Why can’t I use the basement?

[chloemariebowen]

Why can’t my sims go to the basement? I have built an underground home and my sims cannot reach it, despite the fact there are stairs. My sim is able to walk to 1 lower floor but cannot go through the door or to any other floor levels. It won’t even let me see the basement unless I am in build mode. Please help!

ps I have tried deleting and re-adding the stairs and door, tried moving the stairs and door and I have deleted objects that might have been in the way but still no luck.

[PugLove888]

@chloemariebowen, if you can, could you give us a picture of your basement (stairs, door, etc.) at least in Build/Buy Mode?   That might help us figure out what is going on! 

[SheriGR]

I've also noticed that dealing with basements has changed in some aspects since the terrain patch. My first experience with this was when I went in to drop in a room in the basement from my library and it pushed upward and deleted items in the home and on the ground above it (at ground floor level). I am still playing with it and have built several homes since with basements (plus have successfully edited in and worked in homes with basements from before the terrain tools patch), but I always work cautiously now and check above. I also had someone get stuck under the stairs in a basement recently where I had both walls and rails around the stairs and walls around all openings, so it made no sense. There seems to be some type of dance between the wall height and the arrow where you adjust the foundation when dealing with different wall heights, especially if you have used the terrain tools to adjust the land in the build. I am still figuring out the subtitles. 

Having said all of that... @PugLove888 suggested a screenshot. That may help us understand what you are describing. Can you also send a screenshot of the live mode where the sim is not able to access/see the area? Does the sim have a question  mark or body language to indicate they cannot access something or is there just nothing to even try to queue them on?

Can you save the build to a new/unused lot and experiment there? Have you adjusted the terrain at all? Do you see a gap when zooming in in build mode between the floors/stairs/etc.? Did you try a different type of stairs (not a floating type (with the slats/gaps - for some reason I had success on an issue once by doing that. Is the stairwell/hall/room leading to the next stair level down unobstructed/large enough for the sim to move around? Did you add walls &/or rails around the stairs and stair opening? Is the stair opening unobstructed? Just a few initial questions that come to mind to check.