I want to create my own cleaned up neighbourhood template. What I would like to do is delete two stray templates (I do not like those two particular dogs) and delete the Roseland and Crittur families. That's it, that's all. I am not looking for other people's empty or cleaned up templates; I am looking to DIY.

Basically, I am looking for a tutorial that may not exist and/or some advice. Is it really as simple as backing up and deleting 6 character files from the P001 folder? (I doubt it, nothing in this game ever is )

If you start a new hood, you can just delete them from the bin.
If you have moved them in, there is a way to delete them via SimPE - here is a tutorial: https://modthesims.info/showthread.php?t=650439

I do not wish for these 6 characters to exist

I do not want to delete them from the bin, I do not want to move them in, I want to stop them (and only them) from being generated in my neighborhood in the first place but keep all the other strays.

I understand what you want - you want the pets stealth hood without those 2 families.

It honestly just seems easier to me to just delete them from the bin.

I believe Jawusa has used AnyGameStarter, created empty copies of the stealth hoods, and them copied everything over from the stealth hood to the new, empty stealth hood (she explains this in her upload here: https://modthesims.info/d/520751/cl...-templates.html )

Perhaps that is a good place to start?

That's sort of a good place to start. The issue is, if that P001 template is as empty as they say, there was nothing to copy over in the first place. No sims, no copying; it's just a brand new clean neighbourhood with no lots. I'll download it and take a look inside it though.

While it arguably would be easier to just delete them, as you say; this is more an exercise in knowing how to make the "empty" templates I want and having them for the future.

She copied the lots, etc. over from the original P001 template, found in the program files, and left out the families. And her templates are indeed as empty as she says it is.

I think you will need to copy over everything except the 2 families you don't want. Good luck.

The "everything" would be no lots (there aren't any in that template from the program files as far as I can tell), and more or less 65 sims - 6 humans and a bunch of pets. I have no idea how to copy a sim from one neighbourhood to another. I seem to be missing something here, and I'm not entirely sure what.

meetmetotheriver on tumblr has cleaned hoods/subhoods. Perhaps start with their cleaned version and edit to your liking. Why start all over with creating a clean hood if one exists?

As far as I know, what I'm looking for doesn't exist which is one of the reasons why I'm wanting to make my own. The other reason is "why not?", I have the time :D. What I'm driving at is, am I going to be making ~60 animals and distributing them with Inge's teleporter statue and SimPE in a clean and empty hood like I would custom downtownies. Then turning said clean hood into the template, or if there's an easier way to do this.

This is what I've found at Tarlia's Tumblr Stealth hoods as shopping districts, which will be my last resort. Completely empty templates also exist; but I seem to be the only person who just wants to get rid of the bin families and keep the strays but also have them injected at hood creation from the P001 template.

If the pets clean hood is not on tumblr then perhaps it is on their livejournal.

But I guess you want to reinvent the wheel so to speak. As far as I know there is no specific tutorial from start to finish. The best place to find them parceled out is either by jawusa or mootilda.

I'll take a look for a livejournal. I didn't expect to want to reinvent the wheel it was more attempting to fill a niche and having most of the skills to do so. If I can find what I want out there somewhere I can certainly save myself a bunch of time haha