May I ask, if you play any of the following pre-made families, do they have a maid? (Or a butler for that matter?)

The Goths?
The Pleasants?
The Dreamers?
The Brokes?
The Calientes?
Don Lothario?

The Beakers?
The Curious Brothers?
Olive Specter?
PT9 and Jenny?

The Capps (Capp Manor)?
The Montys (Monty Ranch)?
The Summerdreams?

Malcolm Landgraab IV?
Checo & Lisa Ramirez ?
The Tinkers?
The Jacquets?
Flora Delarosa?

The Newsons?

I think the only ones with a maid in my game are Don Lothario, The Pleasants, The Curious Brothers, the Summerdreams and Malcolm Landgraab, though I'd have to check with the Goths. I don't play Pleasantview very often.

The Beakers, the Curious brothers, and Olive Specter all get the want to hire a maid pretty early, so they will. Of course, the Pleasants already have one.

Any family that I consider wealthy or upper middle class will usually get a maid, so the Goths, everyone in Veronaville, Malcolm Landgraab, the Ramirezes, the Jacquets, and Don Lothario because you're prompted to. The Brokes, Dreamers, and Calientes are too poor. In the Burbs' household, I'll get a maid if John gets a job; otherwise, he does the household maintenance. The boys are expected to do the chores at the Grunts'. PT takes care of the house at the Smiths. (I don't have butlers in my game, but very rich Sims also get a gardener.)

I understand why Knowledge Sims like to hire a maid, because they're usually neat, but I think Fortune Sims should get the want as well as a status thing. They never seem to, although they usually want to hire the repairman when something breaks.

I hire a maid in every family in my game because I'm too lazy to clean lol

Me too, as soon as they can afford it! I think it's a good investment, if your sims want to skill and socialise on the home lot then this frees up a lot of time. Especially good for sims who hate cleaning!

I don't hire a maid where she would be felt as an invasion of privacy. The maid is also perceived as a maid with benefits of ill repute because of her appearance and drama. If one person lives in a house, he can clean after himself. I have a Tidy Up action to do cleaning. Don Lothario and John Bon Jovi of the Sharpe house always soil the shower and need a maid.

I have a maid in the Goth house, Pleasant house, Lothario house, the Roxie Sharpe house. I had a maid briefly in the Burb house when it got hectic with 2 twins. I don't have Buttlers because I don't play apartments.

In the Goth house, Dina Goth doesn't want to clean in principle. God damn, the sound of flies is annoying and unrealistic. Spontaneous generation of life without water was disproven long time ago. The sound needs to be endured for about half a day usually until the maid comes. It is easier to clean up yourself.

I've used maids in the past, but these days (if I play with families - rarely with the premades, though been playing a bit with the Curiious brothers lately) my sims just don't tend to be messy enough to need a maid, and the families also tend to be large enough that someone can do a bit of spot-cleaning if necessary.

So far the Curious brothers haven't even needed a nanny (except one time, kind of - but I do have a "no social worker" mod, which was put to the test once), and they've so far got 4 kids done with college... other than that they've somehow scheduled their days around the kids so at least one was home (off work/pregnant/maternity leave/etc.) at all times.

Butlers... no. I don't use them.

I always use Yedda's drain for sloppy sims who pee in the shower:
https://modthesims.info/d/210454

There are thirsty bath mats for the classier shower pee-ers:
https://modthesims.info/d/380779

Great for after the maid has left for the day!

I don't think the flies are magially coming to life, I think they are just being attracted to the stink. Probably they can smell the pee soaked bath mats too!


I really love the butlers, brilliant to have for busy sims as they will babysit and garden as well as clean. They cook too but are improved by cyjon's mod:
http://cyjon.net/node/398
I definitely think the Goth family would have a butler.
I really want a mod to have them steal drink from your bar, just like the butler in Sims 1 does.

I wouldn't mind if they helped themselves to a drink. Made drinks usually just sit there unwanted. I was thinking how maybe the public shower should drain the puddle above it, because it looks silly when it just sits there. But I haven't gone around to making it. I wanted to overhaul the puddles, but so that they stay compatible with all packs like all my mods. They changed something about them when they are considered "on terrain" which is new.

People who make puddles are few. If they were children or teens, they can be pushed a bit higher in Neat to stop doing it.

In University my maids dress like housekeepers. The silly dressed up Male maid works in Bluwater and cleans Landgrab's house. Kaylin Langerak, of course, works in Pleasantview because of all the history. Each neighborhood has its own maid. To me a Butler looks dressed up like a manager who might summon a maid to do the dirty work.

My Sims are too busy in their careers and trying to climb the top. Plus they have family with children, they are too tired when they return home, beside they have to cook a meal for the family.
Therefore a maid is a must have. Most of my Sims are rich or middle class they can afford a maid, Plus they still do clean when it hit them to do so, sometime the maid skip and miss things in home. Now in REAL life I have a Maid GUESS WHO?? None other than ME. lmao

Never bothered with any service NPCs. My Sims have always been well-cared for enough that they clean up and repair around the houses, from Jennifer Burb to her great-great-grandchildren and whatever other families I have made in my long play. Whelp, even Daniel Pleasant invited Kaylynn to settled down as a stewardess, and she still kept his house tidy till his death... and her death!

I'm surprised that the Capps and Montys don't have a maid. They're kind of the old money families.

Don Lothario and Daniel Pleasant should lose maid privileges as they have proven that they cannot behave responsibly with them.

In my game, it depends on various things.

Can they afford one?

Do they have time to clean up themselves or not?

Personality - some neat sims love to clean. Some of them will even clean up AFTER the maid, because apparently the maid does not clean properly enough to their OCD liking. One of mine insists on cleaning the bathroom while the maid is waiting outside to clean it on his off days too.
(Some of them have a serious "I will do it myself" attitude anyway).

Others are just too damn lazy (which is problematic when they cannot afford a maid, but then, it is their problem). I have one that will probably only get off the sofa if the house burns down (if at all).

Edit: Some are sloppy too, getting a maid sometimes help, if they can afford it.

No butlers (I may perhaps get one for a family or two when I think they are rich enough). At this stage, none of them need a butler.

I hired a Butler for the Broke family, which took away the challenge. Brandi didn't have to lift a finger because the Butler would outrun her to tend Beau. Brandi was so appreciative that she sold the expensive items and got to know him better. They had 3-bolt chemistry for each other, so naturally, she was expecting again. But it worked out in the end. He moved in and became a stay-at-home dad when she finally stopped being pregnant long enough to get to work, and Dustin went off to college, relieved to have that responsibility off his shoulders.

I love watching sims interact so much, that I always make my sims throw lots of parties. And they are BIG parties, sometimes 30-is sims there. Total chaos in the bathrooms and kitchens. So really, even the most tidy sims need a maid to deal with that- so many plates and pizza boxes and fast food containers and coffee mugs to clear up the next day! And trash piles, where the neat guests have tried to clean up but been foiled by the groups of people blocking the doors. And if they have a clean bot, inevitably it will malfunction and spew garbage everywhere, so plenty of stinky heaps everywhere! Butlers come in handy as they are present on the lot until evening. Also, butlers are funny because they wll cook meals for your guests and set things on fire when they wander off to tidy up half way through. :D

My Sims throw big parties too. Then they clean up after - not always with a smile, but they can't sleep if the maid is only going to come tomorrow anyway (because I can't sleep after a party and have to clean up first, so why should they get a pass)?

The neat one (10 points) cleans up himself during the party, never mind after. Fortunately, he has a social wife to entertain the guests

I have used butlers and will again, but I simply believe only the richest sims should be able to afford them It is not as if there is a butler in every home in RL either. I seem to remember one of mine burned down Malcolm Landgraab's house, but it could have been himself as well.

Honestly, the nanny seems to be enough help for most of my families, since she does clean a bit (some days more than others, but still), and not many of them can pay for both a nanny and a maid.

Trouble is that my main game is pretty much vanilla as regards to finances- so I find it difficult to have sims NOT get rich. And looking at the basegame premades- most of them have jobs and money, so few of them can't afford maids... Maybe I should start using some mods to make the bills larger!
I do love the NPCs though, and since the early days of Sims 2 I've always wanted to include them in the neighbourhood. It infuriated me in the basegame gameplay when you couldn't phone your maid and invite them out for pizza. And you never saw the exterminator at the park. Thankfully now we can do all those things with mods!

Stuff left over from parties tends to be left until the next day in this house. XD



That must have really upset Daniel Pleasant.

My game is pretty vanilla too, @simsample! My Sims don't all work, though, some of them paint and sell the paintings, some of them just perform for money and some live off the land (they need a gardener more than a maid). Others run businesses and that, as you know, takes a bit of time before they can actually live without just surviving.

The nanny is often invited to birthday parties, though, my kids loved their nannies. (I just let them bother her all day long by asking for food and attention, keeps her busy as well, and she always comes back after leaving. The last time a sim of mine was stupid enough (cough) to fire a nanny, the twins cried for hours on end). Some nannies even attend the kids' weddings later!

@Charity - if I have cleaned up everything at night, I don't have to get up in the morning? Not even during the day? Priorities, I need my rest a day after a party

That's why he felt he had to make good use of the time when the maid was in the house and his wife was out at work.

I don't think his mind was on her pizza.

Yeah. DX



More on dessert.

Daniel is the only Sim who never needs the toilet when the maid id cleaning it.

I have higher NPC wages, and lower career wages, so my game is stacked pretty hard against maids unless a family has either enough money, or enough to clean. Usually my logic is as follows:

1. Is there a sim in this house that would want to do all the cleaning? For instance, a sim with a high cleaning skill, high neat points, or they just have nothing else to do? Stay-at-home spouses or dutiful children are particularly apt for this task.

In the case of the Smiths for example, it'd be like hiring a gardener for PT9's lawn when I feel he'd not only take great pride in maintaining it himself, but he'd be particularly picky about letting someone else get his hands on it.

2. Do they have the time/money to make a maid a necessary expense?

This is often the most useful excuse for getting one: am I, the player, so overwhelmed that none of my sims can keep up with the housework? Are my sims so overwhelmed with other tasks that they can't be bothered to do it themselves?

For example, the Curious family once all three brothers have multiple alien spawn. At one point the lab had 11 members running around and the brothers + their spouses were far too busy caring for the kids to keep two bathrooms clean.

3. Are they a family with either a reputation to keep up, or to use a maid as a status symbol?

Prime examples would be the Monty Ranch and Capp Manor. They're big, grand, sprawling estates where the main families clearly come from old money, and maids, whether or not they're necessary, are just a perk of being fabulously wealthy/just another way to show off what they can afford.

The Pleasants also fit this description too, since a big part of their original story is maintaining facades, no matter how flimsy. I imagine Mary-Sue in particular isn't one to while away cleaning a house and loves the fact that they're well off enough to afford a service to keep the home clean.

There are a couple of exceptions though too. The Beakers, for instance, are described as "less than neighborly" and I don't imagine they'd particularly like a random service sim poking around their house. Nervous would do the job fine enough when he's feeling well. Maybe Crice would want one for appearances sake, given she's keen to advance in her career, but I feel like the maid would just go missing before long.

Don is also an exception for me too-- some sims, especially ones as sloppy as him-- probably don't care at all how clean their space is. In my mind his "interest" in a maid is purely to have a sexily dressed woman wandering around his house. As soon as Kaylynn dumps him, he'd probably go right back to living in filth, even if he's a wealthy doctor with cash to burn.

I've had Don Lothario go above and beyond hiring a made, I used to like to have him marry Kaylynn Langerak. Kaylynn deserves someone that doesn't want to cheat on her though.

Most of my Sims have a maid. More time to be making money by making robots, restoring cars, making clothes, selling paintings etc.

If they have the want to sleep Woohoo five service sims, I try not to woohoo my maid or gardener. If a different house has a different gardener and maid they can introduce you.
1. Cassidy Pederson - Barmaid
2. Arcadia Bradshaw - Repairer
3. Calista Despret - Gardener
4. Carman Patch - Exterminator
5. Marie Mazza - Pizza Delivery