Apartment

An apartment is a lot where Sims can live in The Sims 2: Apartment Life. It is similar to a dormitory and Hotel. The difference is, up to four households can live in the same apartment, unlike dormitory where only one household can live and all of the members are playable at the same time, and unlike hotel, only current family staying at the hotel can be played. A household can live in an apartment by selecting a room's door, and selecting "rent apartment(-§)". The rent is due every Monday.

Like dormitory, player is given limited option for Build Mode. only flooring, wall covering, plants, and columns. Also, some attached Build Mode objects in apartment cannot be moved, such as fireplace, staircase, or window. The only Buy Mode objects that cannot be placed nor removed are the hidden door bookcases and closets.

Sims can complain to their neighbors if they make too much noise, using the "Knock on Wall" interaction or knock on their door and blurt out the complaint.

Sims could also decrease their rent by having a high relationship with the landlord or landlady or by having a Roommate that will help pay the rent. However, a Sim's rent will increase when they make too much noise or neighbors complain about them.

Apartments return as penthouses in The Sims 3: Late Night though penthouses do not have the same social experience of living in a community that apartments do.

Bugs
There are some troubles between The Sims 2: Apartment Life and other expansion packs when living in an apartment:
 * With The Sims 2: Nightlife, after having a dream date or rockin' outing, sometimes other Sims will sneak and put a present in front of the apartment, such as a pinball machine or DJ booth. However, the item cannot be sold or even be moved. It's very annoying, because when the Sim has had many dream dates and many presents in front of the apartment, it will block the way into the apartment. This is fixed with the patch. "Dream Date" reward objects can now be picked up in buy mode on apartment lots.
 * With The Sims 2: FreeTime, when a Gypsy Matchmaker comes to give a magic lamp, she will also put the magic lamp outside the apartment. Once again, it cannot be moved. When other families in the same apartment are played, the items won't be visible and road will be clear. However, when the same family is played again, the items will still block the door.
 * With The Sims 2: Bon Voyage, if a Bigfoot comes home bringing a gift, the gift will get stuck beside the mailbox. This one isn't fixed in the patch.

Building apartments
A user can use pre-designed apartment buildings, or can design their own buildings with the use of the 'changelotzoning apartmentbase' cheat. A user could, in theory, build many types of rental dwellings, from bachelor-sized apartments, to multiple houses sitting on one subdivided lot, to single houses that contain multiple households, to even a single rental home sitting on a lot; the builder need only meet a certain number of requirements.

First, all units (individual apartments, for instance) must be completely separate from one another. There can be no doors that lead directly from one unit to another one. Units must have only one connection to "public space" (any area intended to be outside the units i.e. hallways), and such connection must be the Unique Separator door. The Unique Separator is the door in the build menu that comes with a doormat - the doormat and door are changeable, but the mat must face outside the unit for the apartment to be considered whole. Apartments can span multiple floors, but an apartment on a foundation may not have a connection to the ground (if, for example, the apartment were a house with a fenced-in backyard and a deck).

Once the unit(s) are completed, the 'changelotzoning apartmentbase' cheat is used to convert the building from single-family residence to apartment. If the apartment is not built correctly, a pop-up will appear telling the player this, and will tell them to use the 'changelotzoning residential' cheat to go back and identify the mistake(s). If the apartment is built correctly, the lot will be changed to an apartment, and will appear as an apartment building when seen from the neighborhood. Make sure all architectural and structural changes are made before the conversion to an apartment. Because of the Build Mode restrictions in apartments, making major changes to the structure are impossible after the lot has been rezoned.

There is no maximum number of units in an apartment complex, but the user may only place four (4) families in the building, so any remaining units will be available for townies to move into. Users with less powerful computers should avoid building apartments that are too large, since large buildings with many units and many families will drain system resources.