I use CJ's TownieApartmentResidents and can't seem to ever get the old apartment to be available for another once the townie neighbour has moved in with a playable. I know you're supposed to moveobjects delete the neighbour while at their old apartment lot, but once I do that, their old apartment door seemingly forever stays as "Unique Separator" and never changes to "vacant" to be snapped up by a new townie.

It's been five sim days since I've moveobjects deleted the townie apartment neighbour, where I've saved the lot, exited (to the neighbourhood and to desktop), reloaded the lot, used the BatBox's "Fix... Bad apartment residencies" and played other families multiple times. I've also tried moveobjects deleting the ex-townie at their new lot where they are a playable but the old apartment is still set at "unique separator." Is it supposed to take this long for the game to recognise they don't live there anymore?

So far, the only way I've ever been able to get an apartment once occupied by a townie to "turn over" is by moving a playable into that specific apartment and then moving them out, or moving out all sims and moving them back in, but that causes a different batch of neighbours to move in and it's just tedious to do. Not sure if I'm missing an extra step.

While searching for something else today, I just found out that MidgetheTree recently made a fix for this very problem: Apartment NPC Move Out Fix.

I took out CJ's townieapartmentresidents not long ago and began using Midge's Apartment Residents Mod, which is awesome and I highly recommend. It does the same as CJ's mod, but also allows safe NPCs like the exterminator and garden clubbers to be apartment neighbours. I just tested the move out fix in my game, and as soon as I unpaused the lot, a hobby leader moved into the vacant apartment :D

This issue has been annoying me for years but it's finally fixed. I'm surprised that so few have also encountered this problem, or that everyone else seemingly just lived with it. I'm posting the above links to spread the gospel of MidgetheTree and so that future simmers with this issue can get a fix. Midge's stuff is hard to find and she doesn't seem to be on MTS. It's a crime that some of her mods are not featured all over MTS, honestly.

I used to be annoyed by that issue until installing the no townie neighbors global Mod found here on this site and now my townie neighbors are only playable townies or reident sims just starting out as poor sims.I found that mo NPC townie neighbors Mod is a much more likely fix for your issue if the option you're trying isn't working out best for you.I'd make a duplicate Sims 2 folder and try my choice out in the alternate folder in place of the one you're testing to see which is better.I don't mind the empty units if nobody else gets moved in since it's much more realistic and I can make townies in CAS and move them in as replacements for the NPCs.

Midge is here on MTS, but uses a different name. If you want to contact her, she goes by the username Radium. Here's her profile page: https://www.modthesims.info/m/8232572