Family feeds/serves entire apt complex

[DaSpecial1]

I've had AL for a while but only recently started playing apartment full time.  Is my game glitched or do all families cook for the entire complex?  If my sims cook for more that one, they take their meals outside--even if there's space at the dinner table and on their counters.  It's really annoying.  Doesn't matter who is doing the cooking: butler, nanny, or resident the always take the meals outside even in the snow.  How do I stop this?

[ladymiriam]

I think this did happen to me when I tried my game without the Downloads folder in.  I must have something that fixes it in there.  I think the fix would be at MATY, perhaps in the apt fixes hack.  I have been over there and tried to find it for you  (could find the hacks but not their descriptions) so I am fail today, and this comuter doesn't have my list of MATY hack descriptions.  Sorry I can't be any more help.

[Engram]

This is "normal" game behaviour. If you play with a family living in a house and you make a BBQ area outside with a table, sims will always place one meal inside then head outside and serve the rest of the platter on the other table. Also happens if you have multiple tables in a house. A sim will serve one meal on the closest table then head three storeys up to serve the rest on the third floor or on the table in the rooftop garden. I think that so far the only "fix" for this has been for people to remove any tables other than the main dining table. I could be wrong, though. I've seen threads requesting that this be fixed with a hack but I have never really followed up on it. I just delete the extra tables in my game.

[ancienthighway]

An easy fix is to place a center piece on tables you don't what food to be served on.  If you want something a little more involved for a breakfast nook versus a dining table, Inge has made a little mod for that on www.simlogical.com.

[DaSpecial1]

Thanks for the info.  I'll try the center piece thing if I can. As far as I know you can't make changes to common areas of the apartment complex once tenants move in. If not maybe I can force an error and delete the outdoor tables?  I hope I can. Thanks to all of you for your input.

[Engram]

boolprop aptsublotspecifictoolsdisabled false

That should activate build and buy mode for the common areas and you should be able to delete the extra tables or place centrepieces. Keep in mind that if you have Lord Darcy's centrepiece fixes (as I do), placing Maxis centrepieces won't really be a solution for you. You might need to place other items on the tables, like fake place settings, etc, to stop sims from using the extra tables.

[DaSpecial1]

Would that help you alter the lot further? Specifically I have one complex where folks are freezing but I can't add even a cheap fireplace. It help if they go indoors but the morons never stay in place. 

I'm testing that cheat as we speak. Thanks again.