[Schipperke]

A weird thing happened with the Sim I was playing for the Perfectly Happy challenge (until things went wrong and he couldn't fish anymore, but that's another story).  Anyway, he was really poor at the beginning and I was trying to find ways to save him money.  His house only had one outside door and I thought I had a way to avoid buying the expensive burglar alarm:  every night I moved the outside door to an inside wall, then moved it back in the morning.  If the burglar can't get in, he can't steal stuff, right?  Wrong!  He just came and vacuumed stuff up right through the walls.  He may have been magic but fortunately he was pretty dumb as he just took the cheap lamps.  I always thought the burglar had to be in the house to take indoor stuff.

[jmz95]

Good to know! Thanks for sharing, it will probably help me in the future as I have been extremely lucky and had burglars come just twice - once when my sim was in the law enforcement with a really high athletic skill, she woke up, the alarm went off so the police came, but she fought the burglar and won and even got a cash reward!

[sfsfsfgiants]

Huh... he never went in the house? Just stole stuff through the wall? Could be a glitch. I might try that...

[Metropolis Man]

I was thinking that when you place a door in a wall it creates an opening in the wall that would remain if you removed the door. But, probably not.

[Schipperke]

He had this vacuum-type thing that just sucked stuff up.  And no,  there was no hole left in the wall where the door had been (if there had been, surely he would have just walked in).  Who knew burglars were issued such neat equipment!

[Metropolis Man]

I guess it's really no surprise that door removal trick wouldn't pass muster with EA's quality control. Think about it. If that worked then you could avoid other player boneheaded blunders — like preventing the social worker from taking your child away.

[samoht04]

I had that in sims 2 where the social worker got the baby even though there was no door.

[Eftyen]

HOW TO DEFEAT THE MAGIC BURGLAR.

Make a 2 story house where the ground floor is empty - just a means of providing support for the 2nd floor. 

Furnish everything on the 2nd floor as if it were just a 1-story house by itself.

Be sure to include an external stair going up to your front door on the 2nd floor.

When you're done, demolish the first floor (with the exception of the stairs).

Your sim now has a 1-story above-ground (literally) home.  You can even plant a garden under it.

The trick here is to go in build mode at night and rotate the stairs so that they no longer lead to an external wall. 

In order to do this, you will need a dummy platform floating off to the side to use as a nighttime anchor for the stairs. 
Make it the same way as your floating house, but you'll only need 1 square of floor hovering at 90-degrees from the stair base.

Now, when the burglar comes he/she will wander around under your house, find nothing to steal, and then leave!

[PJSim]

Haha, I used to make those crazy floating houses all the time in Sims games. It's a lot of work to avoid a burglar though.

[wildredchild]

My way of defeating a burglar is to put the alarm panel outside the front door.  He sets it off by sneaking around on the property before he has a chance to steal anything. 

[Eftyen]

Nice strategey, wild!  Unfortunately...

...Anyway, he was really poor at the beginning and I was trying to find ways to save him money...

it kinda defeats the original poster's intent.

[jmz95]

HOW TO DEFEAT THE MAGIC BURGLAR.

Make a 2 story house where the ground floor is empty - just a means of providing support for the 2nd floor. 

Furnish everything on the 2nd floor as if it were just a 1-story house by itself.

Be sure to include an external stair going up to your front door on the 2nd floor.

When you're done, demolish the first floor (with the exception of the stairs).

Your sim now has a 1-story above-ground (literally) home.  You can even plant a garden under it.

The trick here is to go in build mode at night and rotate the stairs so that they no longer lead to an external wall. 

In order to do this, you will need a dummy platform floating off to the side to use as a nighttime anchor for the stairs. 
Make it the same way as your floating house, but you'll only need 1 square of floor hovering at 90-degrees from the stair base.

Now, when the burglar comes he/she will wander around under your house, find nothing to steal, and then leave!

That actually works? So it's literally a floating house, with no pillars or anything underneath?

[Pam]

Nice strategey, wild!  Unfortunately...

...Anyway, he was really poor at the beginning and I was trying to find ways to save him money...

it kinda defeats the original poster's intent.

I rather think building an entire extra floor would defeat the original poster's intent, as well. 

[Eftyen]

at least you get most of your money back when you delete the unwanted walls...

[jmz95]

at least you get most of your money back when you delete the unwanted walls...

actually, as long as you stay in build mode, you get all your money back.