More Awesome Than You!

Are the wages the roommates make from their jobs supposed to be added to the family's household funds, or does it go in some sort of hidden account?
 ???

It goes into a black hole, I think. Why?

I just started exploring this roommate stuff, as I previously thought they weren't worth the trouble, and noticed when they went to work the money did not get added to the family's account.
Isn't the whole purpose for their existence to help pay rent, bills, etc? So, what is the point of having one besides free babysitting (if they even do that)? Sheesh.

No, they're just another mouth to feed, and they pull your toddlers/infants out of their beds & don't put them back. Flatmates are completely & utterly useless. Much like real life.

They don't lower bills through giving you money, they lower bills by paying half if you keep them happy.(Not really worth lt.)

They are good for bonking, and occasionally make a meal they forget to eat, thereby feeding your sim.

There also seems to be some weirdness with marrying/moving in current roommates. My current Sim's wife used to be his roommate in their old apartment, and when I had them get married, all of her memories got wiped and replaced with the default ones, except her new husband replaced the Mystery Sim in the memories.

This is normal townie behaviour. Roommates are, at heart, glorified townies.

Wow. I thought they would reduce your rent. That's really pointless - worse than pets.

What IS the point of apartments, then, overall? Aside from more realistic game play, that is*. I mean, I like the idea of apartments but they're not expensive enough to make them realistic in-game and there seem to be more problems associated with them than not. (On the other hand, houses aren't realistic either. Theoretically a house should appreciate somewhat in value (not, of course, anything resembling the recent real estate bubble).) But the benefits of houses are that the school bus still shows up and you can place items outside as well as inside, plus you don't have to cope with neighbours coming and going; and, to go meta for a moment, you don't have to worry about the several "cloned" sublots that occupied apartments create in your game files.

Maybe if rent was collected more frequently than once a week... I don't know. I have played several apartments and ended up moving the families into starter-type homes. This roommate thing just adds one more reason not to bother with apartments.

_{*I am not addressing the fact that apartments can be useful for people who use Sims 2 to advance story/plotlines. I can certainly see their usefulness in that case, although, again, I think there were existing mods pre-AL that made "apartments" possible for the purposes of storytelling.}

The roommate pays half the rent.

Well, sure. That's why you get a pet instead. Consider the perks of pets over roommates:
1. Pets ALSO can contribute to your rent. In fact, in most cases, they do so better than roommates, and what's more, the surplus goes towards your accounts.
2. Pets can be trained never to pee on the floor, after which they never will. Good luck training roommates to do the same.
3. Pets will never annoy the other members of your family or block up your furniture.
4. Pets will never break your game. Bad things happen if your sims move out before sacking all their roommates.
5. ???
6. Profit!

David uses the potty like a good boy, and I have high hopes that he will serve some function when Dayuma's alien spawn rips its way out. As for the rest...he makes meals and leaves them sitting out. He doesn't clean. He apparently can't find his own bed and would rather stand around whining about how tired he is at 3AM. He keeps socializing with the landlord, therefore causing her to stick around into the wee hours of the morning.

With the pets cheat (boolprop controlpets on) active, roommates aren't so bad, because at least you can get their asses to bed and make them clean.

What kinds of bad things happen when you move Sims out before sacking roommates? Fiery ball kind of bad? Is my neighborhood doomed?

Zazazu, I've been lucky so far with my roommates, they do go to bed and feed themselves, and tae care of their bladder needs. They never serve meals, just make TV dinners for themselves. So far my worst problem wit them is they stay out in the communal area hot tub all night in the winter, and freeze up, lol.

Zaz, be prepared for obnoxious flatmate to stand around near the cot after your sim puts the exhausted infant to sleep, then wait for your sim to leave for work before removing said infant to pop it on the oh so much more comfortable floor, then stand around whining about how much noise it's making with it's incessantly vocal objection to the rude placement. Oh, and don't think control pets is going to help you. Oh no.
Flatmates are completely incapable of putting said infant back in the cot, even when directed to do so.

Uhm, weird; I always have controlpets on, and I can play my roommates just almost like they were regular playables.

Same. Which means I usually end up making them into another playable eventually. *sigh*

Does the cheat "boolprop petsfreewill true/false" work?

Putting them on Power Idle and locking them out of sensitive areas usually does the trick.

Use Autonomy Control, the One Shiny. You can turn off free will with it.