woodlice or roommates?

I bet that you could recolour the ant colony to be a woodlice colony. XD

have not yet used Apartment Life's roommate feature.

about using it on houses; I think mods would be required. if such mods exist.

Really? I've lived with strangers.

You just have to cross your fingers and hope they aren't sociopaths.

I tried once and I was disappointed.
I will probably duplicate and use the related memories (thanks to the Tattered Diary by DiLight) when my Sims have ACTUAL fully playable roommates.

I don't use it. I like all my sims to be playable, and I simply move in other sims to act as 'roommates' so I don't see why I'd need the game version. I've used it in the past thinking it would somehow separate the household income into two while allowing the roommate to be playable, and discovered that that is emphatically not the case, so now I don't bother lol.

Instead I let my sims make friends and when needed, find a place with said friends in order to make ends meet.

As I said, I've never tried roommates, so... I saw a mention of them as being treated like pets. So, are they controllable with the boolProp petActionCancel true
boolProp controlpets on cheats on?

I used it once (the first time I played with AL) and that's all.

I never saw a reason to use it, if I want a sim to have a roommate it's better, for me, to just move a townie friend into the apartment household.

Yes, they are. I would personally advise against it, as apartment are already buggy enough and I encountered problems doing it But! Others will tell you that they do it all the time and have not seen any trouble.
I would have a question for those of you who instead of having real roommates, move a sim in and cheat to make them uncontrollable. Does that stick? or do you have to do it every time you enter the lot?

I'm not even sure why I did but the other day I ordered an old copy of Apartment Life (at least it was only $11). It's the one expansion pack I never played although I did order one after I had stopped playing but then ended up giving it to my daughter because it was also the one she didn't have yet. I like them in TS3, as in I build them and stick Sims I don't want to play in them and have easier access to the NPCs as well, but is there anything worthy that can actually be done with TS2 apartments?

Oh, sure! They're a great place to stick singles fresh out of college, especially if you have No $20K handout and can't afford a house. You can have up to four playable households in one apartment lot, and the other apartments will be filled up with a set of "social group" townies; though that bit can be modded. When you play one household, the neighbor townies and playables will be interacting in the common areas, making friends and enemies and filling wants and so on. If you have families with children in different apartments, they'll run around and play together and make friends with their neighbors, just like real kids do. Toddlers and pets from other households, alas, don't come out to the common areas.

The Maxis apartments are all flawed in significant ways, but once you've played a few you'll know what you want in apartments and will be able to build your own.

AL also has other good things, like playground equipment - slides, monkey bars, a merry-go-round, and a play tower - and the greatest animation in the world, Morning Cuddles!

AL is worth it - definitely worth it - and I don't even play apartments
My main joy is the social townie interactions - the different groups have their own greating - and even without the social townies in your game, I still find the greetings pretty awesome.
Some nice build and buy stuff too