Lag when using the spacebar to switch between Sims [ Edited ]

[xochiquetzl_xkvn]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Occasionally (10% - 49%)
What is your current game version number? 1.73.48.1030
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? SO MANY OMG. All expansion packs, all game packs except Journey to Batuu, all stuff packs except Laundry Day, Backyard, Luxury Party, Cool Kitchen, and Movie Hangout.. No kits.
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? Er. Play Sims that belong on an episode of Hoarders? :D
What happens when the bug occurs? Press the space bar to toggle between Sims. Nothing happens. Click their icon. Click their icon ten or eleven times, and then the space bar hits you did finally register and hops you off them again.
What do you expect to see? The space bar to toggle between Sims is usually pretty zippy.
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. I think it was last month's patch, tbh, but am uncertain. We've been disgusting hoarders for a while but only became this laggy probably in the last month.

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I"m not sure this goes here, or in another thread, or what, so... sorry if this is the wrong place.

Most of my households work great with the spacebar toggle, but there's always one, isn't there?   

Okay, so during today's patch livestream, they suggested that if you had lag you should clean out your Sims' inventories.  I greeted this news with dismay, as I'm playing an 8 sim household, and:

• The mom is a witch gardener who is level 10 in herbalism and enjoys doing temple runs in Selvadora (so inventory full of plants, potions, potion ingredients, herbalism ingredients, Omiscan artifacts and treasures, camping equipment...) 
• Her YA daughter is a witch scientist who used to be a floral designer and dabbles in robotics (so inventory full of flowers, crystals, metals, elements,potions, potion ingredients, upgrade parts...)
• Mom's husband and daughter's husband aren't that bad, TBH.  There's also a child in the house who isn't bad. Ditto Servo.
• Thank goodness pets don't have inventories..
• OTOH, we're also trying to complete collections. Ulp.  (We've finished 8!) 

No, it was Mom and Daughter that filled me with dismay.  So with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes, I bought a whole lot of ICYA chests and started labeling them things like "crystals," "MySims Trophies," "random seeds," "potions," "potion ingredients," "herbalism ingredients," [name] random clutter," etc., and sorted a lot of junk from personal inventories into crates.  The crates all went into the household inventory.  I had them list all their knitting from when Sims autonomously knitted constantly on Plopsy.  I also filled up the flower arranging table.

And when I say that I filled up the flower arranging table:

Yeah, we have a problem.  Hoarders.  It's possible that maybe Mom doesn't need over a hundred death flowers in her inventory at all times.  (OTOH, we've performed random acts of kindness for strangers with them in the past.)  (ProTip:  The Jungle Adventure Tree of Emotion berries SAVE LIVES!  by curing hysteria. But perhaps we don't need quite so many.)

Anyway, thanks SimGuruPopcorn, because going on a search and pack-into-crates (hoarder) mission for anything that says 99+ and anything they're not actively using makes the space bar toggle work a lot better.  I guess every time I press space it's trying to enumerate what's in their inventories?  Daughter still is...she kind of needs a lot of that stuff for scientist, alas.

I wouldn't say we're lag-free, because we live in a Penthouse and everyone has quirky interests.  I'm unwilling to put away the wall of family portraits and collection plaques, which I call "The Wall of Love and Overachievement," but I did put unused items in the household inventory or flat-out delete some.  And maybe we don't need to display every Omiscan treasure we've found;  maybe one of each is sufficient?

(After a certain amount of money--that certain amount being 9,999,999--there's very little incentive to sell anything, which is part of the problem.)

[Edit, 4/30/21]

I found one culprit. (I also did "manage household" shuffling so I could give each adult child's household $2,000,000 to give myself some incentive to sell things.)

Did you know that if you're a high level gardener, perhaps in the botanist career, and work wants you t splice a plant, that you can splice money onto another plant, perhaps a year-round one, like growfruit? You can then get "harvestable" money fruit that you can give to your adult children when they marry and move out.  That and a death flower are the perfect wedding gifts.  <3

My gardener had over $450,000 of those in her inventory.  When I popped them into the "seed crate" the "seed crate" was notably laggy.  ("Drop" didn't want to work, so I'd wiggle my mouse around over the "put in household inventory" button until it finally released.)  Well, I sold most of the things in the "seed crate" and things are noticeably happier.  Not perfect, but happier.

She also somehow had a painting in her inventory that wouldn't come out or sell unless I turned on multiselect.  Not sure what was up with that.