Gardening and Cleaning Duties

This mod tweaks the cleaning and gardening duties for improved efficiency by avoiding long walks or doing tasks that will cause more work to be created. The maid and the gardener pick the closest objects, and deprioritize some including: tidy leaf piles, flowers with water remaining, infested plants covered by ladybugs, non-full garbage bins, beds, broken plumbing or items currently in use, but clean most puddles when close. Two workers will usually not head for the same object.

The gardener will offer a choice for how often he should be scheduled: every day, every other day, every three days or just once. This schedule can be changed by calling on the phone later without firing the NPC. He can he hired on owned business commlots.

Usually the gardener, if required at all, has much more work than the maid who comes daily. Flowerbeds can't last three days without watering, and, on the third day since tending, shrubs will have spawned weeds all around them.

A gardener and maid will stop the engine (stop the sound and lights) of their car. When leaving for the car, both will accept socials. If all gardenable items are in good condition, the service person will always find some to look at and try to tend to them, except in winter. He gets paid for the visit. An NPC gardener will start work from one corner of the lot. NPCs will have gardening badges. Gardener will dress in outerwear in winter and the maid will wear a hotel housekeeper's outfit in vacation and university.

The maid will usually go through the actual front door including diagonal, instead of to a garage or an outhouse, and shoo herself out of a bathroom if the shift ends there.

The maid's or gardener's task selection logic is followed by butlers, Apartments landlords, nannies, owned business employees and people under influence.

Bushes can be trimmed in cases where the person can't reach the slot because the bush is surronded by low walls but is still practically within reach. Bushes can be trimmed when placed on a driveway. Most bushes in the Forsythe Place can be reached. Trimming causes less impact on motives. Bushes with a single design color won't have stretched leaves on the ground after trimming.

Flowers can be watered in some inaccessible places near walls, the person knows how much water to use without drowning the flowers. Dead flowers will be disposed of if found. Doors intersecting flowers will animate to close, Seasons and later.

Leaf piles can be disposed through burning if no composter is available and there is no precipitation. They may safely catch fire from nearby piles. Deep snow disallows interaction with leaf piles but does not remove them. Leaf piles have a lower impact on the environment score, new, unraked piles have some. People will avoid walking over leaf piles.

Trees drop a fixed number of leaf piles per fall season. Once they have been raked and collected, no more will appear. Some small trees that occupy 4 tiles can be walked through to access other plants if a better path can be found.

Weeds and new branches don't grow in cold weather or under snow cover, but do grow indoors or in a greenhouse. Weeds disappear under deep snow or off-world. Plants continue to be dormant as long as cold or snow last.

Accessory Watering Can doesn't have snow on it.

Gardener fills in pits dug by dogs.

Gardener NPC can be reset while on the job and continue working without a car.

A maid or other cleaners, except business employees, can empty toddler toilets. Cleaners can clean a lemonade stand.

A cleaner can clean up any spoiled food off a buffet table before all food (jelly) has spoiled.

A cleaner will stack food dishes starting with the closest and also look in nearby rooms within a short distance. He will prefer to stack small dishes of the same type first to avoid blocking further stacking with a dish that doesn't fit. Dessert plates and regular dishes are now considered the same size and can be stacked in any order.

Tending to one gardening item will cause the person to enter a gardener's role on an independent controller instead of staying on the flower bed or leaf pile. These actions are also available when clicking on self under "Duty...". They can be interrupted between tasks by queueing another command. Some short actions will be handled nested to avoid accidental interuptions. Produce plants can be gardened automatically if the person has a badge. On owned business, the person will perform and register the job role Tidy.

Water sprinkler and rain water add to produce quality. Regular non-Seasons activities add small amounts of gardening skill.

Influenced people will enter a maid's or gadener's role and continue working up to 10 objects when interrupted by a social, shoo or a reaction emitter.

A nanny will clean 4 items before returning to other tasks.

The closest great outdoor trash can, chute or community bin will be used to take garbage out.

Some actions by visitors are dependent on nature enthusiasm.


Gardening and Cleaning and Repair on Business

On owned business, staff members in the "Tidy Up" interaction will do gardening, and repair if their mechanical skill is high. They periodically check if more cleaning needs to be done and return to it. An employee will handle a few short interactions that otherwise interrupt the job. They will breathe while idle.

If owners are on the lot or the employee is idle, he will have lower priority, so that he can be commanded to do other tasks. Employees will react to fire or other emergencies.

Gardening Trees Don't Fade Out

Make trees permanently lose the 'obstructs view' flag which causes them to fade near the camera. This makes trees look better and allows to hide something inside the trunk. Stuff close to a willow tree might be hard to click.


Swedish translations by Gummilutt.

Most functions work in Open For Business, but gardening was introduced later, and the mod was primarily aimed at FreeTime.