Hi there,

I did a search but couldn't find any reliable answers. But my problem is, after using the changelotzoning community cheat to make a residential lot into a community lot, the lot changes to community but the mailbox and trash can remain and there is no phone booth.

The lots I've been changing are the pre-made 1x1 sized lots if that makes any difference, I've yet to try it on the regular maxis templates.

Is there any possible way to "unlock" the phone booth if there's no other way to get it on the lot? If I am able to do that, is it safe to delete the mailbox & can, or will that just mess everything up? I'm not keen to download any CC, since I'm working on a neighbourhood to upload, but want it to be CC free.

You didn't do anything wrong. Long ago, I decided to build my own apartment lot. I started off of community lot. When I finished, I moved a family in, and the lot started off in Buy Mode - the Live Mode was unavailable - and also I've noticed that the community pay phone was still there, instead of the big apartment mailbox. The same thing happens if you try rezoning to community lot from a residental lot.

All you have to do is follow this link. Be sure to download the version of the mod which was built exactly for your game configuration.

When you put it in your Downloads folder, go in the game and load the lot (rezone it to community lot first). Type in "moveObjects on" (without quotes) and grab the residental mailbox and delete it. Now search for the community payphone (it should be in your collections IIRC. Also, the thumbnail may look like the mailbox). Place it on the spot where the mailbox was and exit the lot. (Make sure you save.)

Hope it helped.

(PS I'm not 100 % sure this will work with residental to community switch. But it did work vice versa. Try it and report back the results, I'm curious to see what happened.)

If you're changing a residential lot to a community lot you just delete the mail box and bin and place the community phone. It's in the catalogue already, no need to download a thing. It's only going from community to residential that you need to have the downloaded mail box and bin. Mostly I always start by placing a residential lot as it's just easier in case of play testing or if I want an item only available in res/comm to switch back and forth. I also have it set in my start up cheat file shortcuts for all the lot zone cheats so I only have to type 'comm' or 'res' to change it. Handy when you are building.

Well, I'm not sure in that. Look at it this way: while you can place 3000 pay phones on a single community lot, you can only place one and only mailbox on a residental lot. Thus, the genuine payphone isn't selectable.

I'd say that payphone = mailbox. They're both defining what does the lot act like (community/residental). Even though I haven't tried yet placing multiple mailboxes on a lot, I'm guessing it's a bad thing.

Like they're an unique object in-game, and that the mod above just makes them selectable from build/buy mode. Also, it's not recommended to delete them using in-game delete CC tool, as if we could damage the game files with it, yes?

But hey, let OP decide on what method to use.

joandsarah77 is correct , just delete the mailbox and trashcan (by using moveobjects on) that served the residential lot. The comm. lot phone can be found in electronics and the comm. lot trash bin is also available in the catalog to purchase and place. The comm. lot phone ( and comm. lot trash) have there own thumbnails. You can place them wherever you want ( avoid entry portals and car portal areas), but if you want the phone and trash in the building, behind the building, whatever , that works fine as well. You can also place multiples of each should you have the need or desire to do so.

WHEW! Thanks so much! I wasn't sure if the portal would be messed up and what-not.